437th Social Business Design Lab Held: Over 100 Crore Invested: Chang Jung Christian University in Taiwan to Establish Yunus Social Business Centre
Yunus Centre Press Release (19 December 2016):
The 437th Social Business Design Lab organized by Yunus Centre took place on 19th December 2016 at the Grameen Bank Auditorium with nearly 140 national and international participants from Afghanistan, Brazil, Austria and Italy. The Design Lab was chaired by Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus.
Six new Nobin Udyokta (New Entrepreneur) business plans were presented at today's Lab. All Nobin Udyokta businesses, presented at the Design Lab are the children of Grameen Bank borrowers’ families. The business plans included an agricultural lemon farming project, retail ready made clothing store, ICT venture and agri-tool manufacturing, like paddy thashing machine.
Ms. Rabeya Begum (Sima), a mother of two, presented her business expansion plan for Village Multimedia. Being considered as an enterprising and entrepreneurial role model for young women in the area, Ms. Rabeya has established herself as an independent ICT entrepreneur. She wants to scale up her business and provide more technology related services besides the basic ones like printing, typing, scanning, internet browsing to the people of the area.
One New Entrepreneur, Mr Tarek has taken agriculture as his profession and he does it with affection. He knows modern techniques of farming of lemon and set up a mini Lemon Orchard where he cultivates different varieties of lemon. He wants to scale up his orchard Tarek Lebu Baganto new height with an equity investment from social business fund. Md. Nazmul Haque Chowdhury presented his plan to expand his retail ready made clothing store Ona Fashion. Md. Faysal Hossain, who is an expert in making different types of paper bags, wants investment into hisM/S Rabbi Traders to become an entrepreneur.
One Md. Abdul Malek presented his plan for Mahiya Garments at the lab. Mr Abdul Malek produces clothing ranges with unique styles at his backyard factory and is confident in his expertise to expand profitably if granted investment. Md. Ariful Islam presented his business plan for producing cost effective mechanical paddy thresher tools. He applied for investment for his venture Shafiqul Cycle Store (Paddy Thresher Manufacturer). The plans aimed to generate new employments after getting equity investments.
All business plans were presented and discussed in detail. Those were then presented in groups for further review. All projects were approved for funding by their groups. The projects are joint ventures with social business funds and their progress will be monitored onwww.socialbusinesspedia.com .
Since the Labs began in January 2013, over 10,899 projects have been presented in the last 436 Lab programs, of which 10,874 have been approved for equity funding investments ranging from taka one lakh to five lakh for Nobin Udyokta projects.
An MoU was also signed at the Design Lab between Yunus Centre and Chang Jung Christian University in Taiwan to establish Yunus Social Business Centre (YSBC) for the promotion of social business concept. Yung-Lung Lee, President of Chang Jung Christian University and Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus signed the MoU on behalf of their respective organizations. Present during the signing were also Philippa Tsai and Juno Wang of Foundation for Yunus Social Business Taiwan. With this new Centre, total number of YSBCs across the world now stands 32.
Professor Yunus thanked the participants and invited them to join next Social Business Design Lab which will take place on January 12, 2017.
Photo Caption - 1: New Entrepreneurs (NU), whose business plans are approved for equity investment by social business funds during 437th Social Business Design Lab, are seen with Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus. The 437th Social Business Design Lab organized by Yunus Centre took place on 19th December 2016 at the Grameen Bank Auditorium.
Photo Caption - 2: Participants of the 437th Social Business Design Lab are seen with the Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus. The 437th Social Business Design Lab organized by Yunus Centre took place today on 19th December 2016 at the Grameen Bank Auditorium.
Source: Yunus Centre
Updated Date: 23rd January, 2017