News

Press Release

Bengaluru, India June 27, 2018

The Eighth Social Business Day will be launched for the first time in Bengaluru, India. The event is set to take place at Infosys Electronic City Campus in Bengaluru, India. This is the first time after the previous seven Social Business Days that this event is being held in India; all of the previous seven global annual celebrations of social business were held in Dhaka. This is the signature event of Yunus Centre which marks an annual celebration of social business with participation from social business practitioners, academicians and researchers, students, and enthusiasts from all over the world.  This year it is being held in India at the invitation of Mumbai-based Yunus Social Business India, which catalyses social business in India through capital and corporate action. Global IT company Infosys offered the conference facilities at its global headquarters, and INK,a platform for innovation operating at the intersection of science, technology, community and cultureprovided all the conference support to make it an exciting event.

The theme of Social Business Day 2018 is “A World of Three Zeros: Zero Poverty, Zero Unemployment, Zero Net Carbon Emissions”. The theme underscores Professor Yunus’s vision of creating a world where there will be no poverty, no unemployment and no environmental threats; a vision he shared with the world through his book “A World of Three Zeros”, which is based on practical examples that have been implemented in Bangladesh and around the world over 40 years. 

Nobel laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus will deliver the opening speech addressing the distinguished guests at the event.  Keynote Speeches will be delivered by Emmanuel Faber, global CEO, Danone, Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog, and Dr. Devi Prasad Shetty, Managing Director, Narayana Hrudayalaya. 

Over 1200 delegates from 42 countries have registered to participate at the event on Social Business Day. Dignitaries, prominent academics, and leading practitioners will be speaking at the various sessions on the event. Social Business Day 2018 is designed, like in previous years, to exchange experiences and ideas and also work on plans to create social businesses that tackle the most pressing problems of society. BNP Paribas, Tata Steel, Amity University, RoundGlass, Microcredit Initiative of Grameen (MIG) based in Kerala, Nishith Desai Associates extended their support to organise the event.

There will be a number of plenary sessions and panels.  Dr Achyuta Samanta, Founder, KIIT and KIIS, and member of upper house of Indian Parliament, Rahul Bose, prominent actor and activist, Laurent Dupont, global CEO of Peace and Sports, a sports association based in Monaco and supported by Prince Albert of Monaco, Manoj Kumar, CEO, Social Alpha and Trustee, Tata Institute for Genetics and Society, and Head of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Tata Trusts, Andrea Jung, President and CEO, Grameen America, Steve Hollingworth, President, Grameen Foundation, Maria Ligia Do Rosario Noronha, Director of Economy Division, UN, Nishith Desai, Founder of Nishith Desai Associates, Takuya Kawamura, President of Sunpower Corp and Co-CEO of Grameen Japan Sunpower Auto, ZarinaScrewvala, Founder and Director of Swades Foundation, Anil K Gupta, Founder of Sristi, Shankar Man Shrestha, Chairman at Centre for Self-help Development (CSD), Corazon Henares, Consultant at Negros Women for Tomorrow Foundation, Suraj Kumar, Chief Mentor of Neeti Foundation, K Paul Thomas, Founder and Director of ESAF Small Finance Bank, Rohtash Mal, Founder Chairman of EM3 AgriServices, ArunPatil, Vice Chancellor of Amity University Rajasthan, SusmitaMohanty, CEO of Earth2Orbit, and Yuka Kobayashi, CEO of Yunus Yoshimoto Social Action Company  and Lakshmi Pratury, Founder and CEO of INK are some of the notable speakers of the event where over 110 speakers are set to share their valuable thoughts and experiences. 

Plenary sessions will include Discussion on "A World of Three Zeros" moderated by Professor Yunus, "Science and Technology for Social Business", and "Past and Future of Microfinance as Social Business", "Corporates in Social Business", "Converting Unemployment into Entrepreneurship" and "Social Business and Sports"— a field that has been growing in the past two years. 

There will also be ten breakout sessions on the  topics of "Youth as the Driving Force behind Social Business", "Building a circular economy: water, plastic, and tire", "Agriculture and Social Business", "Access to health and nutrition through Social Business", "Harnessing creativity for solving social issues", "Role of corporate action tanks in easing corporate into Social Business", "Financing Social Business", "Discussion on Nobin Program (New Entrepreneurs)", "International replication of Social Business: lessons learned", and "Technology, innovation and Social Business". 

There will be 16 Pecha Kucha Sessions on exciting projects and programs of social business taking place from around the world. There will also be a series of announcements about new developments in the field of social business particularly the signing of new Yunus Social Business Centres (YSBC), a growing network of academic centres focused on social business around the world. Over 50 universities from leading countries have already created YSBCs to offer academic programmes on social business. 

There will also be 6 simultaneous country forums to give opportunities to the countries with large number of delegates to have exclusive conferences of their own to discuss their social business programmes in their respective countries and establish close contacts enabling participants to plan their social business actions in their own countries and regions. The following country forum are already planned: Bangladesh, India, Europe, a joint forum of Japan and Thailand, joint forum of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan and joint forum by Australia, Malaysia and Philippines. 

The second day’s programme will include Pre-conference on Social Business Academia 2018. The Pre-Conference is primarily for academics and researchers to network and exchange academic developments and mark the preparation for the Social Business Academia Conference to be held on November in Wolfsburg, Germany. It also serves to strengthen the Yunus Social Business Centres’ (YSBCs) which are already set up in universities around the world, creating a network consisting of 55 YSBCs across 28 countries. Several Vice-Chancellors and Pro Vice-Chancellors will attend the Social Business Day to participate in the Academia Pre-Conference. More than fifty research papers have already been submitted for presentation at the conference in Germany in November.

A comedy debate on the subject of social business will be presented by comedians from Australia. Social Business Day will come to close with closing remarks from Professor Muhammad Yunus.

For media information contact:

 
Bangladesh:

Nabila khan
+8801670884694
nabila@yunuscentre.org

 
India

Archana Shenoy

+91 9845445235

archana@inktalks.com

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