<p>In Johannesburg, Unilever's CEO Paul Polman summed up our predicament neatly to a room of 1,250 young leaders from across the globe: "Never before has a generation faced such devastating problems," but crucially in the same breath "never before has the same generation had the tools to fix them."</p><p>Our planet's climate is in flux and the number of climate refugees is expected to reach hundreds of millions within a generation. There are a billion people malnourished and another billion overweight. 57 million children globally still do not have access to schooling. Global youth unemployment is growing by 4 million every year. Basic human rights are still a privilege afforded only to a lucky proportion of our globe. You don't have to be shiniest spoon in the cutlery drawer to acknowledge that there is a lot of work to be done.</p><p>At the One Young World Summit 2013, these same young leaders heard the compelling case for 'social business' to battle these endemic human problems. The world's first social banker Muhammad Yunus told us: "social business needs to be at the heart of development" and the world's leading financier Antony Jenkins of Barclays emphasised the importance of running a company by 'doing the right thing' (incidentally, 'doing the right thing' is a phrase central to my employer, PwC, who are also doing important work to support and build social enterprises in the UK). The launch-pad has been set, the era of social business is soon to reach lift-off and it is my generation who will assume the pilot's seat.</p><p>Despite the optimism that such an opportunity represents, there are some pressing challenges to overcome. How do we shift from an economic system that values purely financial wealth creation to one that values environmental and social wealth creation too? How do we bring everyone along with us when dollars mean everything in tough times? How do we utilise our planet's finite resources responsibly without stifling the innovation required to get us out of the hole?</p><p><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/michael-harris-/philanthropy_b_4077169.html">Keep reading...</a></p>