Pre-Meeting for Social Business Academia Conference 2017 Held at Mirpur

International Academics Exchanged Ideas on Theoretical Aspects of Social Business

30 July, 2017, Dhaka

Pre-meeting of Social Business Academia Conference (SBAC) to be held in Paris on November 8-9, 2017, was held today at Mirpur as a preparation meeting of Paris conference. International academics who came to Bangladesh to attend Social Business Day 2017 attended the meeting. About 120 faculty members from 30 universities around the world attended today’s meeting to discuss about the academic aspects of social business. This will be the fifth edition of the conference. Fourth edition of the conference was also held in Paris, France in 2016. About thirty nine peer reviewed papers on social business are expected to be presented at the conference in Paris.

With the opening speech by Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus, Chair of the organizing committee of SBAC, the day’s program started at 10.30 AM in the morning. Professor Cam Donaldson, chairman scientific committee and Pro vice chancellor of Glasgow Caledonian University of Scotland updated the audience about SBAC. Professor Yunus congratulated the seven new Yunus Social Business Centres (YSBC) in seven universities located in China, India, Malaysia, Taiwan, Palestine, Mexico and Hong Kong; and welcomed them in the expanding network of YSBCs around the world in his opening speech. This brings the number of YSBCs to 42. This year this number will exceed 50. Ms Lamiya Morshed, Executive Director of Yunus Centre updated the participants about the latest developments regarding the YSBCs. Representatives of different YSBCs, who were present at the meeting, shared their respective developments.

There were four breakout sessions at the meeting to focus on topics like Social Business in the Academic Curriculum and Designing a Course on Social Business, moderated by Prof. Chien-wen Shen, National Central University, Taiwan, China, Emerging Research Issues and Present Research Agenda on Social Business in Various Universities, Moderated by Prof. Zhao Meng, Renmin University of China, Financing of Research on Social Business, moderated by Prof. Faiz Shah, Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Thailand,     PhD Scholarships for YSBCs, moderated by Dr. Ashir Ahmed, Kyushu University, Japan. Participants discussed the technical issues like developing curriculum for social business course, securing social business research fund, facilitating PhD scholarships. They also shared their respective views about attracting more quality research papers in each SBAC and how publication of these papers in professional journals can be ensured. Some of the discussants also presented their ideas to bring out dedicated social business journals. Academics and participants came from various countries including HEC Montréal, Canada, National Central University, Taiwan, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kyushu University, Japan, Chandighar University, India, University of Mysore, India, Renmin University, China, Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand, Universiti Teknologi Petronas, Malaysia, University of New South Wales, Australia, University of Florence, Italy, EADA Business School, Spain, Universiti Utara Malaysia, Catholic University of Zimbabwe, Tufts University, USA, Chia Foundation, Cameroon. 

The Social Business Academia Conference (SBAC) is held each year to review the theoretical and practical implications and potentials of the concept of social business. The purpose of the conference is to create a networking opportunity for academicians, researchers, practitioners, and development activists to discuss recent insights on Social Business. This conference seeks to understand the management and performance implications of the social business concept introduced by Professor Yunus. It also aims to explore new theoretical and empirical research in the areas of finance, marketing, human resources, information and communication technology, health, agriculture and management issues related to social businesses which will foster the future direction of the policies and practices of these businesses. Besides academic papers, the conference welcomes case studies, in-depth evaluations, and papers documenting innovative directions of social businesses from business executives, consultants, social activists, social business practitioners, ethicists, social scientists and others. Collectively academic and non-academic contributions will reflect on the challenges and opportunities that social businesses face as they try to solve the most complicated human problems inside one country, and across countries around the world.

The day’s pre-meeting ended with recommendations for SBAC at Paris in November to be held in the Cité University of Paris which was established to bring the young people of the world to study in one campus.