Student Business Competition Aims to Rejuvenate Georgia Communities

• Miscellaneous
• 20th October 2011
• YC

At a time when government revenue is decreasing and more people are disaffected with the status quo, the University System of Georgia is proposing an alternative, hosting its first Social Business and Microcredit Forum Oct. 17.

The one-day event at the Georgia Institute of Technology challenged business students to create a viable business plan that solves a social problem in their community. Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus was the keynote speaker, who pioneered the social business concept, which is a non-loss, non-dividend company dedicated entirely to achieving a social goal.

Welcoming nearly 1,200 students, educators and community members, Yunus shared his journey to social business that started when he was a young economics professor in Bangladesh. Returning to the country after its independence full of optimism, his hopes were dashed as he witnessed the great famine of 1974 creating widespread hunger and ravaging poverty.

Feeling shame at teaching "elegant economics theory" while people were dying of hunger, Yunus committed to leaving the university to visit the nearby village of Jobra to see if he could be useful to one person each day. It was there he learned about the problem of loan sharks motivating him to create a different kind of bank that would lend money to poor people who lacked collateral and other conditions traditional banks required.

Founded in 1976, the Grameen Bank has lifted millions of people out of poverty, and has a 97 per cent repayment rate.

According to Yunus, he never set out to create a national bank that would give rise to a global microcredit movement, he just looked to solve a small problem in his village, and it's this advice he gave Georgia students.

"Every time I see a problem, my distinctive reaction is to try to design a business on how to solve it," he says, adding with access to education and technology today's youth are especially well poised for this challenge.

"I tell the young generation, look, this is your age, this is your time. You are the most powerful generation in the entire history of mankind. . . . Each one of you has the capacity to change your local world."

Thirty-seven teams from 36 universities and colleges across Georgia submitted business plans outlining a social problem, and a financial model that would sustain the social benefit.

A Southern Polytechnic State University team took first place for their business plan Restoration Trust. The company aims to transform victims of domestic violence by providing a micro-savings and lending program along with access to immediate and long-term housing options, and coaching on employment, education and entrepreneurial options.

Sonal Doshi, a Master of Science in Accounting (MSA) student who helped create Restoration Trust, attributes her team's success to focusing on the most important community need.

"A lot of research and legwork was done, not keeping the competition in mind but the social business in mind. And that helped us narrow it down to the idea that we felt was the most pressing need for social business," says Doshi.

While she knew the concept of social business before the competition, Doshi says the practical application to community opened her eyes to its potential.

"This is definitely something that I want to pursue."

Other students echoed similar sentiments.

"I think (this model) is going to be necessary," says Natasha Greene, a second year student at Atlanta Metropolitan College who along with a team of three designed a campus green initiative that promotes native plant species.

The competitors underwent two different rounds of competition judged by leaders from companies like Starbucks, PayPal and Motorola, as well as university representatives and local chambers of commerce members.

Richard Bernhardt, a judge and president at Silicon Valley Investment Group and owner of Bernhardt Communications, says he was impressed by the calibre of the submissions, and would like to see the event spread to more universities.

"They need to replicate this all over the country, make it all over the world," says Bernhardt, adding he'd wants to encourage more funders to attend to ensure the ideas become reality.

Speaking with Axiom News after the event, Yunus praised the presentations, adding the ideas didn't require significant amounts of capital, and motivate young people to take charge of their communities.

"If they put it together some amazing things can happen. It inspires other young people, too. So that's the beginning, that's what we should be doing," says Yunus.

Source: http://axiomnews.ca/gennews/1654