The Dhaka-based Social Business Youth Alliance (SBYA) organised the Social Business Youth Summit 2015 on Monday, under the guidance of the Yunus Centre.
The summit was organised to create a platform of social business where the youth can interact, meet and learn from professionals in the field. There were students from all across Bangladesh as well as different countries including Australia, Japan, Morocco, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom.
Around 600 youths participated in the event which held various sessions of speeches, interactive activities and workshops on various topics including ideologies and theory, social media, the micro and macro levels of social business, promoting causes and leadership in the field of social business.
Abir Ferdous Mukhar, a film studies student who participated in the event, says he came here to learn how to connect social business to filmmaking.
“Since I am a film student, I can’t go into a career of banking or finance,” he told the Dhaka Tribune.
“Thus I wanted to learn how to use my film education in the field of social business and in what capacity I can do that,” he said, adding that he is interested in working with the hijra (transgender) community to create a social business model that would give the community a source of earning.
The event ended with a note from Dr Muhammad Yunus, who delivered an encouraging speech for the youth.
Making a stellar comparison to science fiction, Dr Yunus spoke of creating a “social fiction.”
“Whatever we create in science fiction, technology and science follow that direction, they try to make it happen,” he said.
“That’s the direction of imagination. You imagine things, and they start happening,” he continued. “If you can make science fiction a reality just by imagining it, why don’t you write social fiction? And we can make it happen. We can build a society we imagined.”
Shazeeb M Khairul Islam, founder of SBYA, Lamiya Morshed, executive director of the Yunus Centre, and Dr David Hodges, Professor at RMIT University among others spoke at the event.
The event was held at Krishibid Institute of Bangladesh. East Delta University, AFW, Multimode, Olympic, Lava, Net Park, Bongo are sponsors of the event. UIUBC, UNESCO Club of BRAC University, Business Club of Jagannath University, NSU HRM Club, IUTPS, IABC of BRAC University, BYLC Graduate Network, IBA-JUDC and AUW Model United Nations are club partners for the event. Thereport24.com and Prito Reza Production were audiovisual partners, while the Dhaka Tribune and Radio Shadhin 24FM were the media partners.
