British Council’s Forum on Social Enterprise, a two-day long conference packed with keynotes, panels, and conversations, is here again for the third time. The Forum scheduled on Wednesday, 22nd and Thursday, 23rd February 2016, will take place at the British Council, 5 Fuller Road, Dhaka. This is an invite only event, you may apply for an invitation here.
The 2nd Forum, held last year focusing on the impact and opportunities for social enterprises, brought together over 100 policy experts and social entrepreneurs and impact investors, investment intermediaries and practitioners from a host of countries. The forum was a hit. This year, the forum plans to do more.
Collaboration for impact
This year’s Forum, aptly titled ‘Collaboration for Impact’, will bring together social entrepreneurs, development professionals, social investors and policy makers for a two-day policy dialogue in order to share and learn from experiences, and to identify opportunities to accelerate the growth of social enterprise in Bangladesh.
Social and Bangladesh
Bangladesh is known as the home for social enterprises like BRAC and Grameen to the world. Social Enterprise has been in practice in Bangladesh through the efforts of both of these organizations who have long-standing innovations in the market. As a result of the widespread success of BRAC and Grameen, there is a general awareness about social enterprise and social entrepreneurship.
Building on that, today there is a small but vibrant social enterprise movement taking shape in Dhaka and a relatively large amount of social enterprise activity across the country. A recently published survey report on the State of Social Enterprise in Bangladesh suggests the important contribution that social enterprises are playing in addressing the challenges faced by communities across the country including youth engagement and skill development.
Being said that, there need to be greater collaborations among different stakeholders including the government and private sector partners in order to mature the ecosystem and propel the growth.
There is a growing evidence that Bangladesh has a potential to overcome social barriers and propel growth as a nation by developing social enterprises in sectors such as agriculture, health, energy, education and technology in Bangladesh.
The event aims to find out opportunities for collaborations in order to make rapid progress gathering experience from other countries and develop a comprehensive set of policy recommendations for the government and the stakeholders to support the sector’s rapid growth.
Interested and want to attend? Apply for an invitation
The Forum is an invite only event. It means, to attend this two-day long gala of thoughts, inspiration, and conversation you have to get an invitation from British Council, Bangladesh.
For an invitation, please apply here.
