Offer : workshop on social business

[Jean Penny]

Hello HSG!

and thanks to Florian C. for the introduction, an old friend from
France.

We are two young professionals who quit their consulting jobs in
France to go on a round-the-world tour meeting 50 social businesses
and training 5000 students on sustainability in business.

This message is to offer to HackerspaceSG *a sharing of our first 6
months of travel*, as some of the entrepreneurs we've met use
technology, digital media, online platforms to solve social issues, in
a profit-making way. Some do not, and they still do very cool stuff :)
what does that mean?
--> think "illiterates sending CV by SMS to find better paying job
next door", Babajob, India.
--> think "big B2B company gets insight into final user's needs by
envolving its employees in social entrepreneurship contest", NEC,
Japan
--> think "affordable water filters that prevent illnesses and
deforestation", Hydrologic, Cambodia
etc...

Can be 45min to 2hours, depends on your time.

Because of our time frame, it should happen over the weekend, we can
come down to hackerspace anytime.

Regarding the topic, lternately, we could also discuss :
- how to set-up a multi-site Wordpress install and customized domain
names, useful when you want to have a website in different languages
each with a domain name in its language
- how to plan, organize, and fund a 1-year world tour...

cheers

Oriane & Jean
contact [at] csrwithoutborders.org
+65 8413 1426

[Alvin Jiang]

That sounds great! I'll be in touch by direct email to coordinate a time
and place. Anyone else who wants to be involved/suggest a time/preferred
topic please email me directly.

Thanks for the intro Florian!

[Patrick Haller]

On 2012-02-23 18:42, Jean Penny wrote:
> --> think "illiterates sending CV by SMS to find better paying job
> next door", Babajob, India.

How's that doing? In 'Nickel and Dimed', Barbara Ehrenreich saw
relatively poor Americans also not seeking out higher wages nearby.

This problem costs people years of their lives: increasing wages from
$10 to $15 / hour would mean that you would only have to work 27 years
to earn what would take 40 years in your old job.

Ehrenreich tried to figure out why they didn't search / optimize, but
didn't get far; perhaps Babajob has gotten a bit further?

[Flo.]

Great!
count me in ;-)

[Alvin Jiang]

Hi everyone,

The event will be happening tomorrow, 7pm-9pm at Hackerspace.SG.

http://www.curica.com/class_events/24

Hosting member: alvin

Regards,
Alvin.

[Alvin Jiang]

I've a last minute appointment that may run a little late - if I'm not
there by 7pm could one of the members in the space please help Jean set
things up?

Regards,
Alvin,

[Ridzuan Ashim]

I'll try to be there at 6.30pm. How many people are we expecting?

-Ridz

--
Chat: http://hackerspace.sg/chat

[Alvin Jiang]

no idea, given the topic and that it's last minute, i'd say 20+ to 30.

thanks!

[Jean Penny]

Thx, we'll be there around 6:30 too !

--
Chat: http://hackerspace.sg/chat

[Jean Penny]

Dear Hackers @SG,

Oriane and I would like to thank you very much for making the workshop
happen last saturday :)

Alvin, once again thank you for fast action, and Flo thanks for
lighting the Spark!

We hope you enjoyed it, and maybe learned a few things.

Feel at ease to send us feedback:
con...@csrwithoutborders.org

We have a goal to reach 3600 more students, entrepreneurs,
businesspeople through our workshop, so we try to constantly improve.

Working with you also taught us a few things on the mindset of
entrepreneurs in Singapore:
- "companies exist to solve a problem", as you put it on Saturday
night; running a workshop with students, we usually hear that they
exist to make only profits.
- "do we have money to lose, or are we really investors with a profit
goal?" was in essence the debate among the three "investors". that
question reflects a very real, structural issue of social businesses:
they don't generate as much profit as other types of businesses, so
how to justify choosing them over other possible opportunities?

Interestingly, one of the 2 ideas that came out of your collaboration
is somewhat close to an existing project: an Australian-French team
that took part in the bootcamp during Singapore's Social Business Week
is developing an "alternative tourism" industry in Sydney, bringing
tourists to uncommon places, to create a different connection with
places and interact with authentic, local communities.

Have a fantastic week all, keep exploring!

Regards,

Oriane & Jean
www.csrwithoutborders.org