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An ant on its feet can do more than an ox that is lying down.

The Mondragon Corporation is the leading business group in the Basque region of Spain and is one of the top 10 Spanish companies in terms of turnover – their website lists offices and installations around the world. It is a federation of smaller worker co-operatives and grew from humble and fairly unlikely origins.

A writer taking more licence than me would say that the founder was an ant! In fact it was a young priest who set up a technical college in the small town of Mondragon. His compassionate initiative opened up the college to all, and sowed the seeds that have grown into a mighty tree.

The socio-economic climate in which the college was founded was the bleak post civil war Spain of the early 1940’s where poverty, hunger and unemployment affected much of the population. By developing ways to promote a spirit of coexistence and employment based on solidarity, the foundations were laid for local co-operatives to begin.

From its very early years four concepts continue to underpin the Mondragon Corporation philosophy:

You don’t need to search further than Google and Wikipedia to see where they are now and how far they’ve come in 55 years, and to be impressed, possibly even inspired. It is encouraging to see that even after massive growth and global expansion they’ve stayed true to their owner-worker principles and strict democratic culture. They’ve certainly created a huge anthill.

On another continent and in a very different age, another ‘genesis’ is under way. Since 2002 an initiative titled Vision 2030 has been encouraging and enabling Kenya’s creative young business people to develop and market their ideas. There is a donor funded technological centre, the iHub, in Nairobi where a large concentration of innovative young people work on all types of web applications related to local business life, such as combating rush hour traffic or finding out what a cow costs.

This explosion of enterprise has occurred after government has released its monopoly and allowed the private sector to ‘get busy’. People talk about the ‘silicon savannah’ in Kenya where the combination of education, talent, innovation and improving infrastructure will allow enthusiastic young Kenyans the opportunity to create entrepreneurial success which will blossom into more businesses and further promote the value of education.

It’s an understatement to say that both of the above innovations started out in difficult economic circumstances. In the case of Mondragon it was one person’s response to a terrible situation and his wish to try to improve it that led to positive action. Over in Kenya, like much of Africa, there’s a generation of young people who are informed enough to know that other parts of the world could leave them behind. In their refusal to accept this, they’re courageously climbing over the obstacles that have held their country back for many years and creating new horizons.

Our Ant fund and other programs aim to help people build and control their prosperity in spite of the difficulties, challenges and pessimism of our post credit-crunch era. Better to be galvanised by the situation than to be impeded by it.

The ox may lie down but the ants are on the march!