Grameen Creative Lab to organize a Social Business Lab in Mumbai

The Grameen Creative Lab (GCL) is part of the Grameen family of businesses; a joint venture between the Yunus Centre and circ responsibility, founded by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Muhammad Yunus and Hans Reitz, founder and creative director of circ. GCL’s vision is to serve society’s most pressing needs. Leading by example, GCL accelerates and spreads the social business movement worldwide, following the seven principles as stipulated by Prof. Yunus.To do so the GCL connects with an international network of talented and dedicated young professionals, entrepreneurs, companies, NGOs, governments, universities and others. The work of the GCL is divided into three pillars: Interact, Incubate, Create.

Interact: "Awareness"

• We organize public events and manage Yunus‘ engagements in Europe
• We publish books and articles on social business
• Our senior staff speak at conferences to cultivate a constant exchange on social business
• We network with the community of interest

Incubate: "Understanding"

• We brainstorm social business ideas at creative workshops
• We experiment with our own social businesses on a small scale
• We collaborate with universities to integrate social business into research, teaching and practice

Create: "Impact"

• We consult companies on how to set up a social business joint venture – worldwide
• We cooperate with governments to install social business movement in their countries
• We support investors and the public sector to create funds that run as social businesses

The Grameen Creative Lab is a social business in itself that works according to the seven principles of social business. The GCL finances itself through the products and services within each pillar. Any profits will be reinvested into further accelerating social business and sharing Grameen's and Prof. Yunus' concepts and ideas with companies, universities, NGOs, students, investors and more.

Although GCL is only about 2 years old, it has created several social business initiatives worldwide- for example: it is in the process of developing a joint venture with Reebok in Bangladesh, several social businesses and a social business fund in Haiti, two holisitic social business movement in Colombia and in Albania respectively in cooperation with the governments there and also several cooperations with universities worldwide.

In India too, we have initiated some initiatives- one is the first social business fund in India- the Yunus Social Business Fund Mumbai; and we are planning another one with Shekhar Kapur around his upcoming film Paani which will invest into water related social businesses. We are also in talks with several corporate partners for various joint initiatives.

As a result of increasing collaborations, GCL is in the process of opening its first India office in Mumbai. Hans Reitz will be conducting a workshop in Mumbai on Feb 20 to talk about social business according to Prof Yunus. Here is a link to the event: : http://www.grameencreativelab.com/events/invitation-to-attend-a-social-business-lab-in-mumbai.html