Partnerships2012 Conference to be held at CBS

To quote former UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan: “In today’s world, we depend on each other“. In other words, partnerships are increasingly seen as a panacea for solving the world’s social, environmental and economic problems, whether we are talking about climate change, hunger, inequality, poverty and pollution. But how do we build effective partnerships between businesses and the social sector?

The Partnerships2012 conference will be organised by Copenhagen Business School, the CSR Foundation, ISOBRO (The Danish professional association for fundraisers), the Confederation of Danish Industries, and the European Fundraising Association. The conference takes place from 10-12 June 2012. Besides Kofi Annan, who visits the conference on its 2nd day, the keynote speakers are Peter Eigen from the Transparency International, Jon Duschinsky from Be The Change, Christian Friis Bach, Minister for Development Cooperation and a number of multinationals who will visit the conference together with partner NGOs such as Amnesty International, UNICEF and WWF.

The conference is a result of CBS' new strategy - Business in Society. CBS disseminates knowledge and new ideas to the future CEOs and society in general based on the recognition that companies and organisations play a part in shaping society, and that society plays a part in shaping the functions and processes of organisations and companies.

Read more: http://www.partnership2012.com/

When Goliath met David

Palgrave has just published a new book "Social Innovation - Blurring Boundaries to Reconfigure Markets" (2012) edited by Alex Nicholls and Alex Murdock. The book provides papers from the 2009 ISIRC conference in Oxford. Included is also a chapter by Rolf Wüstenhagen and myself "When David Meets Goliath: Sustainable Entrepreneurship and the Evolution of Markets".

The chapter is a slightly revised version of our 2010 paper "Greening Goliaths versus emerging Davids — Theorizing about the role of incumbents and new entrants in sustainable entrepreneurship" originally published in the Journal of Business Venturing.

Read more about the book here: http://us.macmillan.com/socialinnovation/AlexNicholls

A bee in the bonnet?

A group of Danish Social Entrepreneurs are putting the "B" back into the "Big City". Their goal is to improve the urban environment and unlock social and economic benefits by introducing beekeeping and honey production into Copenhagen's inner city. 

Together with Aktivitetscenter Sundholm, a municipal center for long term unemployed, homeless and people with alcohol and drug problems, Bybi has established Scandinavia’s first urban honey factory. Bybi's assistant beekeepers are recruited from Sundholms service users. They are involved in the day to day running of the factory, meeting of visitors and looking after 3 million bees. 

Bybi keeps its bee hives on rooftops, in gardens and in the grounds of businesses across Copenhagen thus countering the trend of diminishing natural habitats for bees due to pesticides, intensive agriculture and climate change in the countryside.

Read more: http://bybi.dk/?lang=en

This week in Copenhagen: DANSIC Students organize Social Entrepreneurship Conference

In order to raise awareness about social innovation a group of students has launched DANSIC, a voluntary, student-driven organization. On the 8th of March DANSIC will holds its inaugural conference on the Copenhagen Business School (CBS) campus. DANSIC wants to be a platform for anyone in Denmark interested in social innovation. The team behind DANSIC consists of 30 project directors and over 20 other volunteers who are dedicated to different responsibilities.

Read more: http://www.dansic.org/

This month the Danish Social Capital has published its first investment - in Specialisterne ApS. The fund (which was mentioned earlier on this blog) is Denmark's first social venture fund that invests capital and skills in social entrepreneurs and businesses that solve social problems. The fund wants to help companies to grow - and thus generate the fullest possible social impact. The fund was established with 25 million DKK from TrygFonden and professional support from Accura and KPMG.

Read more: www.socialkapitalfond.dk 

CBS Students start Social Enterprise in Kenya

Have you ever thought about what women do who cannot afford pads or tampons? "All girls know that if you suddenly find yourself without anything and that time has come, you panic," says Maxie Mathiesen co-founder of Ruby Cup and alumna of the CBS Minor in Social Entrepreneurship. Women and girls living in developing countries face problems when they menstruate, because they cannot afford sanitary pads. Instead they use whatever they have at hand, such as bark, mud, newspaper, cloth, and pieces of mattress.

Ruby Cup wants to provide menstrual protection alternatives, which will not have negative environmental effects, and that are both available and affordable for women in developing countries. Ruby Cup was initiated and founded by three young women from Denmark and Germany. Veronica, Julie and Maxie met each other at Copenhagen Business School where they studied International Business and Politics, Sustainable Business, and Social Entrepreneurship. They all hold several years of international work experience in the fields of human rights, sustainable business/CSR, marketing, and trade and commerce. As young social entrepreneurial women, they are dedicated to making a difference for purpose and for profit.

In 2010, the idea has been selected as the winner in the CBS Social Entrepreneurship Minor class "Business Plan Writing for Social Enterprises". Since then Ruby Cup has gone from strength to strength. After raising over 100,000€ start capital in 2011 Ruby Cup has launched the company in Kenya. Just recently the team has been shortlisted as a finalist of the Global Social Venture Competition (GSVC) as well as Echoing Green. Good luck! Read more: http://www.ruby-cup.com.

Social Entrepreneurs at Davos

Social Entrepreneurship has reached the limelight for a quite a while now. So it is not for the first time that social entrepreneurs have been invited to Davos. Still it is encouraging to see that more initiatives get launched that want to help social entrepreneurs.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/akhtar-badshah/meeting-the-new-social-en_b_1257547.html