LIVE: Mohammed Yunnus on the VISION SUMMIT: Berlin is Worldcentre for Social Business
November 2nd, 2008 by Frans Posted in Berlin & Germany, Blog, Politics
Today at the Vision Summit 2008 in Berlin we celebrate some interesting developments here in Berlin, with a special guest: Mohammed Yunnus. Yunnus declares Berlin to be the world centre for Social Business. According to Yunnus, Social Businesses are founded only to suport goals that solve social and ecological problems, and not for maximizing profit.
Mohammed Yunnus opens the Graheem Creative Lab here in Berlin, founded together with Hans Reitz from the Genisis Institute. Yunnus’ Graheem Bank has gotten famous by giving a microcredit to poor people. The Graheem Creative Lab wants to win companies for the vision and thinking of social business.
As Berlin owns many small start ups, social entrepreneurs, and creatives and is a creative lab by itself, it is a logical choice. On the other hand, the conditions in Berlin are not that supportive for social business. A conservative social system, bureaucracy and a still rather hierarchic cultural perspective on the individual makes it particularly hard to engage in this way. The current system here is clearly not working, so hopefully the visions spreading from this Summit will give some strong transformational power.
