Andreas Heinecke

Andreas Heinecke is a social entrepreneur and the creator of Dialogue in the Dark. He is nominated as the first Ashoka fellow for Western Europe ^[1] by Ashoka: Innovators for the Public. He is recognized as a Global Fellow by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship.^[2] He is the founder of Dialogue Social Enterprise and holds as a professor and Chair of Social Business at the EBS University, Wiesbaden (Germany).^[3]

Early Life & Background

Andreas was born in Baden-Baden (Germany) on December 24.12.1955. He studied History and Literature in Heidelberg (1977 -1982) and acquired a PhD in Philosophy from the Goethe University Frankfurt (1989).

Andreas’ family background explains his life path and the decision to become a social entrepreneur. Members of his mother’s family were victims of the Holocaust while his father’s side were supporters of the Nazi-regime in a passive and an active way. As a child, he grew up with the very palable tension, misunderstanding, and even fear that existed across these human borders. It was not until he was 13 years old that he learned that his Jewish relatives were murdered and that his mother had lost much of her family in WWII.

This realization, that he had both Jewish and Nazi-German ancestry, made him start to search for answers such as: How it was possible to kill 6 million people in war time in an industrial way? What is the process of marginalization, exclusion and extermination? On what ground do we judge people and feel inferior or superior? He wanted to understand how human beings can combine satanic and normal traits and they can live in such deep denial. The impact of this research confirmed to him the importance of his quest for tolerance, open dialogue and exchange.

Career

Andreas started his career as a journalist and documentarist at the Südwestfunk (South West Radio Station) in the 1980s. He was assigned to organize a formation for a 28 years old journalist, who had lost his eyesight in a car accident. At first, he did not know what kind of work he could assign him and was confronted with awkward feelings, because he never had met a blind person before. Andreas started to realize that this pity was misplaced. Being blind is another form of life and contains lots of capabilities. The blind journalist showed him how to cope with fundamental changes in life and unleashed a complete new dimension to perceive our day-to-day world without vision. He had great influence on Andreas and forced him to question what makes a truly valuable life. Andreas got an insight into what a world without sight would be.

After the work training was successfully finished, Andreas switched jobs and began working with the Stiftung Blindenanstalt Frankfurt (Foundation for the Blind). This gave him a platform to train other blind people to work within radio stations. He understood that blind people are excluded from lots of information and started several initiatives to close this gap. The first electronic newspaper in Germany and digital reference books or databases with job announcement were realized under his leadership. In his work, he started to realize that the most significant problem was not in serving „them“, but in fact in breaking down the barriers between those who were blind and those who were not. Ensuring that a blind person had a full life meant finding a way to make sighted not fear and shun them. The idea for Dialogue in the Dark and new subsequent programs blossomed, and he left the Foundation in 1995 to be able to work more entrepreneurial.

He has since devoted himself to finding new ways to bridge the gaps across human divides through direct human experience. Together with his wife, Orna Cohen, Dialogue in Silence and Dialogue with Time were created and spread out internationally. Andreas is a serial social entrepreneur and founded several social enterprises as Consens GmbH (1999), DialogMuseum GmbH (2004), Schattensprache GmbH (2006) or Dialogue Social Enterprise (2009)

Social Entrepreneurship

Andreas Heinecke started his path as social entrepreneur in 1985. While working for a radio station, he was charged with developing a rehabilitation program for a blind colleague. Inspired by this encounter and realizing the potential he created a dialogue with a reversal of roles - the concept of Dialogue in the Dark, which was launched in Frankfurt in 1988.

Since then, numerous Dialogue in the Dark exhibitions and business workshops have evolved worldwide and are established independently through a social franchise-system. More than 7 million visitors and participants have been taking part in this unique experience, thereby promoting empathy and tolerance towards “otherness” in the greater public understanding. In 1997 Dialogue in Silence was created as complimentary experience in total silence where participants discover a repertoire of non-verbal expression with the help of hearing impaired guides and trainers.

In 2005, he became the first "Ashoka-Fellow" in Western Europe and the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship appointed him as “Outstanding Global Social Entrepreneur”.

In 2009, Heinecke founded the Dialogue Social Enterprise GmbH to establish an umbrella for all current and future projects, the latest one being Dialogue with Time. Created together with his wife Orna Cohen and opened its doors in Israel in August 2012. The exhibition guides are seniors from 70 years up and visitors experience aging and can enter to a dialogue of generations.

Since 2011, Andreas took a Professorship at the Danone Chair for Social Business at the European Business School in Wiesbaden, Germany.

Dialogue in the Dark

Dialogue in the DarkHamburg

Dialogue in the Dark in an experience where visitors are led in group by blind guides through specially constructed dark rooms in which scent, sounds, wind, temperature and textures convey the characteristics of daily environments like that of a park, a city, a boat cruise or a bar. This creates a reversal of roles where the blind guides are in the security and sense of their environment and the visitors are taken out of their comfort zone to experience the darkness.^[4]

Dialogue in the Dark has been visited by over 7 million visitors in over 30 countries including Europe, Africa, the Middle-East, Asia and the America since its opening in 1988. Dialogue in the Dark also organizes workshops for human resource development and organizational learning in corporate executives. ^[5]

Dialogue in Silence

Dialogue in Silence is an exhibition held in a sound proof environment where visitors are made to communicate through signs. Various installations at the exhibition promote non-verbal communication like facial expression, gestures and body language. The objective of the exhibition is similar to that of Dialogue in the Dark in the sense that it promotes exclusion of familiarity of environment and promotes effective communication.^[6] Another aim of Dialogue in the Dark is to address disability by one, creating jobs for the deaf and second by creating empathy towards non-hearing people by recreating “disability” as an experience for the able people.^[7]

Dialogue with Time

Dialogue with Time tries to bring a perceptive change about old people. The objective is that the younger generation starts to think differently about senior citizens.^[8] The first Dialogue with time was presented in 2012 at Israeli Children’s museum, Holon.^[9] The exhibition is conducted with help of guides over 70 years of age who act as role models & mediators as they are experts in all facets of ageing.^[10]

Dialogue Social Enterprise

Dialogue Social Enterprise is a company with limited liability (GmbH) and was established in 2009 by Andreas and his long-term partners Orna Cohen, Laura Gorni, Klara Kletzka and Thomas Rochter. It is an international firm with people from 6 countries to disseminate the various Dialogue exhibitions and workshops through consultation. DSE is the licensor of the Dialogue trade marks and the center organization of the international network of partners.^[11]

Social Entrepreneurship Education

Andreas took a Professorship at the Danone Chair of Social Business at the European Business School in Wiesbaden, Germany, since 2011. He is actively working towards integrating “Dialogue in the Dark” in B-School education for imparting social literacy. As described in a concept paper by Andreas “It is obvious that our objective is to not only rethink business education: it is also to redesign business behaviour. It is also to change the understanding towards people who are marginalized by society, specifically those with disabilities. Dialogue Social Enterprise focuses on the potential rather than deficit, ability rather than disability and is a real-time example of an inclusive world. It is our endeavour to leverage this model to help other key stakeholders in society to bring inclusivity in their thinking, and bring about a transformation of business behaviour.”

Awards

• In 1998, Stevie Wonder Vision Award in New York^[12]
• In 2004, Best Practice in Universal Design in Tokyo^[13]
• In 2005, First Ashoka Fellow in Western Europe^[14]
• In 2006, Deutscher Unternehmerpreis (Category Sustainable Entrepreneurship)^[15]
• In 2007, Outstanding Global Social Entrepreneur by the Schwab Foundation, Geneva^[16]
• In 2008, Member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Social Entrepreneurship^[17]
• In 2009, Global Award Winner for the best Innovative and out-of-comfort-zone event by the YPO^[18]
• In 2009, Dragon Award for the category “Business with Conscience”, Dalian^[19]
• In 2011, Deutscher Gründerpreis in Berlin^[20]

Selected publications

• Heinecke, A. & Mayer, J. (2012), Strategies for Scaling in Social Entrepreneurship, in: Social Entrepreneurship and Social Business, Volkmann C., Tokarski K.O., Ernst, K. (Editors), 191-209^[21]
• Heinecke, A., (2012), Why Can You Not Do Good and Earn Well? Social Entrepreneurs Caught in a Moral Conflict, in Corporate Governance in the New Normal, SID Conference Paper^[22]
• Co-author and lead by Andreas Heinecke (2012): Governance of Social Enterprises A guidebook to corporate governance of social enterprises http://www.schwabfound.org/sf/Publications/Publications/index.htm^[23]
• Co-author and lead by Andreas Heinecke (2011): The Social Investment Manual A Guide for Social Entrepreneurs http://www.schwabfound.org/sf/Publications/Publications/index.htm^[24]
• Heinecke, Andreas (2009): Dialog im Dunkeln – Ausstellungen als soziale Unternehmen. In: Rousseau, Manuela und Reifurth, Katharina: Fundraising- Management, Methoden und Instrumente. KMM Hamburg. Institut für Kultur- und Medienmanagement p. 252-262^[25]
• Heinecke, Andreas (2009): Dialogue in the Dark. In: Earl Steele, Philip; Obem, Anna; Starzyńska, Dorota (Ed./Ashoka Publication): Creating Change. Innovations in the World of Disability. Warschau, Friends of Integration Association, pp. 46–51,http://www.scribd.com/doc/25125890/Creating-Change-Innovations-in-the-World-of-Disability ^[26]
• Heinecke, Andreas (2008): Jenseits der Dinge. Zur Gegenständlichkeit des Immateriellen. In: Deutsche Arbeitsschutzausstellung; Bundesanstalt für Arbeitsschutz und Arbeitsmedizin (Ed.): Szenografie in Ausstellungen und Museen. Essen: Klartext, pp. 18–27^[27]
• Heinecke, Andreas (2007): Public-Private-Partnership, öffentlicher Dienst und soziales Unternehmertum. Chancen und Risiken. In: Achleitner, Ann-Kristin (Ed.): Finanzierung von Sozialunternehmern. Konzepte zur finanziellen Unterstützung von Social Entrepreneurs. Stuttgart: Schäffer-Poeschel (Handelsblatt-Bücher), pp. 160–167^[28]
• Heinecke, Andreas (1990): Das Ostjudentum im Werk von José Orabuena. Frankfurt am Main: Lang (Europäische Hochschulschriften Reihe 1, 1182)^[29]

References