User:Yunus Center AIT/sandbox

= Yunus Center at AIT =

‘‘Poor people are not asking for your charity; they are asking for opportunities’’ states Prof Dr Muhammad Yunus

The doors of opportunity for the indigent were opened a bit wider on September 8, 2009, when Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus and AIT formally launched the Yunus Center at AIT, the very first Yunus Center outside Bangladesh.

What is Yunus Center at AIT
The Yunus Center at AIT provides an independent and open platform for addressing development challenges faced by poor people in Asia. It provides as a forum for discussion between people from the public, private, academic and grass roots sectors to exchange ideas on poverty alleviation and social business. The Center aims to contribute to poverty reduction and sustainable development by promoting, developing and implementing social business ideas and projects.

Objective
During discussions between Prof. Yunus and Prof. Said Irandoust held during the Social Business Symposium which jointly organized at AIT on 8 May 2012, Prof. Yunus had expressed interest in AIT taking the lead in developing and rolling out social business models based on pro-poor technologies. Prof Yunus states “charity is not self-sustaining. You give the money away and it never comes back. Therefore, it does some good only once. If you create a social business, the money is endlessly recycled.” Bearing this in mind YCA intends to establish itself "as as an incubator for new social business plans that challenge conventional academic wisdom; it will facilitate generation of community-based knowledge; and it will promote opportunities for both women and men.

YCA Approach
Has an action-learning APPROACH with ongoing dialogue at its core, towards becoming an effective, open platform with the professional capacity to process relevant information received from stakeholders and key constituencies within and outside AIT and the Grameen family, and converting it into practical ideas for social business promoted and implemented through diverse partnerships and the effective use of learning outreach.

YCA Mission
Has a MISSION to establish an action-learning platform that fosters the development, implementation and valuation of sustainable social business models driven by research, technology and partnerships that effectively solve social problems, with a particular focus on gender equality.

YCA Vision
Has a VISION to create a world free from poverty by harnessing the power of social business and effective technologies to improve the lives of the marginalized while working within AIT’s development mandate.

YCA Programs
YCA used the Fourth Global Social Business Summit 2012 held at Vienna from 7-10 November 2012, to re-launch and to introduce its new initiatives.


 * SB Action
 * SB Archives
 * SB Challenge
 * SB Learning Portfolio
 * GCL@AIT

SB Academy:
Young Leaders’ Program and Yunus Fellowship, offering structured opportunities for experiential learning.

The Social Business Academy offers program-based, structured opportunities for experiential learning.
 * The Young Social Business Leaders Summer Program (YSBL)
 * The Yunus Center Mentorship Program (YCMP)
 * The Yunus Fellow of Social Business (YFSB)
 * YCA Internships
 * Visiting Scholars

The Young Social Business Leaders Summer Program (YSBL)
YSBL offers competitive, guided, experiential learning to youth, providing real-time field exposure and an interactive learning curriculum. The course uses current business tools and techniques to help hone decision-making skills while developing responsible business attitudes. YSBL aims to provide future entrepreneurs, scientists, educators, world leaders, etc. with a foundation for social action by engaging youth in a diverse array of activities that expose them to positive examples of people using the power of business to meet pressing social needs. YSBL is open to youth from around the world ages 15-18.

The Yunus Center Mentorship Program (YCMP)
YCMP is a program for university students to gain hands-on social business experience. Selected students first take courses on the various aspects of social business then then focus on implementation. YCMP sends selected students to different poverty affected areas in the region to collaborate with local host organizations involved in various poverty reduction measures. Students identify potential social business opportunities and assemble a business plan as part of their final project. YCMP is open to university students from around the world interested in earning university credit from their home institutions while gaining valuable hands-on social business experience.

The Yunus Fellow of Social Business (YFSB)
YFSB candidates are required to complete a designed program where they are challenged to establish a well- functioning social business on the ground.

In order to apply it is necessary to have at least a bachelor's degree in any discipline, submit a social business plan and defend it. There is no age limit and the candidate has to arrange his/her own funding.

The elected candidate receives two weeks of training with instruction and guidance. The social business projects can be located in a city or village. During the project, candidates must submit to YCA monthly progress reports. The social business projects have an expected duration of two years.

YCA Internships
Interested university level students may apply for 3-month or 6-month YCA internships. YCA interns have the opportunity to work closely with the YCA team in an area of their specialty. Tasks range from portal management to grass-roots incubation support for rural social entrepreneurs.

Visiting Scholars
Every year the SB Academy hosts visiting scholars from various fields interested in the development of pro-poor technologies and related research pertaining to poverty alleviation. Visiting scholars work closely with the YCA team to develop and lead creative curriculum and research programs in the SB Academy with opportunities for additional collaboration in other flagship areas.

SB Action:
Need-responsive, gender-mainstreamed social business projects, identified and implemented for their potential.

Under this program, social business projects will be developed not only to reduce and alleviate poverty, but also the social problems associated with it such as health, education, gender-based violence, etc. Projects will focus on exploring how technological methods and devices can be applied to the pressing needs of society to empower people in securing their own livelihoods.

An essential component of the projects is that they will all be gender mainstreamed. Considering that poverty and gender are closely interlinked, YCA will fill in an important gap by incorporating a gender approach. Specifically this means that for each project, the implications for both women and men from a specific community will be assessed in a way that avoids perpetuating current gender inequalities or creating new ones.

YCA also offers various forms of incubation support for prospective social entrepreneurs in Thailand and the region.

SB Archives:
Case-Bank and Action-Idea Archive, an open, multimedia repository of practical knowledge, action research findings and workshops.

Lessons to be learned from and in the social enterprise industry. The SB Archives capture, structure, organize and manage this knowledge in the form of a case-bank and action-idea archive to facilitate wider knowledge-sharing and guarantee an enriching flow of original learning materials for learning and teaching.

Backed-up by a strong research infrastructure, a thriving academic community and access, from policy- level to grassroots across Asia, YCA takes a lead in offering teaching-learning products in collaboration and partnership with social entrepreneurs, third sector organizations, private sector and academia.

To help facilitate knowledge and learning development and build capacity YCA:
 * Organizes workshops on case-writing and teaching
 * Provides technical support and supervision and review mechanisms for the long-term initiative of building a case bank
 * Provides action-research services and industry surveys
 * Organizes and facilitate focus group discussions, expert interviews and multi-stakeholder dialogues
 * Creates communities of practice on social entrepreneurship
 * Benchmarks best practice in the social enterprise sector
 * Maintains an open, multi-media repository of practical knowledge, action research and findings

SB Challenge:
International SB Collaborative Challenge, a unique test for aspirants to build business alliances that solve social problems.

The Youth Collaborative Challenge is a program initially intended for high school students in Bangkok. A team from YCA will do the rounds of schools in Bangkok as part of an awareness raising campaign on social business. In this campaign, the team will invite students, individually or in groups, to submit ideas that can be converted into social business initiatives. The students will then be gathered in a workshop, dates of which will be decided later, in which they brainstorm with their counterparts and create innovative and collaborative ideas.

SB Learning Portfolio:
A dynamic set of guided or independent learning opportunities rooted in best practice for academics or practitioners.

The SB Learning Portfolio offers a dynamic range of guided or independent learning opportunities for various levels of learners, from field or community-level activists to post-graduate students, rooted in best practices and lessons collected from initiatives within and outside the Grameen family.

It aims to disseminate knowledge around social business and to widen and broaden its very concept and types as suggested so far by Professor Yunus. This activity links to the YCA´s philosophy by investigating the different ways in which social business can be implemented and by making it part of business curricula at universities/institutes.

To meet these challenges, YCA:
 * Develop social business learning curriculum that promotes creativity and collaboration
 * Offer cutting-edge professional development courses focused on social business
 * Organize field placements and visits with an emphasis on first-hand participation in social businesses across the region

GCL@AIT:
A regular cycle of creative events in partnership with Grameen Creative Lab, bringing together academia and business to spark SB ideas.

The Yunus Center at AIT presents itself as an important academia partner of the Grameen Creative Lab in promoting social business. The Grameen Creative Lab in Wiesbaden, Germany was established with a mission to accelerate social business. A social business itself, GCL was established to create awareness for social business, to make Grameen a global brand, to enable access to corporate knowledge and funds for social business initiatives and to create a movement following the 7 Social Business Principles of Dr. Muhammad Yunus.

Through its close collaboration with GCL, the YCA will serve as a platform for creating awareness, fostering understanding and harnessing the impact of social business in solving the most pressing needs of society, particularly poverty. This will be in the form of social business events already conducted by GCL in other parts of the world, workshops and networking opportunities for collaborative initiatives, implementing social business projects in the South and Southeast Asian regions and setting up linkages between corporations, civil society, academia and grassroots communities that enhance start-ups and joint ventures.

By building awareness on a broad base that encompasses academia, industry and grassroots community, the Yunus Center at AIT and Grameen Creative Lab jointly strengthen the social business movement, increasing opportunities for the less privileged. Joint activities scheduled from mid-2013 will be announced soon.

YCA Team:
Dr. Faiz Shah (Director)

Dr. Riaz Khan (Faculty Adviser)

Dr. Gabor L Hornyak (Faculty Adviser)

Associates
 * Evanshainia Syiem
 * Faisal Alih
 * Imran Hussain
 * Mathew Kuruvilla
 * Nichapat Na Thalang
 * Rowena Alcoba
 * Steven Rubinyi