Empowering Social Entrepreneurs in Sweden: How AI Tides Transforms Impact Initiatives

Carl Norling Markai, an impact initiative developer at AI Sweden, and Zanyar Adami, CEO of Fanzingo, know better than anyone the impact that artificial intelligence (AI) can have on entrepreneurs.

As an alum of AI Tides, a train-the-trainer program, Carl has trained Zanyar and more than 50 other social entrepreneurs in the effective use of AI in impact organizations since the program in April 2024.

After completing the program alongside 30 other Trainers from leading Social Economy Organizations, representing social entrepreneurs across 12 European countries, Carl and Zaynar sat down with INCO to discuss AI Tides, innovative uses of AI, and the benefits of incorporating AI into daily work. Discover more about the AI Tides program and the intersection of AI and social entrepreneurship.

INCO: Why did you apply to join the AI Tides and Minnalearn training?

Carl: We joined because we see the enormous potential in AI, and we want to boost social entrepreneurs as part of our core mission to accelerate the use of applied AI in Sweden. Enrolling in this program was a no-brainer, and it's been super valuable to have the tools, mindset, and experience of Minnalearn as guidance.

Zanyar: We joined to find out how AI could help us enhance our organization’s social impact. Joining this program seemed like the perfect fit for where we were at the time: we wanted to explore how to use AI more, and that's what we've been doing.

Wonderful. How did you previously use AI within your organization or your work?

Carl: Having AI Sweden in the name, of course, we focus a lot on AI, but that doesn't mean we know everything. We still experience the same news feed and participate in the latest developments at the same pace as everyone else. So it's mostly a learning experience to figure out whether and how we could use a new tool. Looking back on the last year, there’s been enormous progress in many fields, especially generative AI, so we are always improving and finding new ways to work with AI.

Zanyar: We work with young people, and we realize that AI is already more integrated into their mindsets. In our organization, AI was very sporadically used and more basic. Some of us were not using it at all, and some were using it daily. After this workshop, we have all started using it more.

Definitely. After this experience, do you have any tips for social entrepreneurs who are looking to experiment with AI?

Carl: I do think that exploring and experimenting are keywords when it comes to AI, especially for social entrepreneurs. When we look at the tools that are available now, they are very much so-called general-purpose tools or technologies, and that makes it up to the user to define what they should do with them. I know that social entrepreneurs do have a lot of knowledge and a lot of experience working with important issues, and I think that putting an AI mindset into that could make an impact. What that solution is might not be up to me to decide, but I think that social entrepreneurs have a great opportunity to explore the use cases and what generates value for their target group. It's been so great seeing all the entrepreneurs that we trained during these last couple of months and the “aha” moments and experiments that they have ended up with.

Zanyar: As a social entrepreneur, in my organization, we are more social than entrepreneurs. We focus more on the social impact than the economic benefits, and therefore we all struggle with resources, time and money. AI is like this boost or this enhancement that for us as social entrepreneurs, I think we need even more to become more effective and focus more on what we would be best at than all these tasks that an AI could do for us. Because of that, I think every social entrepreneur should look into AI and see it as a tool or a companion to create more impact in society.

Lovely, and for sure, you're contributing to that with this training. What has been your biggest challenge, fear or obstacle about using AI during the program or in general?

Carl: So I view this from two perspectives. I would say, as a trainer in this program, one of the biggest challenges is to find the right balance in what to focus on, what level of technical focus, what level of societal focus, and how much knowledge the participants have about using different tools because that could vary between organizations and between the participants. But then I would say another general challenge is really to understand, first, what can we do with the tools, and what are we allowed to do? I noticed that a lot of organizations struggle with both the legal and ethical aspects, and I think that that might hinder a lot of organizations and people from doing anything because there are still a lot of things that you can do that are not very problematic at all, but having this mindset might hinder them from exploring possible use cases.

Zanyar: While concerns about the trustworthiness of AI and ethical issues do exist, the training itself, along with the practical use of AI, has demonstrated significant benefits that make these concerns feel less prominent. From our perspective, the challenge is to try to understand it, because it feels like a new way of thinking and doing things that affect everything. To get that into your system is kind of a challenge. We've been feeling like we're one step behind. We want to be in the forefront because we work with young people.

It’s great to hear this growth mindset. Are there any funny moments during your AI experimentation, your first test, or your AI journey that you would like to share?

Zanyar: During the workshop, we conducted an experiment called "Easy Money." It involved using AI to assist with a funding application for a Swedish film institution. The idea was to test whether securing funding could be "easy money" with AI's help. And guess what? It worked—we got the funding! This is a great example of how Artificial Intelligence enabled us to streamline the application process. Thanks to this, we can now run film workshops for many kids in underprivileged areas, which is something we're truly excited about.

Carl: I think that we need more entrepreneurs such as Zanyar and his team leading the way. For me, that has been the most fun experience, seeing all of these organizations and how they interact, learn from each other, really discuss these important issues, but also really help each other with both pushing what is possible to do and challenging themselves and their organizations on these matters. That has created a lot of benefits, and I'm really glad to hear that it could generate economic value for you.

Definitely, great to hear. What inspires you about AI right now? What are you excited to test next?

Zanyar: I'm inspired right now because AI Sweden has this AI hackathon, and yesterday we had a workshop, and we've been talking a lot about ideas we have that have been created by understanding what Artificial Intelligence can do on a more advanced level. So I'm inspired to try these ideas and hopefully, in a hackathon, produce these ideas. We think that this could help a lot of social entrepreneurs and not just us.

Carl: I agree. I think that we still need to create both the programs and the meeting places and provide learning on these tools to get the most out of them. When talking about AI and what we're seeing in the future, it feels like we always need to mark where we are now. Recording this in mid-December, we just learned about the release of Sora in the States and some other markets. The Google team has made some progress working with quantum computing chips. In the long term, what could that mean, with that sort of computational power? As well as the short term, how can these generative AI tools make an impact on social entrepreneurs across the world? I think that it will be an interesting couple of years.

How did the training help you learn AI skills and did it boost your confidence to experiment more with AI?

Zanyar: I could say my AI journey started with this workshop, and I feel like I learned what I needed to know, theoretically. Also, it was practical, I could use it because experimenting with it is very useful, and something we continue to do in my organization. Now, in every project after this that we are designing, AI is a part of it. It wasn't before. Now it is like, how can AI help us with this project or this social issue we're tackling?

Can you elaborate on what your experiment was about, and the results that you have seen so far?

Zanyar: The experiment was that we applied for funding. This is a big, time-consuming task we have, to find funding for all these projects. We made an experiment where we took in all the parameters, our ideas, and the information from the websites, just put it in and then generated an application and a logo for this project. It was successful. As I mentioned before, we called it Easy Money, and it’s always hard with money, but this was a little easier. We did get that funding, and so that was a huge success for us.

That's great to hear. How has using AI impacted your work? Has it influenced your missions and your goals?

Zanyar: I would say it has impacted not our mission or our goals because they are still the same, but more on how to reach our goals and how to fulfil our mission. It's more like this assistant or almost another colleague that is helping us to be more effective. In that way, it has impacted everything we do, so hopefully we can have even more social impact with the help of AI.

Okay, so now, Carl, it's your turn. How did being part of this Europe-wide program help you connect with other organizations in the social economy, and what did you learn or gain from these collaborations?

Carl: First of all, it's always really interesting to learn how other actors in different parts of the world work. Having perspectives from Italy, France and New Zealand has broadened the way we think about these issues, and our understanding of the social entrepreneur sector and the social economy. I would say that's been hugely exciting, to say the least, but also important to get to know these people digitally.

We're glad to hear that. What stood out about the program's approach to artificial intelligence experimentation for your organization? Can you share an example of an AI product you worked on and how it affected your work?

Carl: When talking about AI and learning about AI, it’s valuable to understand that often, you realize the value when you experience it. That's been the core part of this training: that you experience the use and the value of using these AI tools. We have had several projects during the training, but also afterwards, and it influenced us in thinking a lot about implementing AI in terms of experimenting, and as we did in the training, to create hypotheses and to try to formulate some sort of method to test it. And also, how do we measure success? This small, incremental experiment has been influential in moving us further on our AI journey.

That's truly inspiring. How has AI Tides helped your organization support social entrepreneurs and increase your impact within the community?

Carl: Having this setup with the Minnalearn, and being able to receive funding to both reach out to and put time into educating social entrepreneurs has made it possible for us to move these social entrepreneurs, and social entrepreneurship in general, in Sweden further when it comes to applying AI, and I don't think that would have been possible if we haven't had these resources from Social Tides.

Great. That's awesome to hear. Thank you very much for sharing, both of you.