Camarillo, Calif., Dec. 6, 2010 – At this year’s Global Social Business Summit held recently in Wolfsburg, Germany, CI’s Dr. Richard R. Rush opened the second day of the Summit and later gave a presentation as the expert on incorporating social business into a university campus and curricula. CI recently launched the California Institute for Social Business (CISB) in collaboration with Professor Muhammad Yunus – the result of a three-year discovery and development process to integrate this new paradigm into our academic community.
Notable participants at the Summit were Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus; Emmanuel Faber, Co-CEO of Danone Group; Dr. Juergen Hambrecht, CEO of BASF; Herbert Hainer, CEO Adidas, AG; Dr. Michael Otto, Chairman of Otto Group; best-selling author Paulo Coelho, film director Shekhar Kapur and Grand Duchess Maria-Theresa of Luxembourg. Also present were delegations from various governments, including ministers, governors and mayors.
Professor Yunus and Paulo Coehlo, both considered global thought-leaders, gave public presentations. The growth in corporate interest in social business has been reflected in the partnering of such international businesses as BASF, Danone, Adidas and others with Grameen Bank, the pioneer of micro-finance as a means to eradicate poverty.
Working with Grameen Bank, these companies have found ways to adapt business strategies to address poverty. For example, Oscar-winning film director Shekhar Kapur signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Professor Yunusto create a social business fund to start water-solution businesses in India.
CI has been the leader in bringing the social business movement to academia. In his presentation, Dr. Rush described the three emphasizes of the CISB as: curriculum; research on existing and prospective social businesses; and incubation of new ideas, promoted through a Social Business Plan Completion.
Rush said there was a hunger for change among our students and the universities must help them rethink the problems that plague not just our society but all societies. The work of the CISB will help fulfill CI’s commitment to promote problem-solving and critical-thinking skills that will lead to sustainable solutions for the problems our future social, political and business leaders will face upon graduation.
The University’s California Institute for Social Business is scheduled to officially open its doors in fall of 2011. Dr. Andrea Grove, Associate Professor of Political Science, will head the interdisciplinary Institute, which was conceived with the direction and continuing input from Yunus. “It was exciting to see the extent to which leaders in social business and other universities around the world are looking to CI for leadership in developing academic programs in social business,” stated Grove.
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