Amidst the COVID-19 Crisis, MBA Students Go Online to Support Our Social Businesses in India

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We are always looking to support our social business initiatives across the globe. The most recent example has been the support of the International Investment Fund (IIF) at the University of Michigan – Ross School of Business. The IIF is a student-led investment fund led by MBA students at UM-Ross, aiming to support early-stage social businesses in emerging economies. Starting its journey of investments with India, the fund worked with Yunus Social Business to understand the social business landscape and build ecosystem relationships and a pipeline.

Yunus Social Business also helped the fund managers gain first-hand exposure working with social businesses in India by originating long-term projects at its portfolio companies. While these projects provided the much-needed experiential learning opportunities to students, it helped the companies get the benefit of the top MBA talent.

The students worked on four projects with two companies – SMV Green and Waste Ventures India – for four months. The companies had the benefit of the students’ experience and skills in Financial modelling, marketing strategy, and CRM development.

“The Capacity Building projects for IIF that were coordinated with YSB were extremely educational and helped participants hone various skills, as well as build their understanding of SMEs in India, and the challenges they face”

– Rohan Kalra (MBA Class of 2021, University of Michigan – Ross School of Business)

“Our partnership with YSB enabled us to work directly with outstanding SMEs to solve real business problems. The opportunity to get to know and support the awesome entrepreneurs was a wonderful bonus.”

– Douglas Ely (MBA Class of 2021, University of Michigan – Ross School of Business)

Unfortunately, due to COVID-19, students couldn’t fly to India to meet the companies, but they wrapped up their final presentations in the last week of April.

YSB is a supporter of student-led initiatives across the globe and truly believes in mobilising youth to achieve ‘a world of three zeroes’.