News

2000 Local & Global Participants and Panelists to Deliberate on Wealth Concentration

The 7th annual Social Business Day, organized by Yunus Centre, will be held on July 28- 29, 2017. This year’s theme will be “Can Wealth Concentration be Stopped” and will be held at Samajik Convention Centre in Zirabo, Savar, Dhaka. This is a newly built 2000 seat convention centre which will be operated as social business. Social Business Day (SBD) is a platform for sharing experiences in the emerging sector of social business for solving persistent social and economic problems around the world.

The annual event is aimed at bringing social business entrepreneurs from around the world to discuss, debate and exchange ideas. This year’s event will primarily focus on wealth concentration and to look for ways to narrow the widening wealth gap and innovative ways to achieve that.

Two-Day Event:
This two-day event will incorporate panel discussions amongst distinguished social business activists. Participants will hear first-hand accounts about the experiences of and the hurdles and challenges faced by Social Business entrepreneurs around the world.

Distinguished Speakers:
The event will be inaugurated by Nobel Peace Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus and will feature more than 2,000 guests and participants including 500 international participants representing over 36 countries. Mr. Thomas Gass, Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations, the focal point of UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) will deliver the keynote speech. Notable other speakers will include Mr. Joël Bouzou, President of the World Olympians Association, representing Thomas Bach, the President of International Olympic Committee (IOC), Keith Tuffley, CEO, The B Team, Switzerland, an association of top business leaders of the world looking for ways to make businesses people and planet focused, Jacques Berger, Managing Director, Action Tank Entreprise et Pauvreté, a formal association of a dozen top multi-national companies of France dedicated to creating parallel business as social business along with conventional business, Dato' Charon Mokhzani, representative of Tan Sri Dato' Azman Mokhtar, Managing Director of Khazanah Nasional Berhad, the Malaysian government owned multibillion dollar investment fund, Hon. Mr. Matin Karimli, Deputy Minister of Labour & Social Protection, Azerbaijan, Shankar Venkateswaran – CEO, TATA Sustainability Group, based in India, Rangu Salgame, Chairman & CEO of Princeton Growth Ventures, New York, Rahul Bose, Mumbai based Bengali Actor and film director, Mr. Bei Duoguang, Director, China Academy for Financial Inclusion, Mr. Wang Zhenyao, Director, China Philanthropy Research Institute, Anil Kumar Gupta, Padma Shri awardee of India, founder of the Honey Bee Network and professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, Nicolas Hazard, Chairman, Le Comptoir de l’Innovation, a socially motivated multibillion dollar French investment fund that works in France and 16 different countries, David Landers, General Manager, East Asian Growth Markets at Australian Trade Commission, Professor Achyuta Samanta, founder of Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT), India, Mr. Richard St-Pierre, President, C2 Montréal, a major global event management company based in Canada. Mayor of Paris, Director General of FAO, Director of UNEP are sending their representatives at the event. Vice Chancellors of three universities from Mexico, India and Zimbabwe Viz Dr. Juan Manuel Ocegueda Hernández, UABC, Mexicali, Baja California, México, Prof. Rajinder Singh Bawa, Chandigarh University, Punjab, India, Professor Ranga Zinyemba , Catholic University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe are also attending the event.

Plenary & Panel Sessions:
There will be three main plenary discussions including one on wealth concentration, one on corporates creating social business as parallel businesses and one social business in sports. In addition there will also be discussions in different panel sessions to highlight issues such as “How to find and work with joint venture partners?,’ “Social Business replication”, “What can I do to mobilize energy behind social business in my country?” and “Social Business for Physically challenged people” among others. There will be 15 panel discussions in  two days.

Country Forum:
There will be 9 country forums where social business practitioners, investors and enthusiasts will deliberate on the state of social business in their respective countries. The countries which will hold separate Country Forums are Bangladesh, China, Malaysia, Japan, India, Australia New Zealand and Pacific, Thailand, Europe and Latin America.

Market Place:
There will be a social business marketplace which will offer greater networking opportunities. The marketplace will showcase the products and programs of social business working in Bangladesh and various countries of Asia, Europe and Latin America. ‘New Entrepreneurs’, the programme which helps unemployed youth to become independent entrepreneurs, will also bring their products at the market place.

Social Business Academia Pre-Conference
On July 30, another conference will be held on social business. This will be the Pre-Conference of Social Business Academia Conference, of which the final conference will be held in Paris on November 8, 2017. Professors, students, researchers from universities around the world, most of which have established Yunus Social Business Centres (YSBC), will discuss academic issues relating theory and practice of social business.

(A list of universities which have established Yunus Social Business Centres is appended herewith)