Social Entrepreneurship: Experiences from Around the World

In 2006, Professor Muhmmad Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize for empowering millions of people to lift themselves out of poverty in Bangladesh. He defines a Social-Business (or social entrepreneurship) as a “non-dividend company created to solve a human problem”. Since then social entrepreneurship has impacted the lives of tens of millions of people around the world, and has been replicated at large companies like Intel, Toyota, Uniqlo, BASF, and many others.

Are you interested in making a positive impact on society while running a successful business? Do you want to learn from experts on the field who have successfully merged purpose and profit? If so, we invite you to our upcoming virtual entrepreneurship event.

Participants will learn more about how to use sustainable business models to make impact directly from experts and entrepreneurs who have been working on the field enabling a positive transformation in our world.

They will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of social entrepreneurship models to create positive long lasting impact in our communities and the environment. You’ll learn where to start, how to grow your impact, what kind of model is best for you and your company, as well as best practices applied in different parts of the world.

FEATURING

Moderator

Andrés Parraguirre
Founder, Foundation for the Global Benefit

Andrés Parraguirre, Founder and Director of Operations at the Foundation for the Global Benefit, believes that everyone can contribute to making the world a better place. In the last 10 years as a changemaker, his projects and initiatives have supported more than 5,000 people, mostly in Mexico, and Asia-Pacific. Serving in diverse trainings, workshops, conferences, consulting, and advising roles, Andrés is avid to support leaders to achieve their most desired visions for social good. He has focused on social innovation capacity building in all sectors with a focus on entrepreneurial development, personal leadership development, sustainable development, people-centered design, and liberating structures. In a nutshell: how to advance the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals indicators through Yunus Social Businesses. In addition, he has started and committed different projects, and participated in different programs worldwide, in Mexico, Chile, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Thailand, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, and now Vietnam. Andrés has held leadership positions in the private, academic, and non-profit sectors; and he is also affiliated with more than 10 international networks and communities in the context of sustainability, development, and social empowerment. Now in Mexico, he is dedicated to applying what he has learned and contributing to his country to work with the problems of inequality and poverty that we currently face.

Panel

Dr. Mai Thai
Director, Social Business Creation, HEC Montreal, Canada

Associate Professor Mai Thi Thanh Thai is the founder and Director of Social Business Creation that uses gamification to teach university students social entrepreneurship and social business models that use market mechanisms to solve social issues. At HEC Montreal, she teaches social entrepreneurship, new venture creation, strategies in emerging markets, and qualitative methods. Her research focuses on the link between entrepreneurship and its socioeconomic, cultural, and political contexts. She was the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Small Business and Entrepreneurship from 2015 to 2020, during which the journal experienced unprecedented growth in terms of full-text downloads, manuscript submissions, and journal rankings. She has published over 50 articles in peer-reviewed prestigious journals, contributed several book chapters, edited two books, and made presentations at numerous academic conferences. She is a lifetime member of the Beta Gamma Sigma AACSB-Honor Society. Mai Thai has won many local and international awards for her performance and commitment in her different roles as a researcher, teacher, and entrepreneur throughout her career. 

Yaniz Valadez
Founder, The Economy of Pope Francesco, Monterrey Chapter
Founder, Experiential Innovation Consulting
Founder IDASE (I Design as a Social Entrepreneur)
Coordinator, Yunus Center, UDEM, Mexico. 

Yanniz Valadez Cortés, is an industrial designer, creative innovator and social entrepreneur. Born at Monterrey, Nuevo León, México. She is a creative, doer, passionate of economical, sustainable and social impact. On the past ten years she has work on the development of social impact projects. Founder of the social enterprise IDASE “I Design as a Social Entrepreneur” that conducts a program of experiential learning for young students of low income schools through design workshops, leadership, empowerment and social responsibility to strengthen the sense of ownership with the students to their schools. A creative innovator consultant where design tools help improve engagement on enterprises and social enterprises through disruptive innovation strategies. Coordinates the Yunus Innovation Pathway Center at the University of Monterrey seeking to create and impulse social businesses, following the philosophy of Professor Yunus, to alleviate poverty through the creation of social businesses. Committed to her community to improve social change through creativity and leadership skills.