1. Pedro brought a new concept of ‘social intrapreneurship’,
starting a social enterprise within his capacity as an
employee of an organisation. A global citizen, he has lived
and worked in USA, Mexico, Germany, India and now, in
Singapore. From a side project to becoming a movement,
he helps the creative community to give back while
empowering others.
pedro Adrian Aguirre
Co-founder of Make The Change
Pedro, you are truly a global citizen,
having lived and worked in USA, Mexico,
Germany, India and now, here in
Singapore. Could you describe your path to
what you’re doing now?
I always liked to travel and discover new
places, and I try to take all the opportunities
I have to explore the world. It all started
with being a tourist, but I wanted more.
So I decided to move and live in different
countries and through the experiences, it
gave me a bigger perspective of things. I
was interacting with the locals and adopting
their cultures, and this made me realise how
things are different to each culture. There
are always opportunities to connect cultures
and build something new.
All of these experiences had brought me
to where I am today. I consider myself a
changemaker; I am trying to make this
world a better place through the many
things I’ve seen in my trips and experiences
gained abroad. Make The Change project
started because of an existing problem and
we try to find a solution to that problem.
Being a global citizen helped me understand
people and cultures better and that is a skill
which can only be developed through living
abroad.
How did starting a social enterprise in
Singapore came about?
I have been involved in the social enterprise
scene for many years and I know of the
struggles relating to developing creative
marketing materials specifically amongst
social enterprises and NGOs, due to
financial resource constraints.
Make The Change started 2 years ago,
whilst I was working for M.A.D. School.
The school has courses in marketing,
advertising and design. I saw the students’
pieces of works and was very impressed but
I soon realised that their works will never be
pragmatically implemented and used in the
market.
INTERVIEW

2. We are continuously learning many things
just like any startup, and grows from every
experiences. We initially envisioned Make
The Change as a side project to support
youths in building their portfolios through
providing real impacts for good, but now it
has become a movement helping the creative
community to give back and empowering
others.
<<
I then discussed with my boss about the
idea of connecting our students with social
enterprises so that their works can be more
than mere class work and be implemented
in real life. That is how Make The Change
started; we are trying to solve creative
problems of social entrepreneurs.
You brought the new concept of ‘social
intrapreneurship’, starting a social
enterprise within your capacity as an
employee of an organisation. Many of us
share a similar dream of contributing back,
yet still hold a strong position within our
careers. What were your thoughts at the
initial stage of Make The Change? Did you
envision its growth to what it is today?
Well when we started Make The Change,
we wanted to create opportunities for the
students from M.A.D. School as I saw
that they could make real impacts to social
enterprises with their creative skills. When
we started offering our services to social
enterprises, we received many positive
responses, leading to the decision of creating
Make The Change a social enterprise by
itself.
At the start we were only offering creative
services, but with the right connections
and many open doors, we started offering
creative workshops for marginalised
groups like youths at risk and people with
disabilities as well as students in secondary
schools.
I never saw getting the involvement from
corporates and getting their employees to
interact with our beneficiaries as one of
the main objectives but it is now one of
the main drivers of Make The Change. We
are continuously learning many things just
like any start up, and grows from every
experiences. We initially envisioned Make
The Change as a side project to support
youths in building their portfolios through
providing real impacts for good, but now it
has become a movement helping the creative
community to give back and empowering
others.
What personal experiences shaped
your career and inspired you to become
involved with social innovation and
entrepreneurship?
I was a very active AIESEC member and
now an AIESEC alumni. AIESEC members
are always trying to make this world a better
place which inspires me to become a social
innovator and entrepreneur. I had the
privilege to attend conferences in South
America, Africa and Europe. Besides
learning and being inspired by other
members, I also saw how ideas can produce
positive differences in the society and
decided to use my ideas to make the world a
better place.
Why do you think getting more people
into social enterprise will have a positive
impact on wider society?
I think it is always great to have more
people educated and being involved in
social entrepreneurship and having more
businesses which tries to make an impact in
the society, but I think that every company
should be a social enterprise. The social
enterprise scene is becoming ‘in fashion’ now
and many people are using it and creating
lots of awareness. In reality I think every
company should be a social enterprise;
giving back to society and not solely focus
on the profits.
What do you think are the barriers
to making a difference as a social
entrepreneur at the moment?
I think one of the main barriers is the lack
of financial resources, which constraints the
development of great ideas and projects. At
the end of the day we are also a start up and
faces the same challenges that any start up
faces. The added challenge is trying to make
our programmes relevant and at the same
time to give back to the society.
How does Make The Change go about
measuring its own impact?
Measuring impact is always hard since we
do not have the tools and research to see
how impactful our programmes are. How
we measure Make The Change’s impact
is mainly through talking to our clients
and collecting their testimonies. We had
helped organisations developed marketing
campaigns for their fundraising events and
when they achieved their goals, it proves the
success of our services. Another example of
measurement is our beneficiaries learning a
new skill, translating to finding a job which
can improve their quality of life.
It’s great that Make The Change has been
growing over the last two years and casting
BUSINESS

3. <<
a wider pool of the positive impacts it
has on its students, clients, corporates
as well as projecting a better view and
understanding of social enterprises in
Singapore in general. Do you see the
growth of Make The Change beyond
Singapore? What are the projected key
goals of Make The Change for the next five
years?
Yes I see Make The Change doing impact
beyond Singapore; currently, we are
working with a few clients that are based
in Cambodia. We know that in Cambodia
there are many social enterprises which
require creative help so hopefully we can
work closer with them in the near future.
For the next 5 years the main goal of Make
The Change is to become sustainable,
continue to grow and keep doing more
impact and empowering communities to
help make this world a better place.
As an avid traveller myself, any
recommendations for the ‘must go-to’ city
or place? And what is your next destination
on the list?
I like travelling using the road less travel,
so I prefer to visit places that are not so
common and to interact with the locals. I
think a must see place that I visited recently
is Laos, it is a very nice country with many
things to do and see.
The next three places that are in my wish
list to visit are: Bhutan, North Korea and
Israel. These three places are very interesting
and intriguing with lots of history and
things to explore so hopefully I can visit
them next year.
For the next 5 years the main goal of Make
The Change is to become sustainable,
continue to grow and keep doing more
impact and empowering communities to help
make this world a better place.
One exciting aspect of 3-D printing’s potential impact is on medicine;
from prosthetics, to the bioprinting of cells, to lifelike models of
organs, and to the possibility of implantable tissue. The proliferation of
3-D printers has had an unexpected benefit: creating cheap prosthetics.
3D printing is revolutionising prosthesis manufacturing, enabling fast,
accessible and low cost production. But we should expect big things, as
this is just the beginning.
W|M
BUSINESS
3D PRINTING & PROSTHETICS