Episode description

The next guest of the Bucharest edition of The Recursive podcast is a person who anticipates future trends and helps people and organizations see the opportunities in them.

Ciprian Stanescu is the co-founder of Social Innovation Solutions, an organization that assists leaders in creating sustainable tech, entrepreneurial & policy solutions. With a background in political science and economics, Stanescu consults both NGOs and companies on social impact and innovation.

He’s also a professor at The Entrepreneurship Academy in Bucharest and a frequent speaker on Future Trends & Foresight.

In his conversation with Georgi, Ciprian Stanescu shares how he found his own entrepreneurial drive while he took 18-month paternity leave to look after his firstborn child. This experience taught him that risk-taking is something that he both wants and can do.

“Not many entrepreneurs start when they have a kid, they think it’s too complicated, but it gave me a lot of stamina and a lot of courage to release myself”, he says in the episode.

He adds that he wouldn’t compare parenting to running a company, but they do have similarities. “When you create your own company, you are both the parent, and the kid”, he exemplifies.

In the episode, Stanescu reflects on his teaching experience and what he has learned from his students. What he sees in the new generation of entrepreneurs is that they don’t go into business to find success, but to make an impact.

Stanescu shares his views on why technology can’t solve the social problems of the world without having a clear impact model at its core.

“Entrepreneurs often care more about KPIs, while the human sustainability part of the business is critical”, he believes.

A cautious optimist for the future of Eastern Europe, Stanescu thinks that the region hasn’t yet found its clear and strong entrepreneurial identity. But in order to do that, the entrepreneurial community must engage the rest of the population, according to him. “If we are only looking at the UiPaths’ of the world, we have a problem. They are really important as models to follow, but if we don’t find ways to engage more people in our conversations, in the way we work, in the way we dream, it‘s not going to work out”, Stanescu concludes.