The Grameen Creative Lab to boost social business in India
Tuesday March 01, 2011 , 3 min Read
The Grameen Creative Lab (GCL), a social business GmbH founded by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Muhammad Yunus and serial entrepreneur Hans Reitz, has started operations in India to boost social business within the country.The company’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.
GCL achieves its objectives by interacting with the interest community through communication and events on social business. It also incubates social business ideas by initiating academic research and conducting social business experiments. In addition, GCL consults by advising companies, entrepreneurs, civil society organizations and governments on how to set up and support social businesses, and assists investors wishing to create social business funds. The Grameen Creative Lab also runs and owns social businesses, thereby accelerating the creation of social businesses and best practice examples.
The Grameen Creative Lab is registered as a limited company in Germany (GmbH) since late 2009 and operates as a social business itself. Any profits will be reinvested into further accelerating social business.
Up until now, GCL’s India projects were managed out of Germany. However, a significant interest from India based corporations and startups keen to launch social business initiatives have led the company to the decision to open an office in Mumbai. One of the first initiatives that GCL is working on is India´s first social business fund: the Yunus Social Business Fund Mumbai, which will fund new as well as existing social businesses in India.
At the GCL´s annual Global Social Business Summit in 2010, Professor Yunus and Shekhar Kapur agreed to set up a social business fund called the ‘Yunus Social Business Fund Paani’. This fund will invest in social businesses that aim to solve issues related to the availability of clean drinking water for poor people, water table degradation and other water related issues. GCL plans to launch this fund to coincide with the release of Shekhar Kapur´s upcoming film with the same name (‘Paani’ means water in Hindi) with Shekhar Kapur himself acting as the fund´s brand ambassador.
GCL conducted its first Social Business Lab in Mumbai on February 20th 2011.
The Grameen Creative Lab organizes and conducts Social Business Labs worldwide on a regular basis. The Social Business Lab is an intensive one day workshop which explains social business as defined by Prof. Yunus and which brings together innovative and interested entrepreneurs, committed students and representatives from universities, initiatives and corporations to interactively work on ideas to address social problems with entrepreneurial spirit. Many social business ideas have already been realized as a result of these labs.
Hans Reitz, co-founder of GCL, conducted the first Social Business Lab in Mumbai on February 20th 2011. It was well attended and received- with over a 100 participants most of whom stayed till the end of the day long session. Following the success of the lab, GCL has created the YY Mumbai Social Business Club, a bi-weekly gathering of social business enthusiasts. The club seeks to be a hub where people can learn about social business (through speakers, documentaries etc), showcase their own social business models and collaborate with likeminded people.
GCL feels it has gotten off to a great start in Mumbai and hopes to build a strong social business community around the philosophy of Prof Yunus.
