Six more social business plans approved
Six social business plans were approved for funding at the 107th Social Business Design Lab organised by the Yunus Centre at the Grameen Bank auditorium in Dhaka on Saturday.
Four of the plans were Nobin Udyokta businesses, which were presented by young entrepreneurs coming from Grameen Bank borrowers' families, and the rest were guest projects.
The four plans are: Jannat Fabrics producing ladies clothing by Shilpy Akter, Parul Beauty Parlor providing skin care by Parul Akter, Mahamuda ladies corner selling cosmetics and boutiques, Nayan Departmental Store selling grocery items and a wide range of consumer goods.
One of the guest projects were on social business on sustainable coastal housing in Guatemala by Julio Linares from Guatemala.
The last project titled Photopreneurs was presented by Prito Reza and Shazeeb M Khairul Islam, which aims at creating photo entrepreneurs to combat unemployment.
Around 150 participants and observers, from national and international organisations with diverse background, attended the programme, including a large number of international participants, Yunus Centre said in a statement yesterday.
The Design Lab was chaired by Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus. He opened the lab with welcoming remarks to the audience, including those tuning in via live stream.
Yunus explained the process of the lab, to review and assess social business plans of entrepreneurs.
He reported that to date since January 2013, a total of 1,553 projects have been presented in the last 107 Design Labs of which 1,528 projects were approved for investment, and most of these are already in operation.
All details related to marketing and sustainability of the plans were also presented. There were several rounds of discussions on how each social business could be improved and strengthened during the main session as well as in breakout sessions. The projects will be reviewed in the upcoming labs, and through regular reports on Social Business Pedia.
The Nobel laureate also invited the participants to join the next Social Business Design Lab to be held on September 17.