“University-based platforms in support of social entrepreneurship: new dynamics for challenging business models”
Chairs: Abel Diaz Gonzalez, Philippe Eiselein and Nikolay Dentchev, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
Social entrepreneurs are nowadays key players in our society. None of the efforts made by social entrepreneurs should be underestimated, since they try to provide entrepreneurial solution to challenging problems in our societies. Business models of social entrepreneurs are mostly based on challenging propositions and idealistic approaches; they are constantly challenged to find complementary partners, scale their social impact and be profitable. Universities, due to their interconnectedness with public, private and social organizations, are well positioned to provide support to social entrepreneurs. Such support can contribute to reduce the challenges that these ventures are facing and increase the social impact that they are envisioning. This workshop will present the current case of the VUB Social Entrepreneurship platform (c.f. platform.vubsocialentrepreneurship.com), a crowdfunding and crowdsourcing tool that makes it for social entrepreneurs easier to communicate, network, find missing competencies and attract people willing to help. Through an analysis of different projects on the platform, this workshop focuses on discussing the potential role of universities in supporting the establishment and development of promising business models, especially for social entrepreneurs.
Evaluation of University-based Platforms in Support of Social Entrepreneurship
Burcin Hatipoglu
Bogazici University, Turkey
Search Funds for Impact Investing
Peter Elkins, Geoffrey Archer
Royal Roads University, Canada
Creation of Social Entrepreneurship HUBs in Bolivian Universities
Maria Del Carmen Roman Roig
Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium