Details about the Phase 2 Launch of YSEI (Youth Social Entrepreneurship Fund) and the associated forum on social entrepreneurship.

Title: GKP forum on Social Entrepreneurship: Empowering Youth through Entrepreneurship

Date: 22 April 2008

Description: Attend the GKP FORUM on Social Entrepreneurship to learn how Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP) is championing social innovation and entrepreneurship as powerful means to achieve equitable and sustainable socio-economic development through its Youth Social Enterprise Initiative (YSEI).

YSEI, a GKP Global Partnership Programme, helps combat youth unemployment and poverty by inspiring them to realise their entrepreneurial initiatives while simultaneously benefiting their communities.

This GKP Forum features The Tiger’s Lair which will see some of these young go-getters pitch to seasoned entrepreneurs and professionals for funding to support their business ideas, and the specially designed Talk Show: “Social Entrepreneurs Spearheading a Better Future!” offering great tips on the nurturing of a successful social enterprise.

The Forum is held in conjunction with the World Congress on Information Technologies 2008 (WCIT 2008) in Kuala Lumpur, 18-22 May 2008.

Don’t forget to meet the latest batch of YSEI Finalists during the Launch of the YSEI Fellowships 2008 at the GKP Pavilion in the KL Convention Centre, immediately after the Forum!

Contact Anthony David for more information or invitations.

Role Players

• Rinalia Abdul Rahim, Executive Director, Global Knowledge Partnership
• Mike Perreau*, Managing Director, Pi Management Ltd
• Kim Tan*, Founder Chairman of SpringHill Management Ltd
• Husni Salleh*, Chief Executive Officer, Malaysia Venture Capital Management Bhd (MAVCAP)
• Kwee Bee Chok*, Managing Director, Walden International, Malaysia
• Stephen Chia*, President, Technopreneurs Association of Malaysia / CEO, BizSurf Sdn Bhd
• Penny Low*, Member of Parliament for Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC, Singapore
• Scott L. Raymond*, Co-Author, Barefoot MBA, Standford Graduate School of Business, USA
• Vikram K. Akula*, CEO & Founder, SKS Microfinance Pvt. Ltd., India

“Enter the Tiger’s Lair: Social Entrepreneurs Pitch for Scale-up Funding”

9:00am, Mandarin Oriental

The Tiger’s Lair pits 4 entrepreneurs in a high-profiled contest to bid for funding to expand their social enterprises. The contestants are young social entrepreneurs based in developing countries, who believe in the viability of their enterprises, offering high potential for returns. Each will have a one-time opportunity to pitch their business plans to the ‘Tigers’ – a panel of 5 successful entrepreneurs and funders. The winner must pass the Tigers’ probe in order to be considered for funding, business advice, mentorship, and global networking opportunities.

Talk-Show: “Social Entrepreneurs Spearheading a Better Future!”

10:30am, Mandarin Oriental

This talk show will unravel the key to nurturing social entrepreneurs and enterprises: what is needed to be a social entrepreneur, what do social entrepreneurs need, where and how they can access funding and other types of support. An esteemed panel of experts, innovators and thought leaders, will share their wisdom, experience and creative insights - valuable advice to ‘young guns wanting to make it in life’. It will also explore how agile and innovative social entrepreneurs can benefit from such relationships, looking at opportunities and challenges from all sides and exploring issues such as innovation, finance, scale-up and mutual benefit. Don’t miss out on free advice!

YSEI Fellowships 2008 Launch

12:30pm, GKP Pavilion, Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre

This Forum will culminate with the Launch of the YSEI Fellowships 2008 at the GKP Pavilion at the WCIT 2008 Exhibition Area in the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre (KLCC) at 12:30pm. The YSEI Fellowships (www.ysei.org) recognises the potential of young social entrepreneurs in contributing to socio-economic growth. The Fellowships provide start-up support for young social entrepreneurs from developing countries to hone and nurture their innovative ideas. YSEI Fellowships 2008 will provide support for 20 Fellows with a seed funding totalling USD 100,000, on-site mentorship, essential development knowledge and tools on social entrepreneurship as well as access to diverse networks. Twenty candidates have been selected through an online competition for the Fellowships this year. Visit the GKP Pavilion to vote for your favourite YSEI Fellow and witness the official launch of YSEI Fellowship 2008!

You can still keep clicking freely and Euro .5 cents is donated every time (paid for by our sponsor UNISYS). You can now also outsource work to ICT ventures in developing communities. This is called social outsourcing.

What is Social Outsourcing?

Summary. Social outsourcing and Fair Trade in IT, by Dr. Richard Heeks

Small organizations and medium and large enterprises can work together in a mutual benefits model. IT outsourcing is a business model with a human face and a development agenda. The ever growing market of IT services allows businesses to subcontract enterprises based in communities and formed by marginalised groups. This model is already a reality, and it has been happening in three areas specifically: government outsourcing to civil organization, urban businesses outsourcing to rural enterprises, and IT fair trade, offshoring IT services with a developmental focus. More

For businesses

You can connect with a non-profit social enterprise like Digital Divide Data (DDD) in Cambodia and outsource your data entry and digitization work. DDD are a non-profit social venture that uses technology to improve lives of some of the world’s least developed nations. They are breaking new ground by bringing well-paid technology jobs to countries where they didn’t previously exist and to groups who struggle just to survive. When you outsource to DDD you have the satisfaction of knowing that 100% of your fee goes towards helping employ disadvantaged youth from their communities.

For telecentres and other social ventures using IT

You can join our online community and generate new business for your social business venture or telecentre. Members receive a free Blog on SolvePoverty and you will start to receive enquiris from businesses that want to outsource jobs to you such as data entry, websites, translations and other online web related work.

Having said that we will be offering this service internationally later this year as we do have Page One Rankings worldwide on several of our own sites for some extremely competitive keywords such as ‘Psychic’ and ‘Visas Australia’

20 workshop finalists will be selected to attend the upcoming YSEI Capacity Building workshop scheduled for May 2008 in Kuala Lumpur or Bangkok (we’re not sure yet). The deadline for submission is the 24th of Mar 2008.

The purpose of the Capacity Building workshop is to both identify the batch of YSEI Fellows 2008 and provide capacity building support to all the finalists participating. This would entail refining the workshop finalists business plans, conducting further due diligence and nurturing a network of young social entrepreneurs and mentors.

YSEI aims to invest in young visionaries who have big ideas and who need crucial startup support to turn their ideas into action. The following are characteristics of ventures we aim to invest in:

* Ventures are led by youth from developing countries aged between 20 to 35 years
* Innovative social ventures with blended values (creation economic, social and/or environmental value components)
* Information & communication technologies (ICTs) are recognized as an integral part of the venture/ solution-provided
* Ventures that are specifically designed to solve social or environmental problems

This round would only cover the Asia-region as YSEI is in the midst of exploring replication of the program with other partners in the other regions. The replication of the program is expected to happen in the near future. To apply, please complete the application online here.

Although we encourage you to complete the application online, if you encounter problems, please download the application form (YSEI application form 2008.doc) and submit it to apply@ysei.org

-The deadline for submissions is 24th Mar 2008.
-Workshop finalists results will be announced by the 7th April 2008.
-The applications will be judged based on the YSEI Program criteria.

We’ve also got our offices in Melbourne, Australia and Manila, Philippines fully operational and taking on new business rapidly so things are looking pretty good for the 08 year. We appreciate the feedback already. (and no that’s not Pierce Brosnan on our front page although we did ask him to do the photo shoot)

If you’ve been following our progress you may be aware that we successfully launched our social venture capital fund last year and provided the following start-up support for young social entrepreneurs to develop and test their innovative ideas.

Last year we supported 7 Youth Social Entrepreneur Projects across Asia with:

• Startup financing of USD$15,000
• Essential development knowledge & tools on social entrepreneurship
• Technical consulting through mentorship
• Access to diverse networks

We REALLY need volunteers To Coach Our Young YSEI Entrepreneurs in 2008!

If you have knowledge and skills you believe would be useful to youth led, social business ventures in developing communities then consider becoming a part time YSEI Mentor. Enter your details here

Mentoring is undertaken on a volunteer basis and carried out remotely via email, skype, instant messaging programs and the phone. Your commitment can be as little as 5 hours per year.

Make a big difference with your knowledge!

Mentor profile: Established professionals with specific expertise in various business areas such as management, business, marketing, microfinance, non profit, IT or entrepreneurship.

Objective: To assist the youth leaders of the YSEI projects reach their goals on-time and on-track.

Your commitment: Year-based, minimum commitment of 5 hours of mentoring per year

Please complete the application form here so we can match you up with one of the fellows. We are planning 15 projects in 2008

Benefits: In return for your assistance you will also receive your profile on:

www.YSEI.org
www.Futureshifters.net
www.SolvePoverty.com
www.OrphanIT.com

…….and be eligible to carry the title of ‘YSEI Mentor 2008′ fund

On almost any given day there are wild dolphins swimming in the waters that surround Cape Byron where you can encounter them closely in their natural habitat.

I use the Cape Byron walking track to get an great look at the waters below the cliffs where the dolphins can be found usually in small pods of 10-20 animals

Remember that these are special animals, and that care must be taken when approaching wild dolphins. They are an integral part of the ecology of Byron Bay, and particular regulations dictate how they must be respectfully approached. These charismatic animals were swimming right underneath my surfboard this morning.

OctiSphere 1.0 created at Bondi Icebergs Club 2003

I decided to revert to my diary for initial notes and the mud-map of what we were planning on our 08 projects and how they all fitted together. Now I understand you may think these sketches are the product of a deranged mind but they are in fact proof of concept. The first image is Octisphere1.0 which we mapped out at the Bondi Life Savers club in 2003.

7.am swell at The Pass - Byron Bay Jan 7th, 2008

Virtually every line, circle and unit in OctiSphere 1.0 became a reality. OK so it may not be clear to the layman but we did translate these initial diagrams into logical working mindmaps.

Anyway the process got me thinking again last week when we were planning out a supply chain for our outsourcing business and came up with another gem - Octisphere 2.0.

OctiSphere 2.0 created at Byron Bay Surf Life Saving
Club January 3nd 2008

I’d been working on a business plan for a new project we’re doing in The Philippines and was using the Palo Alto Business Planning software called The Social Enterprise Edition of Business Plan Pro . The problem was I’d just burnt through yet another lappy. Out came the pen and paper and Voila!

Anyway whilst pen and paper pretty much always work its handy to use the The Social Enterprise Edition of Business Plan Pro as it makes business planning simple and fast. We use this social business planning software literally every week in our telecentre consulting service.

It was developed by Palo Alto Software in partnership with the Social Enterprise Alliance specifically for nonprofit organizations as an easy-to-use blueprint for planning a successful earned income venture, or social enterprise.

Our team had input in the early stages of this program development as we had found that we needed a social business planning tool and I had just finished using their pro version for a commercial enterprise I was working on. The new product turned out to be perfect and we used it extensively last year on YSEI.org - our new Youth Social Fund.

Tutorials

PaloAlto even have some cool tutorials on YouTube

Its features include:

* Wizard task instructions tailored to earned income ventures
* Includes market analysis, strategy and implementation descriptions
* Produce an earned income sales forecast, personnel plan and financial statements
* Specific drop down examples for social enterprises
* Calculate your Social Return on Investment (SROI)
* New resources for developing and financing earned income strategies
* And more…

This is worth checking out if you are an NGO keen to scale. The Social Enterprise Edition of Business Plan Pro.