Events

UW Global Social Entrepreneurship Competition Awards Banquet, March 4

From our friends at the UW Business School:

Please mark your calendar for the 2010 Global Social Entrepreneurship Competition Awards Banquet, March 4, 5:30 – 8:30 pm, in Seattle, WA.  Registration opens Feb. 1 on the GSEC homepage.

You are invited to join us and keynote speaker William H. Gates Sr. for an evening of innovation as we celebrate the creative business solutions this year’s semi-finalist GSEC teams have developed to redress problems of poverty.

As you know, GSEC supports the passion and dedication of students worldwide who develop lasting business solutions to challenging economic, environmental, and social issues.   We invite you to support these young global social entrepreneurs and the leading-edge initiative at UW that unites the business, non-profit and academic sectors in learning about and supporting innovative and financially feasible solutions to global poverty.  We hope to see you on March 4^th!

This is a very special year for GSEC: we received an unprecedented number of applications – 161 submissions from 36 countries! With the applications more than doubling from last year, the review process was highly competitive, and we anticipate a dynamic competition this year. GSEC Week will be held at the University of Washington, March 2-5, 2010. Please visit the GSEC Week Schedule for the list of events.

The 2010 GSEC teams hail from Bangladesh, Canada, China, India, Rwanda, and the U.S. The business ideas include: alternative power generation in India and Africa, cassava-based oral re-hydration saline solution in Bangladesh, accessories made from reclaimed plastic in Jakarta, art education in China, social investment in Ghana, low-cost hearing aids in India, a prick-less anemia scanners in India, rice harvest consultation in Mali, and RFID tracking devices for herding communities in South India.  A full list of the 2010 teams’ plans and applicants’ countries represented is provided below.

The Global Business Center would like to thank the numerous application review judges, mentors, and sponsors who have volunteered their time and expertise to GSEC.  Contact gsec@uw.edu to get involved.

About GSEC

As a social venture competition open to students around the world, GSEC engages creative minds to encourage bolder and less conventional business solutions to global poverty.  Student teams develop innovative, commercially-sustainable business solutions to problems of poverty in developing economies.  Each year, a select group of semi-finalist teams are chosen from the applicant pool and are invited to the University of Washington in Seattle for “GSEC Week”, March 1-5, 2010.

Since its inception five years ago, GSEC has invited participation from over 1200 students from 39 countries and has united the business, non-profit and academic sectors in collaborative and interdisciplinary partnerships that build the skills of future global social entrepreneurs.  We are honored for the support of current and former UW Hubert Humphrey Fellows, the GSEC Outreach Partners, and the 2010 mentors and judges from across sectors in Seattle, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Costco, Microsoft, PATH, Unitus, and the UW.

GSEC is organized by the University of Washington’s Global Business Center at the Michael G. Foster School of Business, with the support of Microsoft (GSEC Grand Prize sponsor) and the UW Department of Global Health (global health prize sponsors).  Please visit the GSEC Volunteers and Sponsors webpage for the full list of supporters.

GSEC 2010 Semi-finalist Teams

BLMS Project: In coordination with the Indian NGO, Alternative for India Development (AID), BLMS will provide agricultural and herding communities in South India with an inexpensive modern technological solution to track livestock using concealed RFID tags.

University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA/Indian Institute of Management, Shillong, Meghalaya, India

Enventure: Through an innovative incentive program, the company will develop a biomass power generation system that uses discarded bamboo waste for the power-deficient region, Meghalay Industrial Area of Byrnihat, in India.

Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Shillong, Meghalaya, India

Gift of Sound: Aims to assist hospitals and drug stores in Hyderabad to provide low cost, high quality solutions to the hearing impaired from mid-low income families, including digital hearing aids and a laptop/PC device that provides diagnostic and fitting services.

Stephen Ross School of Business, MI, USA

Malo Traders: Provides technological consultation that minimizes the risk of post-harvest losses by 30% for Farabana small-scale rice farmers in Mali.

Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA/Purdue University, IN, USA

NASH equilibrium: To address diarrhea and water borne diseases, the company will produce and market an inexpensive alternative oral re-hydration saline from cassava, based on a contract farming system and local distribution through hospitals, groceries, and pharmacies in Bangladesh.

Institute of Business Administration, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh

Spark Community Power Inc.: The firm seeks to transform used shipping containers into small-scale modular electrical generation facilities powered by photovoltaic solar cells and back-up fuel generators that provide battery charging for customers in Papua New Guinea.

Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, BC, Canada

The Nuru Light: A Solution to Africa’s Lighting Crisis: An affordable, safe, and clean lighting solution to replace kerosene in households without electricity using the world’s first commercially available pedal generator, the POWERCycle.

Adventist University of Central Africa, Kigali, Rwanda/University of Massachusetts Medical School, MA, USA

ToucHb: A prick-less anemia scanner used by low-skilled village health workers in India that measures, helps diagnose, monitors and screens for anemia.

Maharashtra University of Health Sciences, Nashik, Maharashtra, India

XPlastic Accessories Corporation: Trains low-income residents in Jakarta to produce accessories made from reclaimed plastic waste by hiring trash collectors, educating households about waste management, employing small scale accessory producers, and marketing final product.

University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA/Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan

Yimiao-Art for prosperity in Western China: Leveraging the fast-growing art market in the Eastern China in order to provide art education in the western China, the company uses profits from art galleries in Beijing to fund an art school in Sichuan for 300 rural teenagers. Students’ art work is sold through partnerships with corporations, and upon graduation students are encouraged to continue their studies in partner universities or serves as a teacher in Yimiao schools.

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, China

Lumana Ventures: An innovative social business platform that enables rural poor to use their savings to invest in local social enterprises to improve their community while simultaneously diversifying their income.

University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA

Asaan Educational Products: Education content for rural Indians using cellular phones in an attempt to redress inequality of education available to urban students versus those living in rural areas.

Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, Bangalore, Karnataka, India

GSEC 2010 Applicants (*new countries):

*Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Cameroon, Canada, China, *Costa Rica, Estonia, Germany, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Japan, *Mexico, Morocco, *Nepal, Nigeria, *Paraguay, *Peru, Philippines, *Romania, *Rwanda, *Senegal, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, *Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, The Netherlands, Uganda, United Kingdom, USA, Vietnam, *Zimbabwe

© 2010 SeaMo: Connecting the Microfinance Community.