Category Archives: sustainable development

Prof. Yunus continues to speak on Social Business

Posted on July 30, 2008 | 1 comment

Prof. Yunus continued to speak about his vision of creating social businesses to help address some of the pressing issues facing us. He was hosted by the MIT-Bangladesh Students’ Association and Bhin-Golardho – a Bangla-centric group – during his visit to Boston.

He challenged the youth to start social businesses by saying. “I would like to say that while we at Grameen have done a few things, there are many causes that are waiting for you to take up”

You can read Ranjani Saigal’s write-up of his visit here on Lokvani

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Posted in micro-finance, Poverty, Social Business, Social Ecosystem, Social Entrepreneur, social Innovation, sustainable development

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The New Philanthropy – New models for Social Impact

Posted on July 27, 2008 | Leave a comment

I had a great time attending the conference to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of my alma mater, IIT Bombay. The event was well attended with over 800 attendees and very well organized. It was fun catching up with some of my classmates after 30 plus years!

I had the pleasure of moderating a wonderful panel on “The New Philanthropy – New models for Social Impact” with four great speakers presenting a wide range of activities that their different organizations pursue in the social sector.  The panelists were

  • Shari Berenbach, Executive Director, Calvert Foundation
  • Omer Imtiazuddin, Health Portfolio Manager, Acumen Fund
  • Lisa Nitze, Vice President, Entrepreneur 2 Entrepreneur Program, Ashoka Global
  • Linda Segre, Managing Director, Operations & Initiatives, Google.org

I have written a more in-depth article for Lokvani, but some of the key points were: Continue reading →

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Posted in Conference, Health, Information Technology, micro-finance, non-profit, Philanthropy, Poverty, Rural Development, Social Business, Social Ecosystem, Social Entrepreneur, social Innovation, sustainable development, venture philanthropy

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Boston Globe interview with Prof. Yunus

Posted on July 27, 2008 | 1 comment

Follow up to my post on Prof. Muhammad Yunus, Social Business and the Future of Capitalism. The Boston Globe published an interesting interview with Prof. Yunus while he was in Boston to speak at the MIT commencement. I have excerpted one of the questions below. You can find the rest of the interview in their article online at A really unconventional lender

You have a different view of how capitalism should work. How do you think capitalism should be reformed?

Capitalism is very narrowly defined in the way we practice it. You ignore everything else but money making. And by ignoring the other parts of human beings – concern for other people, concern about the planet, willingness to make a difference in the world – we’ve created a distortion. So I’m suggesting there’s not one type of business model, but two types. One takes care of making money, which can lead to happiness. The other happiness comes from the other type of business, which is to do good to other people. You cover your costs – it’s not charity. Charity money has only one life – once you use it, it goes. Use the money in a social business, then it has an endless life. It’s recycled. It never disappears.

Read the rest of the interview here.

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Posted in micro-finance, Poverty, Social Business, Social Ecosystem, Social Entrepreneur, social Innovation, sustainable development

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Prof. Muhammad Yunus, Social Business and the Future of Capitalism

Posted on July 11, 2008 | 2 comments

Earlier this year, Nobel laureate Prof. Muhammad Yunus was the invited guest speaker at MIT’s 142nd commencement. In his prepared remarks to the students he outlined how he started microcredit thirty plus years ago from a simple desire to free villagers near his university in Chittagong from the penalizing interest that they paid to moneylenders.

Today his organization, Grameen Bank, has grown to cover 7.5 million borrowers in Bangladesh, 97 percent of them women. From this beginning he has expanded to provide services and products in a number of areas ranging from health insurance, to affordable cell phone service with Grameen Phone to renewable energy solutions through Grameen Shakti.

Drawing from his successes with these businesses, Prof. Yunus has refined an overarching social business philosophy that he recently published in his latest book “Creating a World Without Poverty – Social Business and the Future of Capitalism“. Continue reading →

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Posted in micro-finance, non-profit, Social Business, Social Ecosystem, Social Entrepreneur, social Innovation, sustainable development

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Forum for Social Entrepreneurs: ForSE 2008

Posted on July 5, 2008 | Leave a comment

In 2007, I helped found an annual conference on Social Entrepreneurship in partnership with Boston University called the Forum for Social Entrepreneurship or ForSE for short.

We founded the Forum for Social Entrepreneurs (ForSE):

  • To bring together social innovators with leading business professionals, investors, donors, government officials, academics, and students
  • To facilitate the sharing of new technology and business ideas along with hard-earned management learnings
  • To foster informed discussion and action on new social venture concepts.

We feel no place is better suited to host such a conference than Boston. Boston is a center for a new breed of social entrepreneur. It is home to nearly a fifth of the Fast Company Social Capitalist awardees as well as dozens of pioneering social enterprise investors. Continue reading →

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Posted in Conference, Health, Micro-enterprises, micro-finance, Social Ecosystem, Social Entrepreneur, social Innovation, sustainable development

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