Last week, we celebrated our 10 year anniversary! For the first time in two years and two months of restricted travel due to COVID-19, YSB Co-Founder & Chairman Prof. Yunus was able to leave his home country of Bangladesh in order to join us in person.
We had the privilege of hearing from social business superheroes, including Nobel Peace Laureate Prof. Muhammad Yunus, former Danone CEO Emmanuel Faber, YSB Co-Founder & CEO Saskia Burysten, Google Cloud International President Adaire Fox-Martin, Deevabits Green Energy CEO David Wanjau, Sero Co-Founders Paulo Andres Londono and Rodrigo Londono and others. Here are some of the highlights:
Read more about the facts, figures and faces behind our journey in our 10 years annual report.
Discover our journey over the last 10 years in our video:
Missed the event? We've got you covered! Watch the livestream:
These have been difficult times for our portfolio companies. They are working hard to protect those they employ and serve. In India, Waste Ventures recycle plastic and improve the lives of waste pickers. As they are dependent on revenues from previous months to meet their expenses, the abrupt pause to their activities has made their ability to pay their workforce much more difficult.
Since 2016, our team in Colombia has been running an accelerator programme in collaboration with The Boston Consulting Group (BCG). The goal of the programme is to build the ecosystem around social business in Colombia and help those with a high potential to become ‘investment ready’.
Social entrepreneurs are incredibly busy people - but it’s important for them to take time out of the day-to-day to reflect and learn from each other. It’s not only fundamental to finance social entrepreneurs but to develop an eco-system where businesses focussed on impact are both supported and celebrated.
We have opened applications for our third cohort of the MAN Impact Accelerator and we are calling on European, African and Brazilian mobility and logistics social business startups!
This month we have completed the second program week of our third accelerator cycle in São Paulo focusing on customer development and impact. We were particularly excited to expand to an entirely new continent and increasing our global exposure by including more diversity in stops.
Is it possible for a fledgling social business to source to a large corporation? Sounds tough, but we know it can work! Corporations have so much to learn from social businesses about putting people and the planet first - and corporations are a great opportunity for a social business looking to scale. It can be the perfect combination. But it needs work.