Social Entrepreneurship and Economic Development in Silicon Valley

Social entrepreneurs are playing a pivotal role in promoting intersector initiatives to address economic and social challenges in regions and local communities. This generates social capital to support an initiative-oriented collaboration framework among participants and across sectors. Such intersectoral initiatives are of paramount importance for the capacity of a region/community to set up innovative solutions to socioeconomic problems from the bottom-up, going beyond the limits of markets and government institutions. This is increasingly happening not only in depressed but also in developed regions and communities, such as Silicon Valley. This article reports on the Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network, a nonprofit organization launched in 1992 to promote a series of intersectoral initiatives at the edge of the economy, society, and environment in Silicon Valley.