The British Council, in partnership with ChangeMaker, is going to launch a Social Enterprise Competition under the theme “Innovate, Incubate and Grow (IIG): A Social Enterprise Support Programme” in Bangladesh, a statement sent to Future Startup said. The competition, first of its kind in Bangladesh, aims to inspire, educate, and support young people to start and build social enterprises in Bangladesh.
"The purpose is to inspire and enable people to come up with solutions for problems we have in our society along with sustainable business model, a British Council spokesperson said in a statement to Future Startup. "While the program will provide education and training to successful participants, it also plans to help some of the winners to take their ventures off the ground."
British Council has been promoting the idea of Social Enterprise for a while now. The organization is now planning to put together more ground level practical initiatives at work. IIG, a distinct social enterprise support Programme in nature, is designed to enhance the entrepreneurial knowledge and skills for solving social and environmental problem with a sustainable business model. IIG aims to develop the capacity of young and potential social entrepreneurs by raising awareness and understanding of social enterprise. The programme will provide them the essential knowledge of harnessing the immense possibilities of social enterprise that can substantially contribute towards supporting opportunity for inclusive and sustainable economic models focusing on social impact as well as financial returns.
The Competition, like any other business plan competition, will be inviting innovative, unique and pragmatic ideas developed by promising young social entrepreneurs, which will be supported to become bona fide businesses.
The programme, nationwide in scale, is a part of British Council’s Social Enterprise Capacity Building and Business and Investment Readiness Programme (BiR). The competition will run raising awareness campaigns, organize boot camp, business modelling workshop, and national pitch day and for the winners there will be a mentoring programme and a business model showcasing opportunity at the British Council policy dialogue event in 2016.
