SOCIAL BUSINESS ACADEMIA REPORT 2014

Academia Overview
SOCIAL BUSINESS
ACADEMIA REPORT
2014
N
I
M
A

“Young people today
have all the capabilities
and technologies
that are needed to
overcome any social
problem that still exists
in our society.”
Prof. Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate,
Chairman of Yunus Centre

3
Content
4 Foreword Prof. Muhammad Yunus
6 Yunus and You - The YY Foundation
8 Introduction
13 University Profiles
113 Book Reviews
118 Artist Profile Naoyuki Omine
122 Other Social Business Activities
143 About Social Business
146 Acknowledgement

4
Foreword
Academic institutions are the place where it all starts for
a young person. He gets his introduction to the world.
Universities take on an enormous responsibility when
educating the next generation of future leaders because
this is where young people build their knowledge and
develop skills that will enable them to create a better
society.

Young people today have all the capabilities and
technologies that are needed to overcome any social
problem that still exists in our society. Nowadays, more
and more young people strive to make a difference in the
world and universities recognize the need to respond to
this increasing demand.

Social business is a powerful idea that focuses on
creating financially self-sustainable solutions to tackle
social problems of any kind. Within only a few years,
many great things have happened within the academic
field of social business. It is very pleasant to see that
universities around the globe have started a variety of
social business institutions, initiatives and programs.

I am convinced that many more universities around
the world will join this movement in the near future
and include social business as an integral part of their
activities.

The world is changing rapidly and the rate of change
will become faster and faster. But we must know where
we want to go. How we steer ourselves to get to where
we want to go. Social business gives us a powerful tool
to steer ourselves to create a dramatically better world.
Universities need to introduce this tool of social business
to the young generation to prepare them to steer their
course in the right direction.

Muhammad Yunus

5
“Universities around the
globe have started a variety of
social business institutions,
initiatives and programs.”

6
Institution Yunus and You - The YY Foundation
City Wiesbaden
Country Germany
Focus Areas Social Business
Contact Dominique V. Dauster / Karen Hitschke
Email Dominique.Dauster@yyfoundation.com / Karen.Hitschke@yyfoundation.com
Yunus and You - The YY Foundation

7
Yunus and You - The YY Foundation
Yunus and You – The YY Foundation is delighted to
publish the Social Business Academia Report 2014 as a
main resource that provides a comprehensive overview
about the many social business activities that take place
at universities globally. The YY Foundation strongly
believes in the importance of education and the role that
social business can play within educational institutions to
shape a new generation of conscious young leaders.
The YY Foundation is a not-for profit organization
founded in 2012 in Wiesbaden, Germany with the main
purpose of creating a fairer and more social world
through promoting a constructive dialogue between
academia, business, politics and civil society and thus
leading to the social and economic integration of the
least advantaged.
The foundation’s main activities include:
• Cooperating with educational institutions to spread
the social business concept with a special focus on
the young generation, the leaders of tomorrow:
support universities, colleges and other educational
institutions with the formulation of curricula, joint
implementation of research projects, offering inspiring
events, seminars and lectures with a focus on an
inclusive and fair economy, with the goal of bringing
the social business concept into the education sector
• Supporting social business events: Sponsoring
participation at summits, networking events, social
business information exchange forums, and other
related social business events, to allow for constructive
exchange for members of different cultures, religions,
gender, and professional background
• Developing a platform towards a more social world:
supporting activities such as social business
competitions, scholarships, internships and fellowships
that will work as a catalyst for accelerating a social
mindset around the world and allow for encounters
between members of various nations
• Encouraging youth development: offering educational
programs for children and young people to support
the youth upbringing worldwide
• Supporting local social initiatives within cities that
bring neighbors together for a social purpose such as
clean streets, safe neighborhoods and spreading a
social conscience
• Promoting economic & social integration: Supporting
the economic and social development of the least
advantaged citizens through the support of entre-
preneurial initiatives towards the reduction of poverty.
In 2014, the YY Foundation supports a variety of
activities. Among other projects, it hosts the GSBS Young
Challengers Meeting one day prior to the Global Social
Business Summit in Mexico City. This meeting brings
together students and young professionals to exchange
social business expertise and develop concrete ideas for
social business initiatives. Other programs include global
accelerator programs to empower young entrepreneurs
to establish their own social businesses and act as role
models for a whole new generation.
We would like to thank all partners and friends who
made this report possible with their contributions and
valuable feedback. Specifically, we would like to express
our gratefulness to Professor Muhammad Yunus for his
visionary leadership and inspiration and we would like to
thank Leonhard Nima for taking the initiative to compile
this report. The Academia Report 2014 will be available
as a download on the foundation’s website
www.yyfoundation.com
We are exited to see an ever-growing social business
movement that will tackle society’s most pressing needs!
Karen Hitschke Dominique V. Dauster
Managing Director Managing Director

8
Introduction
came up to publish a report that summarizes the variety
of social business activities that have been established
globally and to make this knowledge available to a larger
audience.
The 2014 version of the Academia Report features new
and updated university profiles, interviews with faculty
members, as well as book reviews and profiles of other
interesting social business activities. The report takes a
collaborative approach with contributions from professors
and social business experts from all around the world.
This report focuses on initiatives that are taking place in
the field of social business as defined by Nobel Peace
Prize Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus as a non-
dividend business to solve social problems. There are
many more great initiatives in related fields, which
however are not within the scope of this report.
The objective of this report is twofold. On the one hand,
we would like to foster the exchange of information and
knowledge between universities that are active in the
field. On the other hand, we hope that this report will
inspire and motivate many more universities to start
social business initiatives as well.
On a personal note I would like to thank Yunus and You -
The YY Foundation for their dedication and support. Only
with their support it is possible to publish the Academia
Report in this format and reach a global audience on a
larger scale.
Though many great things have happened we are still at
the very beginning of an exiting social business journey.
Leonhard Nima - Editor
There is no doubt about the role and importance of
education in order to change the world and make it a
better place.
While some of the traditional approaches have not yet
been capable to solve many of the most pressing social
problems, it was only a matter of time that new concepts
would arise in the academic field.
When social business gained momentum within the
past few years, many universities around the world
started initiatives in this direction. These universities are
meanwhile an important pillar of the social business
movement.
Through teaching social business, universities are able
to reach and educate the young generation about ideas
and models to solve social problems in a financially
self-sustainable way. Through research, universities
significantly contribute to better understand and measure
the impact that social businesses have. Through practical
implementation, universities are able to directly translate
social business knowledge into projects on the ground
and thus enrich the learning experience for students.
In June 2013 we published the first version of the Social
Business Academia Report as a digital version. First ideas
for this report emerged while thinking about ideas how
to better connect universities to foster exchange and
collaboration and about the various mechanisms to do
so. One of these ideas, the Academia Meeting on Social
Business, had been established in 2011 as a pre-meeting
prior to the Global Social Business Summit to provide a
platform for academics to connect and exchange ideas.
The Academia Meeting finally evolved into the GSBS
Research Conference on Social Business in 2013.
These gatherings have been an important initial step to
establish an informal network across universities. Since
meetings and conferences have a limited reach, the idea

“Social business
education is key to
shaping a
generation that puts
society’s needs first.”

Artist Mr. Naoyuki Omine (Kobo Maru) Japan

16
Institution California Institute for Social Business
University California State University Channel Islands
City Camarillo, California
Country United States of America
Focus Areas Teaching and Incubation
Contact Dr. Andrea Grove
Email Andrea.grove@csuci.edu
California Institute for Social Business

17
About the California Institute for Social Business
The California Institute for Social Business (CISB):
Intersecting education, capitalism, and social change—
Applying market principles to alleviate society’s most
urgent needs.
The California Institute for Social Business in
collaboration with Professor Muhammad Yunus was
established as part of the California State University
(CSU) Channel Islands’ commitment to prepare students
for the world they will inherit upon graduation. The
CISB addresses the need for students to participate in
local and global experiences and learn new methods of
alleviating serious social ills that impact our region and
the world.
Building on the four pillars of the University, CISB
exposes students to opportunities for learning about
and addressing local and far-reaching social ills through
the application, study and development of Professor
Yunus’ notions of social business. The CISB consults with
entrepreneurs and organizations in order to assist in
the development of social business plans for firms which
seek to apply market principles for the creation of social
good.
The CISB has been led by Faculty Director Professor
Andrea Grove since its creation in 2010. In May 2013,
Martin Loeffler, former CEO of Grameen Caldas,
assumed the Director position. He brings expertise in
consulting and design of social business that will help the
CISB fulfill its vision to incubate social businesses locally,
nationally, and globally.
Principal elements of the CISB
Undergraduate and graduate curricula
The CISB has created a Minor and a Certificate in
Social Business. The Certificate is available to non-
matriculated students and is geared toward members
of our community who wish to better understand
the principles of social business and social business
planning. Our program is grounded in the principle
of interdisciplinarity—students not only study social
business but must also take courses that help them
understand in detail the social, economic, and political
issues that social businesses can be designed to address.
As part of these programs, three new courses are being
taught—the first in the world about social business
geared to undergraduates: Introduction to Social
Business, Social Business Planning, and Research
in Social Business. These courses are not standard
classroom courses but have multiple active learning and
community engagement components. Students have
had face to face and virtual visits by leading social
business entrepreneurs and analysts. For example, in
2012-2013, students have had Skype meetings with
Eugenio La Mesa (Cure Thalessemia in India), Kerstin
Humberg (researcher with extensive expertise on
Grameen Danone and Grameen Veolia), and Holly
Mosher (filmmaker, Bonsai People).
It is our goal to really take our students through the entire
process of social business creation as much as that is
possible. So in the course of the three semesters that it
takes to get the social business minor, the students go
from learning about the concept and its best practices,
analyzing a social issue and developing high level social
business ideas in the first semester, to building on these
ideas to develop a fully-fledged social business plan
in the second semester. The third semester is then
dedicated to actually making these plans a reality by
implementing a pilot for their social business idea. Since
students often have many other conflicting priorities, they
are usually not the social business entrepreneurs, but just
support existing or future social change makers in using
the tool of social business to create or enhance the social
value that they are looking for. So starting at the end of

18
the first semester, the class is split into consulting teams
of approximately 5 students each that are matched with
one of our community partners that would like to explore
social business opportunities to fight a specific social
issue locally, regionally or even internationally.
In order to further enhance the students’ learning
experience and the output for our community partners
and social business entrepreneurs, we started a
partnership with the Service Corps of Retired Executives,
an organization made up of current or former business
executives that provide start-up support to businesses
on a volunteer basis. As of the spring 2013 semester,
each student social business consulting team has one
former executive as a mentor that actively participates
at the design, planning and implementation of the social
business initiative.
Examples for social business initiatives include “Farmer
for a day”, a community garden that fights food insecurity
and now aims at reaching financial sustainability by
offering gardening team events to corporations and
“Pleasant Valley Neighborhood for Learning” that teaches
parents how to be better first teachers to their children.
The creation of a social business café in the Dominican
Republic is one of our international initiatives.
Through this combination of theory and practice and
the direct involvement of the students in real life social
business projects, we create a unique interdisciplinary,
applied learning experience, that mobilizes, trains and
then supports our social change agents of the future that
tackle our most pressing social issues. Upon graduation,
our students ideally already have a job within the new
organization that they helped create or they go for the
creation of a social business and become job creators,
not job seekers once they enter the workforce.
Expansion to other types of students:
In order to further expand our social business activities
also off campus, the CISB has recently formed a
partnership with the Los Angeles Unified School District
to teach social business to high school students as part
of their after school program. In the spring semester of
2014, CISB successfully executed a pilot with two high
schools in the Los Angeles area, where 40+ students
were trained in social business design.
The program culminated with a social business plan
competition where each member of the winning team
won a small college scholarship and presented their
idea of a “Health Super Center” against obesity at the
Paramount Picture Studios in Hollywood in front of a
couple of thousand students from all over LA.
Academic Research
In its second year (2011), the CISB named a Social
Business Research Fellow. This CSU Channel Islands
faculty member, Antonio Jimenez Jimenez, has (a)
engaged in independent research to understand the
background, evolution, and emerging methodology
surrounding the design of social businesses; (b)
conducted field research about the Social Business City
model in Wiesbaden; and (c) wrote a case study
evaluating/analyzing/assessing his subject for a book
project sponsored by the CISB.
The core research project is the book “Social
Business: Theory, Practice and Critical Perspectives”
(edited by Andrea Grove, Ph.D., Faculty Director,
California Institute for Social Business in collaboration
with Muhammad Yunus, CSU Channel Islands and Gary
A. Berg, Ph.D., Associate Vice President for Extended
University, CSU Channel Islands.
Partnership development
We are developing partnerships with local and global
social businesses, other community partners, and

19
academic institutions around the world to:
a. speak with students in the social business courses;
b. provide future work opportunities for our students;
c. consider social business as an option for their
existing non- profit organization’s work; and/or
d. collaborate in our academic enterprises (teaching
and research).
e. create social businesses with us and
f. Develop international university partnerships to
develop and launch international social business study
programs.
Social Business Creation and Advisory
In the area of social business incubation and advisory,
we have recently created a social business incubation
space on campus that we inaugurated together with
Prof. Yunus during his visit in February of 2014. We
also established a Social Business Club on campus to
mobilize additional members of the campus community
to engage in social business creation and support. In
the area of social business advisory, we recently signed
our first consulting contract to help the local food bank
create a social business that identifies and then tackles
the root-cause of food insecurity in Ventura County.
Several other consulting projects are in the pipeline and
we hope to make this part of the CISB’s value proposition
a significant source of social business creations and
revenue generation reflecting the niche that Grameen
will aim at in the UK.Super Center” against obesity at the
Paramount Picture Studios in Hollywood in front of a
couple of thousand students from all over LA.
“The CISB addresses the need
for students to participate in
local and global experiences and
learn new methods of alleviating
serious social ills“

20
Institution Yunus Center for Social Business & Health
University Glasgow Caledonian University
City Glasgow
Country Scotland
Focus Areas Research and Teaching
Contact Prof. Cam Donaldson
Email Cam.Donaldson@gcu.ac.uk
Glasgow Caledonian University

21
Overview
Our Centre was established in 2010 under the
directorship of Professor Cam Donaldson (Yunus Chair in
Social Business & Health). We focus mainly on the pillar
of research, with projects on the impacts on health and
well-being of social business and microcredit. We have
a ‘health’ theme in addition to social business because,
despite world class publicly-funded health services in
the UK, health inequalities continue to widen. Gaps in
life expectancy between the richest and poorest areas
of our home town of Glasgow have now grown to 28
years. Our view is that further away from diseases and
risk factors are the root causes of ill health – poverty,
exclusion and lack of connectedness as indicated by the
poverty-health relationship.
Without working on these ‘causes of the causes’, more-
conventional attempts at public health improvement will
have limited impact. It is these relationships that we aim
to investigate, based around bringing Professor Yunus’
ideas to Scotland. As well as research, however, we do
have programmes for training researchers and social
enterprise practitioners which we deliver in collaboration
with the Social Enterprise Academy and other new
offerings in the social business field subsequent to the
appointment of Professor Yunus as Chancellor of our
University.
Research programme
Since its establishment, Glasgow Caledonian University’s
(GCU’s) Yunus Centre has already commenced several
projects with financial support from private donations,
Scottish Government, Santander Bank, the Church
of Scotland, the Medical Research Council and the
European Commission. Some of these projects reflect
the research that has to be conducted to prepare for
bringing Grameen-style banking to deprived areas of
Scotland.
These projects are as follows:
Theorising the transfer of microcredit to more-
advanced economies:
Reviewing the theoretical literature on microcredit and
its adaptation to the special circumstances of Grameen-
style banking, and how this can be applied in more
Western settings. The work also involves interviews
with ‘early adopters’ of similar loans-for-enterprise
approaches to microcredit in the UK and US settings
with respect to what they perceive as the barriers and
facilitators.
Mapping ‘microloans for enterprise’ in Scotland:
If a new Grameen-style microloans-for-enterprise
institution for Scotland is to garner official support, it is
important to know the extent of initiatives and projects
that aim to support enterprise and self employment in
this country, the aim of this project being simply to
identify and ‘map’ provision of lower levels of lending
(below £5,000 per loan) - ‘micro-lending for enterprise’
– reflecting the niche that Grameen will aim at in the
UK. Our results can be found at the website below –
http://www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3366/
scot.2014.0016
Systematic review of microcredit as a public health
intervention:
If, in countries like Scotland, we are to think of microcredit
(in the form of Grameen-style banking) as a potential
route to better health and well-being, then it is important
to conduct a systematic review of the literature to assess
what we know about the magnitude of impacts on health
and well-being and the quality of this literature.
From these initial projects we intend to then establish
a long-term study following Grameen customers,
interviewing them annually about their health and well-
being and to try to compare this with what is happening
in the population more generally and in groups with no

22
such access to microcredit to determine the extent to
which it makes a difference.
Our Centre is also open to collaborations on related
issues, which involve thinking differently about public
health and how it can be improved. For example, other
projects exploring related concepts but in other contexts,
are:
‘Passage from India’: self-reliance groups in a UK
context:
‘Passage from India’ (now WEvolution) was devised by
the Church of Scotland’s Priority Areas Committee. 13
women in 7 deprived ‘priority areas’ is Glasgow were
selected, and have met as a group prior and subsequent
to embarking on an 11-day trip to India to learn more
about the concepts and practices of women’s self-help
groups and meet those who were a part of them. Having
gained such insights, these women will recruit more
women to develop other like-minded groups (termed
‘self-reliance groups’) in their own communities, which will
encourage different forms of self-reliance but hopefully
allow women to pursue business and community-
oriented ideas. The aims of the research project are
to follow the development of both the groups and the
women themselves over a four-year period.
Social business and well-being in Scotland:
Although there are difference between the terms ‘social
business’ and ‘social enterprise’, they share the common
goals of being mission driven and encouraging some
sort of trading activity in achieving that mission. Similar
to how we are trying to think of microcredit as a public
health intervention, we are also trying to think of social
business in a similar light by focusing on its potential
contribution to well-being more generally and how one
might measure this. This project will involve working with
social enterprises in the West of Scotland and five other
universities to explore: How social enterprises think about
‘well-being’. How do they define it? Can they articulate
the causal pathway that takes those who engage with
social enterprise though to improvements in health and
well-being? How might it be measured, and to then
attempt to do just that in a series of case studies. This
work is funded from 2014-18 via a £1.96m programme
grant funded by the UK’s Medical Research Council and
the Economic and Social Research Council.
EFESEIIS (“Enabling the Flourishing and Evolution of
Social Entrepreneurship for Innovative and Inclusive
Societies”) is a major European project funded under the
European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for
research, technological development and demonstration.
This three-year (2013-2016) project involves 11 different
partners across 10 different countries around Europe.
It is led by our ‘sister’ Yunus Centre at the University of
Florence, and has a budget exceeding 3 million Euros.
Teaching social entrepreneurs and new ‘social business &
health’ researchers
We educate current and future social entrepreneurs
through:
MSc Social Business and Microfinance
A critique of traditional university programmes, put
forward by our Chancellor, Nobel Laureate Muhammad
Yunus, is that: “We prepare our students for jobs and
careers, but we don’t teach them to think as individuals
about what kind of world they would create.”
To begin to redress this imbalance in September
2014 we launch our new MSc Social Business and
Microfinance. This new programme will adopt a truly
international perspective in examining how social
business and microfinance might transform the lives
of the poorest, and enabling students to create positive
social change in the communities they serve.
The programme itself brings together a range of
existing modules, which together locate social business
and microfinance in the wider political economy,

23
and particularly alongside challenges to pre-crisis
mainstream economic thought. Students are taught
more mainstream business techniques and challenged
to imagine how these might be used to advance society.
Two new modules led by Yunus Centre staff draw upon
the latest research findings to introduce students to the
wide diversity of practical and theoretical approaches to
“doing” and understanding social entrepreneurship; and to
critically analysing the wide variety of social business and
microfinance types in existence across the world. Finally
students are provided with training in research methods
before embarking upon their dissertation.
To ensure students from any background are able to
study on the MSc Social Business and Microfinance
Glasgow Caledonian University has provided a total of six
Chancellor Yunus Scholarships and fully funded places
worth up to £10,000.
We also educate researchers of the future through:
An internship programme, where young undergraduates
have been able to come and contribute to our agenda.
Five people in total have gone through that programme,
from Scotland, England, France and Austria, who have
been studying at the Universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow
and Aix-Marseille 2 as well as GCU.
Since our inception the Yunus Centre for Social Business
and Health has developed a reputation as one of the
world’s premier locations to undertake doctoral research
in and around the area of social business. We currently
have seven PhD students working on various aspects
of the above research programme, as well GCU’s wider
interests in social innovation, and expect to double
this number over the next 18 months. We encourage
multi-disciplinary approaches, drawing students with
backgrounds in anthropology, economics and other social
sciences.
“We have a ‘health’ theme in
addition to social business
because, despite world class
publicly-funded health services
in the UK, health inequalities
continue to widen.”

26
Cam Donaldson holds the Yunus Chair in Social Business
& Health at Glasgow Caledonian University. From
2002-2009, he held the Health Foundation Chair in
Health Economics at Newcastle University, where he was
founding Director of the Institute of Health & Society
and professor in the Newcastle University Business
School. He held the Svare Chair in Health Economics at
the University of Calgary from 1998-2002, having first
become a professor of health economics in 1996 whilst
at the Health Economics Research Unit at the University
of Aberdeen.
Cam has received numerous competitive awards in
recognition of his research, having been:
> an inaugural National Institute for Health Research
Senior Investigator (2008-2012)
> a Public Services Fellow in the Advanced Institute for
Management Research (2004-5), funded by the UK’s
Economic and Social Research Council
> a Canadian Institutes for Health Research Senior
Investigator (2000-2002)
> a Senior Scholar (1998-2003), funded by the Alberta
Heritage Foundation for Medical Research
Over the past 25 years, Cam has published over 190
peer-reviewed articles in economics, medical, health
policy and health management journals and has co-
authored or edited several books on various aspects of
health economics and public service delivery.
Interview without Words - Prof. Cam Donaldson

27
Interview without Words - Prof. Cam Donaldson
1) The need for social business in
Scotland is ...
2) Social business research is
sometimes ...
3) Social Impact Measurement is
still ...
4) There is enough funding available
for social businesses
5) Will Scotland ever win the soccer
world cup?
6) Social business - Do it with ...

28
Yunus & Shiiki Social Business Reseach Center
Institution Yunus & Shiiki Social Business Research Center
University Kyushu University
City Fukuoka
Country Japan
Focus Areas Research, Teaching and Incubation
Contact Prof. Masaharu Okada
Email Okada@sbrc.kyushu-u.ac.jp

29
The Yunus & Shiiki Social Business Research Center
(SBRC) has been established in 2011 as the most recent
of many social business initiatives at Kyushu University
with the first initial activities dating back to 2007.
Aim
To study, research, and promote social business. The
center envisions to produce skilled social architects,
to build partnerships with related organizations in the
world, and to create replicable social business models
to combat global issues (poverty, health, environment,
energy, education, natural disasters & crises, etc).
Key Activities
Education and Research
SBRC builds social business research models by studying
current social business best practices globally.
Additionally, it develops advanced curricula for students
as well as social business white papers for industries in
collaboration with other universities.
Partnerships and Alliances
SBRC creates and maintains partnerships with
universities, companies, governments, NPOs/NGOs and
with the organizations of the Grameen family.
Events
SBRC acts as an open social business hub and organizes
social business events such as workshops, forums,
symposia and Grameen social business exposure
programs to Bangladesh. The social business events are
available online through social networks and real-time
streaming.
Archiving
Social business study materials (books, journals,
magazines, social business product samples, etc.) are
archived both online and in the Grameen Creative House.
Current Social Business Activities
Research
> Conducting research on all types of social
business taking place both in Japan and overseas
> Creation of replicable social business models and test
trials of social business role models
Education
> Social business workshops for corporates,
governments, NPOs/NGOs, students & individuals
> Development of social business exposure programs
(study tours) for Japanese professionals and students
to learn on site about Grameen social business
activities in Bangladesh. The program is developed
in collaboration with the Grameen Communication
Center and the Yunus Centre.
> Publication of educational materials on social
business both in English and Japanese
> Leading and guiding of the student-run organization
“Yunus Social Business Club”, which was formed at
Kyushu University under the mission to ”Create a
Social Business Hub in Japan by Youth.”
Partnerships and Alliances
> Building partnerships with key players on the ground
and related organizations within Japan
> Working on the creation of a social business
community and local alliances (e.g. with students/
corporate/volunteer groups) through joint workshops
Practice
> Support the creation of new social business joint
ventures between Japanese companies and the
Grameen Family
> Incubation of ongoing social business projects
Promotion
> Hosting of the annual social business promotion
event “Social Business Forum Asia” in Fukuoka

30
> Planning and execution of Prof. Yunus’ annual Japan
Tour (Tokyo, Kyoto, Tohoku, etc)
History
2007
The work of Professor Yunus was formally introduced to
Kyushu University by Dr. Ashir Ahmed (a research fellow,
now an Associate Professor at Kyushu University) who
started a project at Kyushu University to design and
establish an appropriate social information infrastructure
for unreached people in developing countries.
Subsequently, an agreement was signed between Kyushu
University and Grameen Communications to carry out
collaborative research to solve global issues through ICT.
Since then, several joint research activities and projects
have been conducted and implemented in the field of
healthcare, agriculture, education, energy, etc..
2008
In order to strengthen the relationship with Grameen,
Prof. Ashir Ahmed invited Prof. Hiroto Yasuura (Executive
Vice President of Kyushu University) and Prof. Masaharu
Okada (Executive Director at SBRC) to Bangladesh to
support joint projects between industry and university.
2009
Kyushu University stepped into the world of social
business. Two MOUs were signed during Professor Yunus’
visit to Japan in September:
> GCL (The Grameen Creative Lab / GCL@KU):
Established between Yunus Centre and Kyushu
University to advance social business in education
> GTL (Grameen Technology Lab): Established between
Yunus Centre, Kyushu University and NTT Japan to
advance social business in technology
2010
In March 2010, the Grameen Creative Lab @ Kyushu
University (GCL@ Kyushu University) was officially
established, followed by the establishment of the
foundation Grameen Technology Lab (GTL). GCL@
Kyushu University aims to proactively carry out
education, research, and incubation of social business in
collaboration with the Grameen family, Japanese
companies, NPOs/NGOs, universities, and governments.
Since 2007, Kyushu University and the Global
Communication Center (GCC) at Grameen have jointly
been exploring the field of social-needs-based technology
and product development.
GCL@Kyushu University was also committed to providing
knowledge and facilitating the social business dialogue
between different entities in order to benefit society in a
positive way.
On the other hand, GTL aims to solve social problems
defined in the United Nations’ Millennium Development
Goals by:
> Developing affordable and usable technologies
> Applying the concept of social business to serve
unreached communities in a sustainable manner
2011
Thanks to the generous donation of Mr. Shiiki, a
prominent Japanese businessman, Kyushu University
established the Yunus & Shiiki Social Business Research
Center (SBRC) including the continuation of GCL@
Kyushu University activities within this center.
After the Tohoku Earthquake on March 11, 2011 the
SBRC organized the Public Symposium during the Social
Business Forum Asia under the theme of “Self-reliable
projects for Survivors of Tohoku Earthquake to recover
and rebuild their life on their feet though social business.”
2012
After the successful promotion of the concept of the
social business in the previous two years, the SBRC has

31
shifted into the second stage, with a focus on creating
social business companies in Japan.
The first social business, Human Harbor was established
in Fukuoka city in January 2012 and then started
its operation aimed to support prisoners on their
way towards rehabilitation in society. The SBRC also
established a Social Business Fund in collaboration with
the Japanese company WATAMI.
2013
In 2013, four additional social businesses were
established in Japan. In addition, the second Yunus &
Youth Social Business Design Contest (YY Contest) was
hold in Fukuoka co-organized by the SBRC and the
Yunus Social Business Club, during which 5 projects were
presented by students from various universities from
Japan. The SBRC plans to extend this YY Contest globally
in cooperation with other youth communities all over the
world.

32
Interview Prof. Masaharu Okada - Kyushu
we did not really have a market-oriented business
approach, which had only been introduced by
western countries after World War 2. I would say
and believe, that the Japanese have social business
in their DNA.
Q: You are promoting the idea of social business to
other Japanese universities as well. How is the
response so far?
A: Several Japanese universities and many professors
are interested in social business. They are looking for
new economic approaches to research about and
to teach within academia. Moreover, students are
now more interested in the idea and the concept.
They would like to do something for others and for
society.
Q: At the SBRC you have a strong focus not only on
research, but on incubation, too. How does your
approach look like? Please tell us a bit about the
social businesses that have been incubated.
A: We are organizing the “Yunus and Youth Social
Business Contest (YY Contest)“ every year, inviting
the winning team to the annual Global Social
Business Summit where they will have the great
opportunity to present their social business idea
and business plan. For example, this year 52 groups
(250 students) have applied for the YY Contest in
Tokyo. So far, four companies emerging from the
contest have been established as social businesses.
Q: You have started social business activities at
Kyushu University already several years ago and
established the Yunus & Shiiki Social Business
Research Center in 2011. As an introduction,
please tell us a bit about the overall (economic)
situation in Japan. What are the main social
problems that need to be tackled?
A: In Japan, since the new Prime Minister Mr. Shinzo
Abe has started his mission in December 2013, his
new economic policy called ABENOMICS seems
to be working well to revive the sluggish economy
with fiscal stimulus, aggressive monetary easing
and structural reforms. However, as of now it will
be too early to finally evaluate its effects. On the
other hand, issues related to the recovery from the
disastrous damages caused by the earthquake in
2011 and the sluggish economy are still there.
In addition, there is an uncertainty among many
young people who still seem to be looking for things
that they would like to focus on in their life. Also,
crime rates have been going up even in this safe
country.
Q: What is the role social business could play in
addressing some of these major social problems?
A: As one of the tools to solve social problems, I
expect that the role of social business in Japan
should be enormous, since Japan had been doing
social business already back in history. Back then,
“I expect that the role of social
business in Japan should be
enormous, since Japan had
been doing social business
already back in history. “

33
Interview Prof. Masaharu Okada - Kyushu
Q: You also work a lot with Japanese companies to
get them involved in social business. Please tell us
a bit more about these partnerships.
A: Initially, I had established contacts with large
Japanese corporations to get them involved in social
business. However, the idea was wrong because
they are too „westernized“ and have a very strong
profit-maximizing motive. I am now trying to connect
with family owned companies, which exist for a long
time, say a few hundreds years or more. They have
a natural spirit and understanding of social business
and I expect that they will be a great driver to
promote social business in Japan and in the world.
Prof. Masaharu Okada
General Counsel
International Legal Office
Executive Director Yunus & Shiiki Social Business
Research Center
Kyushu University
In 1979, he joined NTT, mainly in charge of international
business management, especially international legal
management including intellectual property license,
lobbying, public relations, internet business projects,
including the Internet Business Development of NTT
and alliances with ventures in the field of internet in and
outside of Japan.
In 2001, after retiring from NTT, he joined Kyushu
University. At the University, he was teaching in the Law
School. He is also in charge of Corporation-Government-
Academia collaboration projects. At the same time, he is
the General Counsel of the International Legal Office of
Kyushu University.
Since 2009, he has been in working on projects with Prof.
Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 2006
and the University, establishing the ‘Yunus & Shiiki Social
Business Research Center’ as Executive Director.
1953 Born in Fukuoka City
1979 Graduated from Tokyo University (Faculty of Law)
1985 MBA, University of Washington (Seattle, USA)
1993 Attorney at Law qualified in New York State.

34
Institution Yunus Social Business Centre University of Florence (YSBCUF)
University University of Florence
City Florence
Country Italy
Focus Areas Research, Teaching and Incubation
Contact Enrico Testi
Email Enrico.testi@pin.unifi.it
Yunus Social Business Centre (YSBCUF)

35
Description
The Yunus Social Business Centre University of Florence
(YSBCUF) is the first centre in Italy accredited by the
Yunus Centre in Dhaka, founded by Nobel Peace Prize
Laureate Prof. Muhammad Yunus.
The Centre was established in 2011 thanks to a
partnership between the University of Florence, PIN
S.c.r.l. – Servizi Didattici e Scientifici per l’Università di
Firenze and the Yunus Centre in Dhaka. It is based at
“Polo Universitario Città di Prato” and it is the result
of the research and consulting job carried on in
these years by ARCO lab (Action Research for CO-
development) and LAMA d.c.a. (Development and
Cooperation Agency) on Social Business and Social
Enterprise, Impact Evaluation and Local and Human
Development.
The centre works in order to spread the theories of
social business in Italy and to offer strategic support to
private individuals and institutions that want to put it into
practice. The centre also acts as an intermediary with
the Yunus Centre in Dhaka and Italian organizations that
would like to get in contact with Prof. Yunus.
The YSBCUF it is a social business itself. Any profits are
re-invested in the activities of the YSBCUF to promote
and support the creation of social businesses in Italy and
in the world.
YSCBUF Activities
Social Business City Program
The main activity that has been implemented by the
YSBCUF is the launch and the operation of the Social
Business City Program in Pistoia.
The Social Business City Program (SBCP) takes
inspiration from the visionary and valuable ideas and
experiences of The Grameen Creative Lab about “Social
Business Cities”, which have been used and adapted by
the Yunus Social Business Centre University of Florence.
The SBCP aims to promote social business and
social innovation at city/local level favoring synergic
strategies and collaboration among various institutions
– for-profit firms, cooperatives, public activities, social
businesses, third sector activities, etc. – that could act in a
complementary and mutually-inspiring way.
The flexibility of the SBCP encompasses – beyond the
enterprise’s typology that it devotes attention to – its
twofold inclination to figure out suitable interventions
coming both from locally contrived initiatives, by
providing training, consultancy, technical support and
results evaluation. In the meantime, SPBC endeavors to
connect virtuous international practices and experiences
to stimulate networking and coordination.
The general objective of the Social Business City
Program is to: “Create and Facilitate a System for the
Birth and Flourishing of Social Business and Social
Innovation”.
The specific objectives of the program are:
> To raise awareness for social business and promote
social innovation
> To facilitate the creation of social businesses
> To improve an entrepreneurial mind-set in the young
generations
Youth and Social Business: Becoming Agents of Social
Change
“Youth and Social Business: becoming active agents
of change“ is an educational project carried out by the
YSBCUF with Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Pistoia e
Pescia and Fondazione Un Raggio di Luce Onlus within

36
the “Pistoia Social Business City” program. The 2012-
2013 program involved 251 students (age 16-18) from
the province of Pistoia and aimed to provide students
with all the basic knowledge and tools to approach
microcredit and social business concepts and the world
of social entrepreneurship.
The Yunus Social Business Centre staff distributed a
questionnaire in order to understand how the students’
knowledge about social business and microcredit has
increased thanks to the project and how they liked it. The
questionnaire was composed of two parts: the first part
was filled out by the students at the start of the project,
the second at the end of the classes. Students were
randomly selected after one year resulting in a total of 28
out of 251 students surveyed.
Knowledge of Social Business
Moreover, in order to investigate the results of the
activities, the YSBC staff decided to distribute a similar
questionnaire to the students involved in the training
project a year after the classes, asking them about their
interest to become entrepreneurs in the future and what
type of entrepreneurship they would like to choose
eventually (traditional, social or both).
Research Project:
Enabling the Flourishing and Evolution of Social
Entrepreneurship for Innovative and Inclusive Societies
(EFESEIIS)
On the 1st of December 2013 the European
7th Framework research project titled “Enabling the
Flourishing and Evolution of Social Entrepreneurship for
Innovative and Inclusive Societies” (EFESEIIS) officially
started.
The Yunus Social Business Centre University of Florence,
along with PIN S.c.r.l. and its research lab ARCO, are
leading a consortium of eleven European universities,
research centers and hubs with the objective of
investigating the social entrepreneurship phenomenon
from a historical and evolutionary perspective in order to
analyze the features of an enabling eco-system for social
entrepreneurship and social innovation.
In recent years the importance of social enterprise and
social innovation has grown. This can be attributed to
their capability of complementing public policy measures,
as well as playing an active role in social inclusion
processes.
The three-years project has four main objectives:
To construct an evolutionary theory of Social
Entrepreneurship
Social entrepreneurship has developed in different ways
across Europe. This objective aims to construct a theory
that explains these differences, taking into account the
history and trends of social entrepreneurship and how
social entrepreneurship and institutions co-evolved over
time.
To identify the features of an “Enabling Eco-System for
Social Entrepreneurship”
The research will identify the conditions under which
social enterprises can contribute effectively and efficiently
to build an inclusive and innovative society and will lead
to a database of good practices.
To identify the “New Generation” of Social
Entrepreneurs
The new generation of social enterprises emerged in
the last five years requires to be better understood in
terms of its features, needs and constraints as well as its

37
contribution to social innovation in order to harness its
potential for policy making and for other stakeholders
such as financial institutions and support organizations.
To provide advice to stakeholders
The project targets policymakers both at the European,
national and local level as well as banks and other
organizations, such as chambers of commerce,
associations of entrepreneurs and local development
agencies. Every stakeholder will be provided with advice
on how to draft policies and services to foster social
entrepreneurship and social innovation.
The project partnership is formed by
> PIN S.c.r.l., Servizi Didattici e Scientifici per l’Università
di Firenze (Italy, project leader)
> Münster University (Germany)
> University of Southern Denmark (Denmark)
> ALTERRA research institute (Netherlands)
> Glasgow Caledonian University (United Kingdom)
> FREN Fondacija za Razvoj Ekonomske Nauke (Serbia)
> University of Northampton (United Kingdom)
> University of Warsaw (Poland)
> THE HUB GmbH (Austria)
> Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques (France)
> Promoting Social Business (Albania)

38
Danone Endowed Chair of Social Business
Institution Danone Endowed Chair of Social Business
University EBS University
City Oestrich-Winkel
Country Germany
Focus Areas Teaching and Research
Contact Prof. Karin Kreutzer / Prof. Andreas Heinecke
Email Karin.kreutzer@ebs.edu / Andreas.heinecke@ebs.edu

39
About the Danone Endowed Chair of Social Business at
EBS
The Danone Endowed Chair of Social Business aims
to discover, preserve and disseminate knowledge in
social business that is equally rigorous and relevant and
thereby creates positive impact for students, academics,
executives and society. We focus on hybrid (or pluralistic)
organizations – as social businesses – operating at the
boundaries between market and civil society. We study
organizations irrespective of their legal form that develop
innovative solutions to societies most pressing social
needs. We are interested in social innovations that are
innovative concepts, strategies and business models
for civil society organizations, foundations and socially
responsible businesses.
Prof. Karin Kreutzer and Prof. Andreas Heinecke are
holding the Chair of Social Business since May 2011.
Magdalena Kloibhofer joined the team in August 2012 as
a research assistant.
Conferences
EBS Business School teamed up with Danone Germany
to stage the first conference on social business and
aging: Age as an Asset – Social Business and the Aging
Boomers. The two days conference brought together
international researchers, policy makers, business leaders
and practitioners to gain an overview about excellence,
trends and strategies. The students presented a case
study working out the market potential for Danone. The
conference was well received and was the kick-off for
new activities within aging and social business at EBS
Business School.
Outreach
Under the leadership of EBS Business School, a
task force from the Schwab Foundation community
was formed and compiled helpful insights for social
entrepreneurs and those contemplating to start a social
business. A first publication in 2010 was called the Social
Investment Manual:
http://www.schwabfound.org/pdf/schwabfound/
SocialInvestmentManual2011.pdf
Based on the success, a new task force convened to
address as the next logical step after social investment
the issue of Corporate Governance of Social Enterprises,
in particular Advisory Boards:
http://www.schwabfound.org/pdf/schwabfound/
Governance_Social_Enterprises.pdf
In a third step a practical guidebook on leadership and
human resource management in social enterprises will
be compiled. The manual will aim to address the most
common leadership and HR challenges that social
enterprises face at different stages in their lifecycle, and
support entrepreneurs to deal with them with advice
that is tailored to the realities of social mission driven
organizations of various forms. It also aims to provide
hands-on knowledge for SE that will typically not have
attended formal leadership education. It will serve as a
platform for sharing experiences on challenges as well
as solutions, and will facilitate fruitful exchange within the
community on this vital topic.
Teaching
Field Case Studies:
In the spring term 2012 a cohort of master students
developed new social business ideas for Danone in the
context of the demographic transition. In the fall term
2012 students are working on an analysis of The Hub
and prepare a market entry study for DialogMuseum in
Frankfurt.
Personal Mastery:
Bachelor, MBA and Master experience Dialogue in the

40
Dark in Frankfurt www.dialogue-in-the-dark.com. Based
on this experience the personal mastery course pursues
the following objectives:
> Leadership in uncertain and critical situations
> Leadership, followership and teamwork
> Experiencing the significance of clear and precise
communication
> Bonding, empathy and solidarity
> Working out common references & appreciation of
team efforts
> Experiencing one’s own limits and overcoming them
by unleashing hidden potentials
> Students have to reflect the experiences and
theoretical background in essays. They show
clearly the significant impact in terms of inter- and
intrapersonal learning.
VIP Curriculum
The objective of this course is to provide students with
the knowledge and analytical capabilities central to
personal growth, professional success and self-fulfillment.
During the course, students meet eight very successful
people for half a day each and listen to their life stories in
order to understand their personal development, career
paths, values, aspirations, challenges, doubts and ideas
about what it is to be human. The students learn through
these encounters and will sharpen their observation,
listening and questioning skills. They might identify role
models for their own self-concept and career planning.
The VIPs receive feedback and learn through being
questioned and challenged.
Lectures
For Bachelor students it is mandatory to join the course
“Business & Society”. For Master students we started in
fall term 2012 “Understanding Social Business”. It is a
series of lectures about the context of social business,
impact measurement, finance and capacity building. We
invited five social entrepreneurs and worked out solutions
for their specific challenges.
Research
Currently we do have the following research foci:
> Mission accomplished? Organizational identity drift
> Cross-sector partnerships
> Leadership in social enterprises
> Aging and social business
> Social Innovation
Four students are writing as research assistants their
doctoral thesis. Various Bachelor, Master and MBA theses
were completed.
Publications
We frequently publish in the leading international
scientific journals and give presentations at conferences.
Some recent publications:
Lurtz, K. & Kreutzer, K. (2012), Entrepreneurial Orientation
in the Context of Social Venture Creation
Kreutzer K. & Jacobs C. (2012), Balancing Control and
Coaching in CSO Governance. A Paradox Perspective
and Board Behavior, Voluntas, 22 (4), 613 - 638
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
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

42
Yunus Center at AIT
Institution Yunus Center at AIT
University Asian Institute of Technology
City Bangkok
Country Thailand
Focus Areas Teaching and Incubation
Contact Dr. Faiz Shah
Email Fshah@aitaisa

43
A collaboration between Professor Yunus and the Asian
Institute of Technology (AIT), the Yunus Center AIT (YCA)
is among the first of its kind, located within a regional
post-graduate research university.
Vision
Working within AIT’s development mandate, create a
world free from poverty by harnessing the power of
social business and effective technologies to improve the
lives of the marginalized.
Mission
To establish an action-learning platform that fosters
the development, implementation and valuation of
sustainable social business models driven by research,
technology and partnerships that effectively solves social
problems, with a particular focus on gender equality.
Approach
An Action-Learning approach, with ongoing dialogue at
its core, towards becoming an effective, open platform
with the professional capacity to process relevant
information received from stakeholders and key
constituencies within and outside AIT and the Grameen
family, and converting it into practical ideas for social
business promoted and implemented through diverse
partnerships and the effective learning outreach.
Program Portfolios 2014-15
SB Action:
Need-responsive, gender-mainstreamed social business
projects, identified and run for their profit potential.
SB Archives:
An open repository of practical knowledge, action
research findings, case studies and online workshops.
SB Challenge:
A unique test of skills for building collaborative business
alliances to solve social problems while creating wealth.
SB Learning:
A dynamic set of guided or independent learning options
for academics or practitioners rooted in best practice.
SB Academy:
Young Leaders’ Program and Yunus Fellowships, offering
experiential learning and decision-making skills.
GCL@YCA:
A cycle of creative events in partnership with GCL to
spark ideas bridging business and academia.
Ongoing Initiatives
M-HealthAsia – Pilot training & normative SB model
assessment in collaboration Italian partner
YCA and the AIT-based Wetlands Alliance (WAP)
are supporting Mobilediagnosis® (MD) in piloting its
training among rural communities in Kratie, Cambodia.
Based on this pilot and a detailed assessment, a social
business model may be evaluated for roll out in similar
communities in the Asia-Pacific region.
MD, an Italian healthcare non-profit has patented a
mobile phone application that transmits MMS images
from microscopes or optical devices to clinical labs
where diagnosis for microbial disease can be rapidly
confirmed.
MD has typically offered their application as part of
welfare programs in Afghanistan, the Congo, and
Madagascar. YCA’s collaboration with MD aims at moving
beyond charity towards creating a social business
model spread across rural communities around central
laboratory hubs located in existing diagnostic facilities
Yunus Center at AIT

44
who choose to participate. As such, YCA’s project goal
is not simply to implement one-off trainings for field
technicians, but to leverage the technician’s qualification
as a marketable social business idea for remote and
underserved communities where microbial infection
is rife, and where qualified medical staff are physically
unavailable.
Goals
The Kratie pilot will assess the viability of a social
business model where trained and backstopped field
technicians will offer services for a fee that covers direct
costs of mobile services, doctors’ fee and consumables,
and then generate income. If a community finds this
service responsive and cost-effective, the demand for
mobile technicians’ training will increase. This will in turn
feed competition, expanding coverage and as a result,
more cost-effective and timely diagnosis.
The overall impact is expected to be a market-driven
reduction in morbidity in a relatively inexpensive but
technically reliable way, while increasing income for
field technicians and hub-based doctors. The resulting
rise in business is likely to attract CSR funding from
mobile operators and pharmaceutical companies for
associated healthcare programs.
SB Launchpad – Training, support and incubation for
Thai entrepreneurs funded by the Thai Social Enterprise
Office
YCA has received support from the Royal Thai
Government’s Social Enterprise Office towards
supporting and mentoring facilities in Bangkok, made
available to aspiring Thai social entrepreneurs so they
can develop and test ideas and, backstopped by YCA
and its partners, introduce them into the marketplace
over one year. Launchpad, in collaboration with a
number of partners in Thailand offers training and
awareness programs and is working to set up co-
working and networking opportunities for upcoming Thai
entrepreneurs. A number of co-working space providers
in Bangkok offer workspace solutions, most often based
on the “creative community” concept.
YCA has adapted the concept to attract enterprising
young people to social business, and thus introduce the
thinking among emerging entrepreneurs that creating
wealth and mitigating social problems can go hand in
hand.
YCA’s Launchpad concept, therefore, serves a three-fold
function. One, it introduces the concept to entrepreneurial
minds who will lead tomorrow. Two, it links YCA with
a vibrant Thai creative community. And three, it allows
cross-fertilization of ideas through workshops, creative
competitions, and active enterprise creation.
Goals
The support program has been launched, with one full
program cycle completed in May 2014, with quarterly
cycles commencing in Fall 2014. Applications will be
shortlisted against agreed criteria, by TSEO. The highest
scoring applicants will be inducted into the program and
benefit from the learning and mentoring program until
they can confidently introduce their SB idea into the
market. TSE will identify start-up investments that will
then return an amount equal to their own scholarship,
helping induct new entrants.
The foreseen impact of the social business support
program will stem from the access to specialized learning
aspiring entrepreneurs will have to hone their business
ideas and better grasp opportunities that ensure success.
As the first initiative of its kind in Thailand, the program
will disseminate Prof. Yunus’ philosophy and as a result,
further add value to a traditionally entrepreneurial culture
that exists in Thailand.
Yunus Center at AIT

45
SB 101 and Master FRAMES Asia – Social business
professional courses at AIT in collaboration with
partners
YCA is working with AIT faculty and our international
network to develop and deliver professional development
courses relevant to social business, particularly aimed
at young people making the transition into working life.
Grounded in Professor Yunus’ philosophy, the courses
cover diverse areas relevant to social business.
YCA is housed within the AIT Extension cluster, an inter-
disciplinary group of specialized units that leverages
resources from AIT’s three Schools to deliver professional
and executive programs in a number of countries.
The courses span a wide range of topics, geared towards
a variety of participants. The introductory SB 101 course
is an overview of Prof. Yunus’ social business approach,
and within a socio-historical context, highlights successful
examples. Other courses, such as SB 111 and 112, focus
more on necessary SB skills such as communication,
fundraising or behavior influence.
The course offerings in Bangkok have had attendees
from over 20 countries. The next cycle includes a course
series in Sri Lanka in collaboration with Berendina,
the country’s largest microfinance agency. Other
collaborations with the Thai Social Enterprise Office
and Malaysia’s MyHarapan are being rolled out over the
coming year.
Goals
The SB Knowledge program aims for a three-fold benefit
that emanates from being situated in regional research
university. First, to communicate Professor Yunus’ ideas in
a region where the need is great, but communication has
been slow. Second, to consolidate and disseminate the
expanding body of experience from social business. And
third, to build practical capacity and skills for enterprise
management around social business values among an
increasingly aware and widely spread out population.
Training and capacity building are essential to put into
practice the value-driven enterprise that Prof. Yunus’
approach articulates. The anticipated impact of this
program will be most visible as a shift in value-perception
and investment behavior not only among aspiring
entrepreneurs, but also companies that wish to maximize
the social impact of their CSR programs
Nano-Sanitation – Market-scale self-sanitizing urinal
for high-traffic and portable applications.
Among its many current research activities, which spans
dye-sensitized solar cells, gas sensors, bio-diagnostic
tools, microbial sensors, and heavy metal sensors for
waste water, is a unique water-repellent coating that can
be used in building self-sanitizing urinals that can be used
in public places so as to save water and increase hygiene.
AIT’s Center of Excellence in Nanotechnology (CoEN) is
a leading graduate research facility in the region focuses
on making use of inexpensive wet-chemical methods
to fabricate innovative materials and futuristic device
components.
CoEN researchers have tested a self-sanitizing waterless
urinal comprising a conventional low cost ceramic bowl
coated with nanoscale zinc oxide (ZnO), applied using
a low-energy process. The nanoscale coating creates a
super-hydrophobic surface that makes any water-based
liquid roll off even at angles less than 5° from horizontal.
ZnO is an expensive and readily available material.
ZnO’s kills bacteria in the presence of ultraviolet (UV)
light and oxidizes organic compounds such as drugs. A
holding tank fitted with a UV light collects the urine and
Yunus Center at AIT

46
renders it bacteria- and odor-free. This nitrogenous waste,
when re-watered, encapsulated, and dried can be sold as
fertilizer. This coating works on ceramic, metal and cloth.
Goals
The project aims to work with commercial manufacturers
to scale up this technology for mass production. Products
emerging from this work will be sold through a social
business network operated by its manufactures and
strategically located distribution outlets. The project
goal is three-fold. Firstly, it will link a viable pro-poor
technology developed at AIT to commercial channels.
Secondly, it promote hygienic and water conservationist
behavior. Third, it will build an incremental social business
opportunity.
The impact of this project, apart from its obvious promise
as a sustainable, high-demand, vertically integrated
social business model is the reduction in environmental
depletion by promoting an affordable device that actively
conserves water, improves sanitation and lowers risk of
disease, decreases costs for operators of public water
and sanitation service providers.
SB Challenge & YY Competition – Building an exchange
platform for SB ideas from youth around the world.
YCA is joining hands with a number of universities across
the world to help integrate outcomes of a number of YY
Competitions organized locally into a truly international
showcase of social business ideas by young people.
The initiative aims to bring together winners of local YY
Competitions into a global SB Challenge.
Being able to interact with counterparts from so many
different cultures and regions stands to enrich young
social business enthusiasts, as well as enlarge significantly
the impact and applicability of their ideas. YCA, working
closely with counterparts at Kyushu University, and
California State University, is reaching out to institutions
in the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific to build a
synergy platform that allows for social business ideas
generated in all the various independently organized YY
Competitions to come together meaningfully, and also be
disseminated with higher impact potential in a variety of
contexts.
The idea emerges from Professor Yunus’ emphasis on
involving youth, and harnessing their capabilities as social
business champions of tomorrow. The exchange platform
envisaged under this program would comprise a mutually
translatable framework for local YY Competitions that
can underpin the criteria for a global SB Challenge.
Goals
The global SB Challenge would bring top winning
teams from all the various YY Competitions held in
various countries and regions to one of the major events
on the social business calendar, such as the Social
Business Day or the Social Business Summit, where
they would be given an opportunity to share their ideas
and attempt to come up with collaborative SB solutions
applicable to social problems common to their respective
environments. The most practical collaborative ideas
would be recognized.
The overall impact of this activity is a higher cross-
awareness among youth, of the power of enterprise-
led development, and a greater exposure to working
ideas that have relevance in disparate socio-economic
environments. The SB Challenge would also focus
the limelight on bright young SB champions, helping
potential social investors or academic institutions identify
upcoming champions.
SB Splash – Transitioning aid-driven drinking water
program to viable social business in Cambodia.
Yunus Center at AIT

47
Under its SB Action mandate, the YCA team is co-
creating with Splash Inc., a US non-profit providing clean
drinking water to under-served communities in Asia,
a new transitional model that may help charity-driven
social investments move from funding-dependent project
to enterprise-driven sustainable development initiatives.
Splash works to ensure clean water supplies to
vulnerable children in a number of countries, and wish to
see their aid-driven projects evolve into self-sustaining,
viable social business ventures.
Cambodia has been chosen as the pilot for developing a
strategy to transition the project towards local ownership
and a self-financing independent structure. YCA supports
Splash as its technical partner in community economic
assessments, stakeholder engagement, business process
design, and human resource development, paving the
way for a transition model that can be applied to other
similar initiatives.
The driver for this partnership is the conviction, shared
by both Splash and YCA that the ideal development
intervention is one which is able to make external support
redundant by creating local capacities to overcome the
gap that required external intervention, over a predictable
time-line, and allow local actors to assume responsibility.
Goals
This exercise aims to try and show a way for externally
funded projects to break the cycle of dependence
that confounds both the funder and the recipient,
enfeebles traditional adaptation mechanisms that allow
communities to face uncertainty and hardship, and
leaves funders with the having to disengage knowing
that despite significant resources being spent, the original
objectives remain often unmet. This requires participating
in a learning-driven partnership, which YCA and Splash
have established.
Taking inspiration form the ideals propagated by
Professor Yunus, Splash and YCA have begun with
studying the needs and socio-economic context of
participating communities in Cambodia, which will then
be followed by the design and testing of a social business
model that can be rolled out, complete with clear
product-market linkages and financial targets, pursued by
a trained team.
SB Learning – Social business professional
development courses at AIT in collaboration with
partners
YCA and the AIT-based Wetlands Alliance are supporting
MobileDiagnosis in piloting its training among rural
communities in Kratie, Cambodia. Based on this pilot,
a social business model may be evaluated for roll out
Under YCA coordination in similar communities in the
Asia-Pacific region.
MobileDiagnosis, an Italian non-profit has patented a
mobile phone application that transmits MMS images
from microscopes or optical devices to clinical labs
where diagnosis for microbial disease can be rapidly
confirmed.
MobileDiagnosis has typically offered their application
as part of welfare programs in Afghanistan, the Congo,
and Madagascar. YCA’s collaboration with
MobileDiagnosis aims at moving beyond charity towards
creating a social business model spread across rural
communities around central laboratory hubs located in
existing diagnostic facilities that choose to participate.
As such, YCA’s project goal is not simply to implement
one-off trainings for field technicians, but to leverage the
technician’s qualification as a marketable social business
idea for remote and underserved communities where
microbial infection is rife, and where qualified medical
staff is physically unavailable.
Yunus Center at AIT

48
Goals
The Kratie pilot will assess the viability of a social
business model where trained and backstopped field
technicians will offer services for a fee that covers direct
costs of mobile services, doctors’ fee and consumables,
and then generate income. If a community finds this
service responsive and cost-effective, the demand for
mobile technicians’ training will increase. This will in turn
feed competition, expanding coverage and as a result,
more cost-effective and timely diagnosis.
The overall impact is expected to be a market-driven
reduction in morbidity in a relatively inexpensive but
technically reliable way, while increasing income for
field technicians and hub-based doctors. The resulting
rise in business is likely to attract CSR funding from
mobile operators and pharmaceutical companies for
associated healthcare programs.
SB Thinkfluence – Organic interactive resource for
understanding and using Behavior Influence in SB.
The YCA team is facilitating the piloting of a unique
online knowledge resource that combines features of
a self-generating search engine with those of a social
network, helping users understand how human behavior
adapts to positive or negative influences, how this insight
can be used to encourage sustainable life-choices.
Thinkfluence is envisaged by Chris Eldridge, YCA visiting
expert, as “a linked set of resources… for the silent
majority, who are currently doing little or nothing to
address [challenges we face today].”
The project responds to behavioral research, which
confirms that “social potential” drives people and
organizations to achieve, when they are linked in various
ways, what they cannot, when acting individually. It aims
to help create knowledge linkages that are transformative
rather than merely participative, considering the latter
often involves agendas largely controlled by external
interests.
Advances in the behavioral sciences have generated
scientific Behavior Influence approaches whose
effectiveness and precision is multiplied by
information technologies. Data-mining, viral marketing,
neuromarketing and similar tools use informational links
and social media to change perceptions and hence
modify behavior.
Goals
This pilot project works to place scientific insights and
experience of emerging Behavior Influence approaches
within an accessible public space, creating the links
necessary for people or organizations to draw lessons
from, and offer tools and examples that can motivate
action. Users will benefit from this knowledge resource
in a variety of sectors and contexts to address a wide
range of issues in different fields, i.e. climate change,
the environment, health and population, social services,
personal finance etc.
Thinkfluence aims to occupy a niche, building
understanding of Behavior Influence and its positive or
negative aspects to empower people and communities
towards informed choices between sustainable and
unsustainable behaviors. Recent experience of organic
websites indicates that the impact of this project is
potentially wide in scale and scope, and may directly
promote social business solutions.
Yunus Center at AIT

50
Interview Dr. Faiz Shah - Yunus Center at AIT
this richness of experience, which we hope to begin
documenting as a learning resource.
Q: What is still missing for an extensive and effective
social business ecosystem in these countries?
A: The missing element is a clearly articulated vision
of social business contextualized to local contexts,
which can drive policy and enabling conditions. With
so many definitions and interpretations of what it
constitutes, social business appears to many people,
a distant or foreign concept. Once explained, we find,
it evokes enthusiasm primarily for its simplicity and
do-ability. So, in some ways the first step towards “an
effective and effective social business ecosystem”
is spreading the word, engaging key stakeholders in
dialogue, and then helping these very stakeholders
build a case for their own decision-makers.
The discussion about building scope, scale and
effectiveness can only follow informed engagement.
This is role academia can play well.

Q: YCA has a strong focus on action-learning with
a number of projects on the ground. Do you see
this as one main direction especially in the field of
social business education?
A: Indeed. Action learning remains a powerful platform
for social business education and capacity building.
We know business savvy does not come from
attending classes, but being prepared to act. We also
know that grooming people for success in business
means having them learn from the consequences
Q: YCA is working on projects in Thailand, but also in
neighboring countries. How are the social business
scenes in Thailand and the surrounding countries?

A: Yes, YCA has had opportunity to engage, through
AIT’s outreach network, with partners in a number
of countries in the region, including Cambodia,
India, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Timor Leste. We are
not surprised to see that while Professor Yunus is
hugely admired in all these countries, not many
have contextualized his particular approach to social
business. We see unclarity about the non-dividend,
profit-making nature of businesses that exist
overcome specific social problems.
Yet, the idea resonates quite strongly, at least in
the communities we work in, perhaps because it
promises to independence and dignity to people
who otherwise have few opportunities. In Thailand,
we find Professor Yunus’ approach understood
within King Bhumibol’s Sufficiency Philosophy,
while in Sri Lanka it vibes with a tradition of self-
help exemplified by Sarvodhaya. In Timor Leste,
our partners see social business channeling a
young population’s nation-building spirit, just as it
offers promise to Cambodian communities caught
in a whirlwind of consumer-driven expansion. In
Malaysia we see the idea resonate with government
and youth, while in India’s diversity, it creates yet
another alternative. This is very exciting, because
social business as an idea clearly attracts people in
seemingly disparate socio-economic environments.
At YCA we are looking to engage more closely with

51
of decisions, and being able to solve often-complex
problems in real time involving many people.
Because it is an approach that creates opportunities
for tailoring and personalizing learning experience,
it is useful for learners who would otherwise not
perform well in a traditional or formal educational
environment. Perhaps most importantly, action
learning approaches have been shown to develop
personal leadership as well as group-level problem
solving. This makes action learning relevant to social
business education.
At YCA we feel there is a need to further develop
and consolidate learning resources and capacity
for using action learning as a key component of
social business education. What we have to offer
to prospective learners, students and practitioners
is diverse, exciting and relevant. How we present it
is therefore, very critical to furthering the aims of
enterprise-led development.
YCA seeks to build closer working relationships
with peers across the social business education
landscape. We are looking to discuss practical
modalities with peer institutions that will allow us
to expand our respective action learning capacities
in scope and scale, and perhaps even develop
joint programs or exchange opportunities that
will firstly build capacity and secondly help evolve
methodologies that make original contributions to
this expanding community of learning and practice.
Q: As part of your activities, you are working on
teaching cases. What are the lessons learned when
writing case studies about social businesses?
A: Teaching cases are a pillar of the social business
education approach I mentioned before, through
which YCA seeks to strengthen practical, action
learning driven learning. We note that there are not
enough teaching cases that focus on social business
in general and perhaps even fewer teaching cases
developed with the social business entrepreneur in
mind.
As such, we can either adopt the traditional
approach where YCA or academic peers write
teaching cases as part of our ongoing research
activity, which then accumulate in case-banks for us
to choose from. Or, we can create a parallel case-
writing engine that performs two complimentary
functions. One, it would help document the
numerous successes and lessons that occur at the
grassroots on a daily basis, which would be lost to
us if they weren’t recorded in real time. Two, it would
generate a stream of case-leads for case-writers to
develop teaching cases around. But the question is:
who writes the teaching cases? YCA’s experience in
Bangladesh confirms the value of building capacity
among instructors, graduate students, and program
professionals to develop mini-teaching case drafts
that can then be refined into learning materials. Our
approach has been to identify aspiring teaching
case-writers and run a case-writing workshop series
that actually walks candidates through the process
of producing a usable teaching case. Of course
“Action learning remains a powerful
platform for social business education
and capacity-building. We know business
savvy does not come from attending
classes, but being prepared to act.”

52
there are limitations to this approach, in terms of
complexity that can be addressed, topics that can
be covered, and the comprehensive way in which
issues can be covered.
However, the advantage to us in our situation
outweighs these. We need a relatively large number
of teaching cases to use in an expanding portfolio
of offerings, which are directed primarily at learners
whose formal education has not necessarily
prepared them for the complexity and theoretical
intensity of available teaching cases. Moreover, these
cases are for people for whom English is seldom
the first language, and hence need to be brief and
user-friendly. YCA aims to roll out a schedule for
our workshop series, where we would hope to
collaborate in running a number of programs in
collaboration with peers in a number of countries.
Perhaps next year we will be able to report on this.
Q: There is a great buzz about Moocs (Massive Open
Online Courses). What are your thoughts? Will
Moocs replace traditional education or rather
complement it?
A: Moocs have attracted attention in ways both positive
and negative. The criticisms often appear valid
when looked at from the perspective of traditional
educational environments. However, in the dynamic
and evolving world of social business education,
where qualifications are perhaps less critical than
practical learning, Moocs clearly have a role. YCA is
in discussions with peers in ways we can contribute
content to Mooc offerings. We recognize a number
of challenges too; presented primarily by the
diversity of background of social business learners,
access to online communication technology, and
more importantly, their expectations. As such, YCA
would like to work with our peers in determining
the various learner categories that might typically
seek Moocs and also their expectations from such
offerings. So far as we know, there is little. I go on, at
least in YCA’s catchment area.
While we go about finding out more about our
learners, there is also a need to apply time and
resources to identifying and collating knowledge
resources that will form content for any Moocs
we come up with. Often, it is not a shortage, but
an abundance of useful knowledge resources that
thwarts learners from engaging with online offerings.
I suppose, it’s an important part of our work to
compile relevant, cross-applicable knowledge
materials generally relevant to learners. This too
requires collaboration between peers in a more
coordinated way.
For YCA, Moocs is a serious proposition, and
we intend to work towards refining our present
ideas, which from the MasterFRAMES program,
into a wider and more attractive set of offerings.
Considering our mandate is to promote pro-
poor technologies to social investments, YCA is
looking at both the content as well as access to
learning resources. Making Moocs available to our
constituency is part of this.

53
Dr. Faiz Shah
Director, Yunus Center AIT
Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand
Dr. Faiz Shah directs Yunus Centre AIT and the
Development Management department within the AIT
Extension cluster, with faculty affiliation at AIT School of
Management. He is visiting professor at the College of
Innovation, Thammasat University.
Over 30-years as educator, development professional
and entrepreneur, Dr. Shah has worked with
governments, UN agencies and corporations, grooming
3,000+ grassroots leaders and social entrepreneurs, and
overseeing 300+ capacity-building initiatives in countries
including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia,
China, India, Iran, Laos, the Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal,
Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Sweden, and Timor Leste.

54
National University of Singapore
Institution SVL@NUS (former GCL@NUS)
University National University of Singapore
City Singapore
Country Singapore
Focus Areas Incubation
Contact Prof. Wong Poh Kam
Email PohKam@nus.edu.sg

55
Overview of GCL@NUS

The Grameen Creative Lab@NUS was a partnership
formed between The Grameen Creative Lab and
the NUS Entrepreneurship Centre back in March
2011. It was initiated with the purpose to leverage on
the global resources and networks of the Grameen
Creative Lab to promote and incubate innovation-
based social businesses in Singapore that have the
potential to generate scalable, sustainable social impacts,
especially for social groups at the Bottom of the Pyramid.

The work of GCL@NUS can be broken down into 2
main components- outreach activities that promote
social entrepreneurship and incubation of social
businesses. (Note: NUS Entrepreneurship Centre also
engages in a third component – research & teaching of
social entrepreneurship – through collaboration with the
Asian Centre for Social Entrepreneurship & Philanthropy
(ACSEP) at the NUS Business School.)

In 2013, the initiative was renamed as Social Venture
Lab@NUS (SVL@NUS), to reflect the broader focus to
promote social entrepreneurship, which includes social
business.

Outreach Programmes

A flagship programme of the outreach component was
Social Business Week (SBW). SBW in 2012 was held
in February over a period of 4 days. The programme
included a boot camp and three public lectures. That year
GCL@NUS was privileged to have the active participation
of Professor Muhammad Yunus throughout the
programme.

The start of SBW was a two-day Social Business
Boot Camp. This boot camp was tailored for
social entrepreneurs with existing social ventures
or developed business ideas. It provided hands-on
training for them to develop sustainable and scalable
business plans. One of the tools used for this purpose
was the Business Model Canvas. Experienced mentors
and facilitators were at hand to assist the participants
throughout the boot camp, which culminated with a pitching
session to a panel of judges that included social business
experts and investors. Participants’ feedback generally
concluded that the Business Model Canvas was a useful
tool to evaluate and innovate their business plans and the
mentorship component proved to be most valuable.

Following the boot camp were three public lectures,
each targeting three relevant groups- corporates, civil
society and policy makers, and lastly youths. The first
was the Social Business Forum for Corporate Leaders. This
forum featured a panel discussion led by Prof Muhammad
Yunus, together with global corporate leaders from
companies such as Yukiguni Maitake Co, Unilever Asia and
PhilipCapital, a Singapore-based company.
The panelists shared their experience and insights
in harnessing market opportunities to solve social problems
at the Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP). The intention of the
forum was to highlight the market opportunities at the
BoP, and opportunities for corporate leaders to “do good
and do well”. One of the models illustrated was large
corporations partnering social entrepreneurs already
working at the BoP.

At the Public Lecture targeting civil society and policy
makers, Prof Yunus spoke on “Creating a Supportive
Environment for Social Business”. It was co-hosted with
the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, reaching an
audience of government bodies, NGOs, think tanks, social
enterprises and the general public. The last Public Lecture
was targeted at youths and co-organized with the Raffles
Institution, a high school in Singapore. Through its network,
students from high-school to university-level were invited
and many were greatly inspired by Prof Yunus’ personal
journey from a young schoolboy to where he is today. Held

56
during Social Business Week was also a closed-door
private luncheon with Prof Yunus and Hans Reitz together
with a select group of high-net-worth family business
owners, corporate leaders, social impact investors and
social entrepreneurs.

Social Business Week was rebranded as Social
Venture Week in 2013, and it marked the launch of
the DBS-NUS Social Venture Challenge Asia (www.
socialventurechallenge.asia).
After having a separate prize category on Social
Entrepreneurship/Cooperative Enterprise for 2
years under Start-Up@Singapore, an annual business
plan competition that NUS Entrepreneurship Centre
has organized since 1999, we decided to run a stand-
alone, pan-Asia competition just for social enterprises,
partnering the Development Bank of Singapore. The
DBS-NUS Social Venture Challenge Asia was launched
in September 2013, and attracted over 400 entries
from nearly 20 countries across the region. The
competition will run yearly.
Other activities GCL@NUS organized include
documentary screenings, panel discussions and talks
by social entrepreneurs, which have included Jack Sim
of the World Toilet Organisation and Carol Chyau of
Shokay. Leveraging on the global TEDx platform, we
established TEDxKRP to feature speakers on the
theme of social change through entrepreneurship and
innovation. The TEDxKRP platform also
provided an opportunity to showcase some of the
social businesses incubated by GCL@NUS.

Incubation

Leveraging on the existing incubator resources of
the NUS Entrepreneurship Centre, which has been
providing incubation support for technology-based
start-ups since 2001, GCL@NUS (and continued through
SVL@NUS) provides incubatees with support such
as seed funding, office space, dedicated mentorship,
subsidized corporate secretarial services, business clinics,
access to networks and introductions to potential impact
investors.

NUS students are offered a small seed funding of
SGD10,000 to test pilot their social venture idea. So
far, 6 out of the 11 supported social ventures were
recipients of that grant. Once these early social venture
ideas are validated, GCL@NUS works with the social
entrepreneurs concerned to apply for follow-on
funding, including grants of SGD50,000 provided by
various government agencies that support student
entrepreneurship, as well as investment by impact
investors. So far, 5 of the social ventures incubated
received these grants, while 2 others have received
investment by impact investors.

To provide support to the social ventures that we
incubate, GCL@NUS worked actively to build up the
emerging social entrepreneurship support ecosystem in
Singapore and Asia. GCL@NUS has established
collaborative relationships with other ecosystem
partners such as The HUB Singapore, which offers
co-working space for social innovators; Impact
Investment Exchange Asia (IIX), which offer platforms
for matching social entrepreneurs to impact investors for
follow-on funding; the Family Business Network, which
provides access to experienced mentors with interest
in social businesses; and BOP Hub, a platform operated
by Jack Sim to support Singapore-headquartered social
entrepreneurial ventures that target BOP markets around
the world.
As mentioned earlier, another more recent key partner is
the Development Bank of Singapore (DBS) in launching
the DBS-NUS Social Venture Challenge Asia. DBS also
provides grants and special banking packages to social
enterprises.

57

Future Directions

Through the experience gained from the GCL@
NUS initiatives launched so far, NUS Entrepreneurship
Centre has been able to refine our social
entrepreneurship support programs to become more
effective in our support of social entrepreneurial
activities in NUS and Singapore, now through SVL@
NUS. In particular, we will work on improving the use
of the Business Model Canvas analytic tool for social
purpose-driven organizations, and providing stronger
mentoring support for the social businesses we are
incubating. In our mission to further promote social
entrepreneurship, we intend to work with the B Lab
and a few other partners to influence businesses in
Asia to adopt the B Corporation certification, providing
an alternative framework for companies that seek
to prioritize the social bottom-line.

58
Design for Social Business (D4SB)
Institution Design for Social Business (D4SB)
University Istituto Europeo di Design
City Milan
Country Italy
Focus Areas Teaching
Contact Massimo Randone, Academic Coordinator
Email M.randone@ied.it

59
Master in Design for Social Business
The Istituto Europeo di Design (IED) is an international
education group in design, fashion, visual communication
and management, established in 1966. It has campuses
in Italy, Spain and Brazil, and offers undergraduate,
masters and advanced training courses. Its mission
is “to offer young creatives a thorough training - both
theoretical and practical – and hand them the ‘Design
Knowledge and Mindset’ that will accompany them
throughout their lives”.
With the patronage of the Yunus Centre, in 2010 IED
established the Master in Design for Social Business, the
first program of its kind globally.
The Social Business Designer is a professional who is
capable to:
> reformulate the problem setting
> innovate the problem solving
> think and act on a local and international scale
> focus on the goals of social responsibility and
economic sustainability through the planning of
several integrated design systems layers: strategy,
products, services, communication.
The educational research on social business consists
of a theoretical study (in presence and online), and a
field research, with direct empirical experience (linked to
Yunus Social Business Global Initiatives).
The educational and cultural areas, which have been
integrated in the master and adopt a totally innovative
approach, are:
> service and communication design for social issues
> design thinking methodologies
> economics for social business
> yunus social business movement.
The four phases of the Master program are:
> Kick off _ Milan and Dhaka
> Learning by studying _ Milan and Glasgow
> Learning by doing _ Brazil, India, Uganda
> Project & pitch _ Milan.
The Masters in Design 4 Social Business is an innovative
project; a human and professional training that focuses
on the individual, the community and the relationship
between Needs and Solutions.
In this process of active citizenship, that aims to
understand and address the global challenges of our
present and future, co-designing with stakeholders is
essential. The Master is then designed as a platform for:
> corporates, professionals, public authorities
> foundations and third sector institutions in general
> researchers’ and students’ resources
The master is held in English, full time, for the global
market, for students with various backgrounds and
competences.
The next edition of the Master in Design for Social
Business will take place in 2015.
Other Activities
In addition to this program, IED hosted a Social Business
Lab in 2010 in Barcelona and organized the Design for
Social Business Conferences in Milan in the same year.
During the two-day conference 60 leading international
experts from various design related and social business
related fields gathered in Milan to exchange ideas and
to further develop the concept of Design for Social
Business. Prior to the actual conference, another Social
Business Lab for students, faculty, designers and business
people was organized together with The Grameen
Creative Lab.

60
In 2011, the then called Design for Business conference
with a strong focus on social business took place in
Barcelona.
Field Trips to India and Colombia
As part of the first edition of the Master in Design for
Social Business, in 2010 The Grameen Creative Lab and
IED jointly organized two field trips for the students to
India and to Colombia to study social business directly on
the ground.
During the two-week trip to Colombia, the students
visited several social businesses that were incubated
by Grameen Caldas. They specifically worked with
a human centered design approach on the social
business Bienestar (now renamed to Bive), a healthcare
insurance provider for low-income families. Based on
their observations on site, they developed and designed a
service model and business model for Bienestar.
During the three-week trip to India, the D4SB students
investigated the sanitation situation in rural and urban
schools and identified opportunities for the design of
products and services related to sanitation in schools.
Both research projects were subject of their final thesis.
Photos by Chiara Esposito, D4SB Graduate, IED Milan,
2010

SOCIAL BUSINESS ACADEMIA REPORT 2014

SOCIAL BUSINESS ACADEMIA REPORT 2014

Recommandé

Recommandé

Contenu connexe

Tendances

Tendances (20)

En vedette

En vedette (18)

Similaire à SOCIAL BUSINESS ACADEMIA REPORT 2014

Similaire à SOCIAL BUSINESS ACADEMIA REPORT 2014 (20)

Plus de Misha Mironov

Plus de Misha Mironov (6)

Dernier

Dernier (20)

SOCIAL BUSINESS ACADEMIA REPORT 2014