Baisikeli: On a roll

One of Denmark's probably most interesting S-ENT start-ups in last years is Baisikeli (http://www.baisikeli.dk/). The organisation, which was launched by two cousins, aims to help African community acquire cheap and reliable transporationin the form of bycicles. Baisikelis products are special designs aimed at the African market - sturdy, easy to repair and affordable. Apart from normal bikes Basikeli offers also hospital bikes (that can be used to transport the ill).

Baisikeli - cykler for et bedre liv from Henrik Mortensen on Vimeo.

Baisikelis business model draws on a number of elements: it collects old bikes and bike parts in Denmark which are then transported to Tansania and Sierra Leone where bike repair shops produce for the local market.Moreover, Baisikeli produces also bikes in Denmark which are rented to private as well as business clients as an earned income model which finances the shipping of bikes to Africa.

New article: The Greening Dutchman - Philips' process of green flagging to drive sustainable innovations

This month's issue of Business Strategy and the Environment contains an article on intraprenership in the area of corporate sustainability that I have written together with Marlen Arnold from the TU Munich. 
 
Check out our article on the "Greening Dutchman" here:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bse.700/full

40 years Christiania: Denmark's original social enterprise?

What a birthday! A 40 year process is now resulting in the formalization of one of Denmarks oldest social innovations: The Freetown of Christiana is a self-proclaimed autonomous neighbourhood of about 850 residents, covering 34 hectares. While it had been tolerated by the Danish government for a long time, Christiania become increasingly threatened over the past decade as politicians wanted to recover some prime real estate in the heart of Copenhagen. Now Christiania is in the process of formally buying the land on which it is build from the state. To raise the funds for this Christiania is issuing cooperative ownership shares which are sold as part of the birthday celebration which will take place between the 16 September and the 1st of October. It will be interesting to see how the shares will impact the future of Christiania. Read more: www.christiania.org

What Seven Days can achieve ...

As part of the CBS Minor elective "Business Plan Writing for Social Enterprises"
six teams of students were asked to develop and execute a social project within just 7 days. In total they raised over 5000 DKK as well as awareness for six important social causes.


Here are some of the results:

And two more links:

Prezi Presentation for Elderly IT Course

Cookies against famine

Minor in Social Entrepreneurship started this week

This week the third round of the CBS Minor in Social Entrepreneurship (S-ENT) has started. The Minor features courses in "Social Entrepreneurship," "Business Plan Writing for Social Enterprises," and the "Instant Innovation Camp". Accross all three courses 140 student are enroled for Minor classes. Read more: www.cbs.dk/s_ent.

Impact Investing - New Book out today

Just today Jed Emerson, who brought us the term "blended value", has launched a new book entitled "Impact Investing". Jed  is executive vice president of ImpactAssets, and has spurred many notable innovations within the S-ENT field as founding director of REDF and founding board member of Pacific Community.  He wrote the book together with co-author Antony Bugg-Levine who leads the Rockefeller Foundation's impact investing initiative. Antony convened the 2007 meeting that coined the phrase impact investing and is the board chair of the Global Impact Investing Network.

Read more:
http://www.impactassets.org/about-us/team/jed-emerson 

Nation of Social Innovation

Only few ideas have been as successful as Social Entrepreneurship (S-ENT) over the past decade. And yet we still face a myriad of views on what S-ENT actually means. Given the very innovativeness of our area of interest it is not surprising that its boundaries seem to shift permanently. So how is it that this blog claims the existence of a `Nation of Social Innovation´? Renan speaks of a nation as a daily referendum. Following this idea our blog wants to contribute to this public vote on what S-ENT is by providing a regular stream of ideas and examples of Social Entrepreneurship from Denmark and from around the world. Let us together live and redefine the Nation of Social Innovation day by day.