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62 SMT Magazine • October 2016 by Frederick Blancas INTEGRATED MICRO-ELECTRONICS INC. As we hunker down to begin work on the 15-year roadmap for the 17 Sustainable Devel- opment Goals (SDGs) adopted by United Na- tions (UN) member-countries in 2015, we wel- come the fresh emphasis across the UN on col- laborating with responsible businesses in deliv- ering sustainable development. There's much to look forward to in terms of various sectors— governments, private enterprise, and civil so- ciety—working together toward solutions that would harness the full potential of what all the stakeholders, particularly corporations, can contribute to the development action plan. The SDGs build upon the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that expired at the end of 2015. The SDGs' broader sustainability agenda picks up from where the MDGs left off and reaches out much further to deal with the root causes of poverty and hunger, and the uni- versal need for development that will benefit all people. Realizing this ambitious agenda will require support from all sectors. And now is as good a time as any for collaborative efforts, with busi- nesses finding themselves uniquely positioned in a burgeoning sharing and solution econo- my that deploys new technologies and inno- vative business models to solve old challenges. Moreover, in the last decade, sustainability has moved up the priority agenda of business lead- ers tasked to shape their companies' goals, and has preoccupied a growing number of social en- trepreneurs. Increasingly, business leaders have become a sort of social entrepreneur themselves, aligning aspects of the business with socially meaning- ful activities that are fulfilled through economic efficiency and entrepreneurial innovation. To- day, both businesses and social enterprises are doubling down on fulfilling a social purpose in their activities. Authors John Elkington and Pamela Har- tigan (The Power of Unreasonable People, 2008) 4 cite how social entrepreneurs have collaborat- ed with government agencies, nongovernment organizations (NGOs), private foundations, or even big private corporations for resources and markets to carry out their social mission. Some, they add, have even ventured into startups in a continuous drive to innovate, refusing to accept resource limitations. FEATURE