Entrepreneurship is the order of the day. And in order to lend support to budding entrepreneurs — who want to apply their business skills to critical social and environmental issues — the 10th anniversary of the Global Social Venture Competition (GSVC) was recently held at University of California (Berkeley), US.
This year, more than 300 plans were submitted from more than 100 universities in 23 countries. The business plans ranged from solar-powered pasteurisation for rural areas to solutions to counterfeit drugs to youth employment services. Nearly half of the plans were healthcare related.
Started by five Berkeley MBA students in 1999, the competition has grown into a global partnership with Columbia Business School, London Business School, Indian School of Business and Thammasat University (Thailand). The competition’s primary goal is educational and it has helped leaders in social entrepreneurship fine-tune the metrics for social impact evaluation.
Fifteen teams of budding entrepreneurs from around the world pitched business ideas with a positive social or environmental impact at the finals. This year’s finalists were from France, India, Indonesia, Mali, New Zealand, Thailand, UK and US.
Three Indian teams were at Berkeley for the final competition. Two competed for the grand prize of $25,000, and one from ISB competed for the best Social Impact Assessment Prize.
The winner of 2009 GSVC was EcoFaeBrick (EFB), Praseitya Mulya Business School, Indonesia. EFB, in conjunction with Faerumnesia, produces high quality and low price bricks by utilising the abundant cow dung in Godean and Sayegan. EFB builds a sustainable market demand to ensure an interesting financial return to investors through its business model, which involves housing developers, NGOs and local communities through cooperative unions.
The winner of the best social impact assessment was Click the Clam, University of Auckland, New Zealand. What won them the prize was an innovative game created to teach children on the autistic spectrum to recognise emotions.
