SOCIAL entrepreneurship is a relatively new phenomenon in the Middle East. Having blossomed only late 90's, Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region is still an underrepresented region in the growing literature on social entrepreneurship. With very less known about social entrepreneurship, Alfaisal MBA students have started the Haraka project, in which Haraka means movement in Arabic. It is a social entrepreneurship project that aims to raise health awareness and get people active and healthy. Their objective of the Haraka project is to improve productivity and performance of people through improving individual's behavior; thus, it will reduce the risk of illness. By using smart technology, Alfasial MBA students are hoping to activate healthy physical activity for a wide spectrum of the population. Since Haraka project is concerned with behavioral changes regarding performance and health, they are hoping to “do good as well as make money.” However, as many social entrepreneurship startups, Haraka project faced many difficulties. Starting a social entrepreneurship project in Saudi Arabia is quite challenging, however, some of the difficulties are common also with their counterparts globally. These challenges can be broadly clustered in four groups: policy challenges, support of institutional, operational and financial, and cultural awareness. With Haraka project, the two of main challenges were funding and promoting awareness. Doubtlessly, fixing social problems is the main purpose of social enterprises, which involve ventures that are nonprofit and for-profit, in which their returns mix both the social benefit and the financial revenues. There is one fundamental question though that every enterprise regardless of its type faces: can they generate enough revenue and attract enough investment to cover the costs and grow their activities? For Harakah project, the hurdle of securing financing holds true. In order to pursue the mission of Haraka project, having an enough amount of money is needed to apply smart technology to practical problems in the society and supply practical solutions that have economic benefit to the organizations and the society as a whole. The issue with the not-for-profit organizations is that they generally lack the systems that are set up to support enterprises. On the other hand, promoting awareness is the other obstacle to social entrepreneurship. The concepts of social entrepreneurship and social enterprise are still unfamiliar to most of the Saudi society's segments including interested individuals, academics, and non-profit organizations. The fact that the concepts of social entrepreneurship and social enterprises are often conflated or misunderstood attributes to the lack of interest in and awareness of the social entrepreneurship and social enterprise sector among voluntary organizations, non-profit organizations and the media. Social enterprise and social entrepreneurship, which is a way for philanthropy, must be community-driven, supported by the private sector and the government. We recommend Saudi to build an environment that is pro social enterprise by providing more funding options for social enterprises, and involve the business community by getting the government, nonprofit and philanthropic organizations, and the private and investing sectors engaged to further enhance their knowledge and capacity to work with social enterprises and social entrepreneurs. Dramatic changes are occurring in the field of social enterprise, and it largely depends on the ability of Saudi social enterprise leaders to flash forward in thought and take action to exploit the abundant opportunities and potential for social change.
