LIVE: Mohammed Yunnus on the VISION SUMMIT: Berlin is Worldcentre for Social Business
November 2nd, 2008 by Frans Prins 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.
One Response to “LIVE: Mohammed Yunnus on the VISION SUMMIT: Berlin is Worldcentre for Social Business”
By pedro arevalo on Jan 26, 2009
Mr. Junnus
I hope you read this brief letter. I belong to million unemployed in Chile that we urgently need to come with us to work together and move forward. The unemployment situation is untenable and the resources we have are incredibly abundant. If you read my letter, please reply me to start my own work with a small loan from your bank social
a hug
pedro arevalo