 Featured News
You are currently viewing our Social Entrepreneur Corps "Featured News", which includes only our most recent items. To learn more about past news items that have been featured, Please visit our "Featured News Archive" by clicking here.
 July 30, 2010: Social Entrepreneur Corps' sister organization, "Soluciones Comunitarias", has been selected as 1 of 12 finalists in the Ashoka Changemakers' "Leveraging Business for Social Change" competition and needs your vote!
Voting begins today in the Leveraging Business for Social Change: Building the Field of Social Business competition, which aims to find the best social business models for developing markets that benefit low-income individuals in areas such as nutrition, housing, education, healthcare, insurance, energy, and small-scale agriculture. More than 440 creative ideas that demonstrate how to build this new field were submitted for the competition, sponsored by Ashoka’s Changemakers and Artemisia.
A distinguished panel of four judges selected 12 finalists whose proposals serve vulnerable and low-income communities by delivering critical goods and services to improve their lives and lift themselves out of poverty. The field of social business is an emerging, new culture that harnesses smart business techniques for building financially viable social ventures with the potential to grow and achieve huge impact.
“We know that social businesses are a new breed,” said Kelly Michel, founder of Artemisia and one of the judges. “The entrants showed us creative ways to apply market forces for social benefit. They can offer more inclusive participation in ownership, management, and profit distribution, while pioneering new forms of business transparency, and pricing that prioritizes affordability. Ultimately, these businesses give community members opportunities for income generation, personal development, and engagement all along an initiative’s value chain."
“This Leveraging Business for Social Change competition demonstrates how an online community can connect the resources, insights, and skills of social business entrepreneurs, investors, workers, consumers, business specialists, and other entrepreneurs,” said Sushmita Ghosh, founder of Changemakers and Ashoka's president emeritus. “It elevates leading social business models that will help build this new field, including a network of solar energy dealers in Rwanda who both market and provide after-sales support, allowing for rapid scaling and growth while maintaining low overheads; street food vending of healthy foods in Indonesia that are high in micro nutrients, and are locally produced without preservatives or additives; and a microconsignment model of community enterprise in Guatemala that provides an alternative to microloans.”
To download the offical Ashoka press release for the competition please click here
To vote for "Soluciones Comunitarias" please click here
To learn more about Ashoka Changemakers or Artemisia please click on the organization
 July 29, 2010: Social Entrepreneur Corps Co-Founder, Greg Van Kirk, Invited to Join Ashoka Social Business Development Group
Greg Van Kirk has recently been invited to join a select number of global Ashoka Fellows in the Social Business Development Group (SBDG) as part of new global program called "Technology for Human Needs." A collaboration between Siemens Stiftung and Ashoka, SBDG is comprised of Ashoka Fellows working in community empowerment through the use of humanized technologies in developing countries.
To learn more about this initiative please click here...
 July 23, 2010:Social Entrepreneur Corps Co Founder, Greg Van Kirk, Invited to Participate in Clinton Global Initiative 2010!
In recognition of the work of Community Enterprise Solutions and Social Entrepreneur Corps, Greg Van Kirk has been invited to attend the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) in New York City.
CGI was created by President Clinton in 2005 in an effort to translate ideas into action. The Annual Meeting brings together heads of state, government and business leaders, scholars, and NGO directors. Participants analyze pressing global challenges, discuss the most effective solutions, and build lasting partnerships that enable them to create positive social change.
For more information about the Clinton Global Initiative please click here...
 May 19, 2010: Social Entrepreneur Corps working with the University of Pennsylvania Microfinance Club to develop our village microcredit/savings initiative, CrediCapaz
This initiative has been in the research stage since last summer, when Social Entrepreneur Corps interns investigated implementation models and made recommendations to Social Entrepreneur Corps leadership. We have now partnered with the Microfinance Club at Penn to further explore options for the initiative. They have created a proposal based on the work of last year's interns which will be tested this summer by our 2010 interns.
The CrediCapaz initiative seeks to to create and support informal and formal groups form of saving-based community banks so that they can create a new or additional financing and counseling mechanism to generate family income. CrediCapaz hopes to encourage the habit of saving and building a safe, easily available financial cushion to soften the blow of life’s unexpected emergencies -- a habit extremely valuable to the poor in improving their economic condition.
 March 18, 2010: Social Entrepreneur Corps at the Social Enterprise Symposium at the University of Maryland
Co Founder Greg Van Kirk will be speaking at the Robert H. Smith School of Business' Social Enterprise Symposium at the University of Maryland on Thursday March 25th.
He will be participating in the "Global Patent" panel, which "highlights entrepreneurs who are developing products and services geared towards developing countries and to introduce students to the idea of using everyday, relatively simple technology in innovative ways to change people's lives."
For more information on the symposium and how to get involved, visit http://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/ses/.
 April 16-18, 2010: Social Entrepreneur Corps at the Clinton Global Initiative - University
Co Founder, George Bucky Glickley, had the opportunity to represent Social Entrepreneur Corps at the 2010 CGI -U conference in Miami. The third annual CGI U meeting brought together students, university presidents, and national youth organizations to create and implement Commitments to Action across five Global Challenge Areas : Education, Environment & Climate Change, Peace & Human Rights, Poverty Alleviation, and Public Health.
The CGI U 2010 meeting was arranged around plenary sessions, working sessions, and skill sessions, all of which allow members to interact with one another and formulate commitments and productive partnerships. Whether discussing the education of marginalized populations or the worldwide struggle against infectious diseases, each session was informed by university leaders, student activists, heads of leading NGOs, topic experts, and others who have created positive change in the global community. Social Entrepreneur Corps was also invited to participate in CGI U Exchange, an exhibition allowing meeting attendees to learn more about the commitments and organizations present at the CGI U Meeting.
Click here to l earn more about the Clinton Global Initiative -University
Back to top>>>
|
