The 5th Social Business Design Lab

The 5th Social Business Design Lab took place at Yunus Centre on 15 June 2013. The participants from different organizations including Ms Pauline Tamesis, Country Director of UNDP, Professor Christian Girardfrom from Asian University for Women, Ms. Naaz Farhana Ahmed, President and Founder of DWCCI, Shahnila Azher from DFID  and some other national and international NGO representatives, business leaders and representatives from the trans-gender community attended in the program.

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Five social business plans were presented in the program. They are Akhoni.com Social Business Project which would like to be a platform for buying and selling social business products presented by Mr.  Shameem Ahsan, CEO, Akhoni.com, Homestead Rubber Cultivation SB Project presented by Major Md. Murad Ali Khan, Ex-director of BFIDC, Social Business Tech which is an IT company that would aim to help disabled persons gain training and employment presented by Mr. Tamim Daiyan from Grameen Solutions, Grameen Shikkha English Learning Centre presented by Mr. Kazi Nazrul Huq from Grameen Shikkha and Coming out of Smuggling Practices through social businesses presented by Mr. Fakir Shawkot, Chief Editor, the Daily Probhat Ferry, Jessore. After the presentations, there was a question and answer session. Five business plans were intensively discussed in five groups announced. Each group came up with necessary recommendations. Each project gave its time-line for implementation. Finally the participants selected one Project Bondhu ("Project Buddy") for each project to act as a mentor in finalizing the plan.

There were also presentations of  social business projects  from past design labs that are about to be launched or have already launched  including Softy Project presented by Muhammad Hasan from Babylon Group and SDRS Social Business Project presented  by Md Golam Mostofa, Executive Director, SDRS.

Professor Muhammad Yunus thanked the participants for coming up with innovative social business plans and encouraged the designers to implement the projects and for the other participants to support the projects in whichever way possible, either through to transform them into reality. The participants showed strong determination to translate the social business plans into reality as soon as possible. Selected investors already committed funds for investing in these projects.

Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus launched a number of social business initiatives in Brazil during his visit there from May 27- 29.

The Bank of America announced the creation of a Yunus Social Business Fund for Brazil during his stay.

ESPM, a leading business school in Brazil, also launched Yunus Social Business Centre which will develop academic curricula around social business.

Brazil Foods (BRF), one of the largest poultry companies in the world, has announced a joint-venture social business in Haiti for developing poultry business in the earthquake affected island.

During his stay, Yunus also met a high-level delegation from the government of Brazilian State of Para to launch a series of social businesses in the impoverished Amazonas region.

On 23 May, Yunus had inaugurated the first Euro-Asia Business Forum in Istanbul. The event was attended by entrepreneurs, social innovators, leading experts from corporations, civil society members, government officials and the academia from Asia and Europe.

“The Istanbul Social Business Charter” was signed by the forum participants with a commitment for each participant to create one tangible social business over the next twelve months.