Staff Reporter :Around 150 participants and observers, from national and international organizations with diverse background, attended the 107th Social Business Design Lab organized by Yunus Centre on Saturday at the Grameen Bank Auditorium.In the Lab, six new social business plans were presented. Out of them four were Nobin Udyokta businesses presented by young entrepreneurs coming from Grameen Bank borrowers’ families and two were guest projects. It includes a range of interesting businesses with colorful products including Jannat Fabrics producing ladies clothing by Shilpy Akter, Parul Beauty Parlor providing skin care by Parul Akter, Mahamuda ledies corner selling cosmetics and boutiques, Nayan Departmental Store selling Grocery items and a wide range of consumer goods. Two guest projects were also presented. They were a social business on sustainable coastal housing in Guatemala by Julio Linares from Guatemala and a project titled Photopreneurs by Prito Reza and Shazeeb M Khairul Islam which aims at creating Photo Entrepreneurs to combat unemployment.These business plans were presented by each of the young entrepreneurs including all details of project plan, marketing plan, and sustainability plan. There were several rounds of discussions on how each social business could be improved and strengthened during the main session as well as in breakout sessions. All six of the social business projects were approved for funding from various social business funds. These projects would be reviewed in the upcoming Labs, and through regular reports on Social Business Pedia.The Design Lab was chaired by Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus. He opened the lab with welcoming remarks to the audience including those tuning in via live stream. Professor Yunus explained the process of the Lab, to review and assess social business plans of entrepreneurs. He reported that to date since January 2013, a total of 1553 projects have been presented during last 107 Design Labs of which 1528 projects were approved for investment, and most of these already in operation.Professor Yunus also invited participants to join next Social Business Design Lab, to be held on 17 September 2015.
