Moderated by Professor Marya Besharov, Academic Director of the Skoll Centre, the speakers will discuss how businesses can be changed from within to prioritise purpose. Drawing on experience using the DEAL approach alongside other frameworks, the speakers will discuss tools and strategies for redefining the mission, culture, and operations of businesses. The session will draw on both research and practice, offering actionable insights for creating sustainable, purpose-driven change. Join us to learn how to reshape your business for long-term impact.

What explains the rise of sustained inequality, and what role does technology play in it? We address this question by examining a large-scale natural experiment: the construction of the world’s largest geographically contiguous irrigation infrastructure in British-era Punjab. Between 1880 and 1940, the British colonial administration established an extensive network of perennial canals across the Punjab plains, transforming vast tracts of previously agriculturally insecure or barren land into fertile, irrigated farmland.