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On June 28, 2018, the curtain has been raised for the eighth Social Business Day 2018 in Bengaluru, India at Infosys Electronic City Campus. The signature event of the Yunus Centre, which held all its seven previous celebrations in Dhaka, Bangladesh, marked the annual global celebration of social business for the year 2018 through the headship of Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus.

The celebration began with a special Assamese song performance by celebrated singer, Joy Barua. Following the performance, Lamiya Morshed, Executive Director, Yunus Centre, Aarti Wig, Co-founder, Yunus Social Business India, and Lakshmi Pratury, Founder and CEO, INK welcomed everyone to the Social Business Day, respectively. Social Business Day 2018 is being organized by the Yunus Centre and Yunus Social Business India with support from INK and Infosys. The theme of the event this year is “A World of Three Zeros” which is based on Professor Yunus’s vision of a world with zero poverty, zero unemployment, and zero net carbon emissions.

Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus, whose 7-principles of social business leads the social business movement, delivered the opening speech where he addressed the distinguished guests of academicians, practitioners, policy makers, students, and social business enthusiasts. Professor Yunus emphasized on the risks of wealth concentration, how it has become ticking time-bomb. He said economic theory has fitted us with glasses with dollar signs. They do not let us see the world of people. He says we need bi-focal glasses which will have dollar sign as well as global sign. We can create social businesses to solve the problem wealth concentration. He elaborated how social businesses can help achieve a world of three zeros. “No problem is beyond human capacity and social businesses are like miracle seeds. Once can create it we can change the world.

The objective of Social  business  day is to bring the social business family together, share our concerns, connect on our common goals, and get our batteries charged to go back to work with full speed.   Professor Yunus inspired the audience to drive social change by individual initiative.  Emmanuel Faber, CEO, Danone and Dr. Devi Prasad Shetty, Managing Director, Narayana Hrudayalaya made keynote speeches where they both emphasized on the impact social business has had globally.

The Day 1 of the 2-day celebration has shed light on these multiple areas where social business has contributed to and has prospects of further growth. In this regard, three plenary sessions were held on the themes “A World of Three Zeros”, “Science and Technology for Social Business”, and “Past and Future of Microfinance as Social Business”. The sessions were led by leading academicians and prominent practitioners in the field of social business including Manoj Kumar, Co-Founder and CEO, Social Alpha, Steve Hollingworth, President and CEO, Grameen Foundation, Cam Donaldson, Pro Vice Chancellor, Yunus Chair in Social Business and Health, Glasgow Caledonian University, Dr. Muhammad Ibrahim, Professor and Head, General Education Department, ULAB University, Masahiro Kan, Former Executive Director for Japan, World Bank, Andrea Jung, President and CEO, Grameen America, K Paul Thomas, Managing Director and CEO, ESAF Small Finance Bank, Ratan Kumar Nag, Former Managing Director, Grameen Bank among others.

Ten panel sessions took place where the participants engaged in a more intensive discussion around their respective themes that ranged from “Financing Social Business” to “Harnessing Creativity for Solving Social Issues”. Six Yunus Social Business Centre (YSBC) collaborations were announced taking the tally to 56 YSBCs in 28 countries for the Yunus Centre. Amity University Rajasthan, Amity University Hariyana, Ashoka University, AIMS Institutes, National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology are the latest additions to the YSBC network. The day further held 8 Pecha Kucha presentations on novel projects and organisations on and around social business that included Global Social Business Summit 2018, Mega Project: Construction of Health Care Infrastructure, Introduction to Grameen China, Danone Communities Social Business, Grain of Sand, Yunus Yoshimoto Social Action Company, INK, Yunus Social Business India.  

Special video greetings were sent by  Thomas Bach, President, International Olympic Committee, the women clients of Grameen China and Dr. Aseem K Chauhan, Chancellor, Amity University, India. Day 1 of Social Business Day also had a special “Announcement” segment where latest enterprising efforts around social business were featured which included announcing the International Journal of Social Business, Consultative Committee on Global Initiative for Tire Recycling, Youth4SDG Social Business Challenge, Banker to the Poor: Kannada Version and announcing winners of SBYA Champ. The day ended with a comedy debate titled “Social business is a completely crazy idea” leading the day towards light and fun closure.  The celebration will continue to a day 2, with further plenaries lined up, along with Country Forums, and the Pre-Conference on Social Business Academia 2018.