Socentex Author Auren Kaplan visiting Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

The Social Entrepreneurship Exchange is about actionable ideas.  I’ll be sharing my own thoughts and opinions on the world of social entrepreneurship and I hope you’ll share yours in return.  Socentex serves as a resource for social entrepreneurs actively engaging with the growth and development of their enterprises, whether through awareness, connections, or ideas.

My name is Auren Kaplan, and I am grateful that you have visited this blog.  My sincere hope ever since starting this blog has been to raise awareness about the most exciting and up-and-coming social enterprises and generally contribute to this space.  Since then things have blown incredibly out of proportion to my previous conception of reality, and I could not be more thankful.

In the past I served as Director of Social Media for The Hub LA, a co-working space that re-conceives the 9 to 5 by providing a workspace for social entrepreneurs to come together, inspire one another, collaborate, and change the world with their ideas and their actions.  Recall how this position began with nothing but a blog post! http://socentex.com/2009/12/idea-the-entrepreneurship-hub/

After attending the Boston StartingBloc Institute in February of 2010, I was invited to join the board of StartingBloc Los Angeles, and I gratefully accepted a position on the Outreach Committee.  We successfully brought a StartingBloc Social Innovation Institute to Los Angeles in February, 2011.

Now I’ve returned back home to the suburbs of Detroit Michigan, armed with new-found knowledge and skill in the areas of social entrepreneurship and social media. I currently manage the social media accounts for the Automotive Communities Partnership, a program of the Center for Automotive Research that serves to support communities with a sizeable automotive presence. Through this blog, I am to integrate myself into Detroit’s burgeoning social entrepreneurship movement, as well as further ingratiate myself into the movement at large.

I am a proud graduate of the University of Michigan, a citizen of the United States, and a resident of Detroit.  I have a background in social activism, running the voter-registration organization Voice Your Vote while in college, and a background in economic development through my previous work with the Automotive Communities Partnership at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor prior to my move to Los Angeles.

(photo taken at the Capitol in Austin, TX while on a road trip across America)

Please get in touch with me!  I am on Facebook, LinkedIn, and all over Twitter (@AurenSays, @Socentex).  I’m serious about keeping in touch.  I’d love to connect with you, become inspired by you, have a drink with you, go to the banks of the Detroit River with you, and change the world with you. Email me at aurenekaplan at gmail dot com.

Thank you so much for visiting this blog and in doing your part to co-create an unimaginably exciting new world!  When every human being on Earth is happy, healthy, well-read, and well-fed, I’m going to take a nap.

Yours in joy, possibility, in action.

Auren Kaplan