Social Business Academia Forum 2022 held in Turin Italy

The Social Business Academia Forum was jointly hosted by Yunus Centre and the University of Turin, Italy on the 7^th of November 2022 with the support of the YY Foundation and Grameen Creative Lab. 

The Academia Forum took place on the sidelines of the Global Social Business Summit on the Campus Luigi Einaudi campus of the University. The University is one of the oldest universities in Italy ranked in the top five among Italian universities with 81,000 students playing an important role in research and training.  The forum brought together academics, representatives from Yunus Social Business Centres from universities and Yunus Social Business Centres, social business practitioners, faculty and students of University of Turin.

Professor Yunus opened the forum, welcoming this gathering in person of the academics after three years of the pandemic and mentioned that it  which has become a regular part of our global events --- Social Business Day and the Global Social Business Summit. Professor Muhammad Yunus called on the academic community to bring social business into the mainstream of university education also give the young people the choice between become an entrepreneur and job creator instead of traditional path of job seeking that conventional education puts young people on. He emphasized the critical role that the education system has to play to in overhauling our current system that has put the entire future of humanity at risk with the destruction of the environment and raising the global temperatures to unsustainable levels. 

The opening session was also addressed by Professor Cam Donaldson, Yunus Chair & Distinguished Professor of Health Economics,  Glasgow Caledonian University who is the chair of the Social Business Academia Conference and reviewed the development of the social business academia conference and forum. It was also addressed by  Professor Egidio Dansero, Vice Rector for Sustainability and Cooperation, University of Turin, Hans Reitz, Founder, Grameen Creative Lab and Lamiya Morshed from Yunus Centre.

Professor Paolo Biancone, Joselle Dagnes, Anna Cugno of the University of Turin highlighted the various academic programs of the university and announced  their plan to set up an inter-departmental YSBC at their campus with the support of City of Turin and other stakeholders which are already committed and working in the sphere of social business.

The first panel session highlighted social business research collaboration and paper publications. Dr.Enrico Testi, Director ARCO Action Research for co-development and Yunus Social Business Centre University of Florence, Italy moderated the session with notable speakers such as Andrea Balletbò, Yunus Social Business Network Barcelona,Spain, Professor Abdul Hannan Chowdhury, Professor ,School of Business and Economics(SBE),North South University, Bangladesh, Dr. Jonas Dzinekou Yawovi, Director of the Institute of Social Transformation,Tangaza University College, Kenya and Dr. Michael Wirtz, Cologne, Germany. The panel suggested the need to tap into the already available high quality technical and human resources that are available in the global south which are not effectively utilized due to a lack of funding and stewardship.

The second panel focused on the future plans of the Yunus Social Business Centre Network. The speaker panel constituted of Professor Elisabetta Righini, Professor of Commercial Law and of Law of commerce and Financial markets, University of Urbino Carlo Bo,Italy, Professor Giuseppe Torluccio, Professor in Financial Intermediation, Department of Management – University of Bologna, Italy, Professor Frederico Fezas Vital, Professor of Social Entrepreneurship, Executive Director at Católica-Lisbon Yunus Social Innovation Center, Portugal and Paola Sammogia,Composer,Italy. The panel highlighted the significance of cross sectoral research, bringing in people from various discipline to enrich the depth and reach of academic papers in the long run.

Yunus Centre's  “Social Business Academic Research Initiative in East Africa” was also officially launched at the Forum by Dr Cam Donaldson who chairs Research Advisory Committee for the intiative, Yunus Centre and YY Foundation where capacity building programs on academic research will be designed and implemented with partnering East African universities from the coming year.

Lamiya Morshed of Yunus Centre closed off the session   with a vote of thanks to the University of Turin, Yunus Centre, Grameen Creative Lab, the speakers and participants for the event. Nearly 200 participants attended the three hour forum. 

Photo Album of the event