Social business summit starts in Mexico

The Global Social Business Summit began in Mexico City yesterday aiming to create and spread a movement in Latin America and the rest of the world riding on the business theory of Bangladeshi anti-poverty activist Muhammad Yunus.
The motto of this year's summit is shaping social business to shape the world of 2020.
This year's gathering, the sixth edition, will be a four-day programme that began with a research conference in the Mexican capital. On Wednesday, a meeting of young challengers will take place.
The main summit will open on November 27 with the inaugural speech by Prof Yunus and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto.
The annual event organised by Grameen Creative Lab and Yunus Centre gathers experts from the private sector, civil society, governments and academia over a few days of meetings, forums and
workshops.
The summit is the leading forum for social business worldwide. It serves to spread awareness on social business, foster discussion and collaboration, as well as present and conceive best practices.

The gathering is an opportunity to meet, connect, discuss and collaborate with the global social business community with the purpose of developing effective solutions to solve society's most pressing problems, for example, unemployment.
This will be a timely event to discuss innovative ways to fight social and economic problems through social business, organisers said. Participants will hear first-hand accounts from representatives of social business organisations from Bangladesh and around the world who have been working in the field.  
They will also take part in social business exhibition to network around innovative ideas, businesses and people that are creating affirmative social changes using business as a tool.
The programme also includes plenary and focus group discussions. Major themes of plenary session are practicing social business and the Social business entrepreneurs. Several memoranda of understanding are expected to be made.
This year the summit will be organised in partnership with Green Street, the Earth's Fund in Mexico.
Supporting partners include Ashoka, Banamex, Cemex, Monterrey Institute of Technology, the National Institute of Entrepreneurship and Televisa Foundation.
This is the first time the summit is taking place in the Americas following its inception in 2009. Last year the summit was held in Malaysia. The previous four editions took place in Germany and Austria, splitting equally.