Aug 07, 2023 | Summits

The Global Social Business Summit 2021

To transform the global economy, we need imagination and creative actions more than ever. From 6th-10th of November 2021, the Global Social Business Summit took place live from Mount Kenya University and online following the theme of “Planting the seeds towards a New Economy: Time is Now”. In this 4–day event, over 1000 people from 90+ countries came together to discuss and learn about how practitioners all across the world are solving socio-environmental problems. Participants were inspired from the plenary sessions, learned from the variety of workshops, discussed regional and national priorities to further the social business movement. Keeping the tradition of the Young Challengers Program, 70+ young challengers pitched 11 ideas to solve a social problem.  

The Summit was preceded by the 10th Social Business Academia Conference which took place on 5th and 6th November 2021, and brought researchers and faculty from over 100 universities together to discuss research papers and studies on social business. Both events featured discussions on “3ZERO Club”, an initiative aimed at attaining a world with three zeros, i.e., zero net carbon emission, zero wealth concentration for ending poverty, and zero unemployment through entrepreneurship for all. 

Speakers

A total of 120 distinguished speakers from Governments, Corporates, Academia, Entrepreneurs and Civil Societies shared their ideas and expertise with us through plenaries and workshops. We were graced by the presence of so many magnificent speakers such as: Nobel Laureate Prof. Muhammad Yunus, CEO of Grameen Creative Lab, Circ and Entrepreneur Hans Reitz, Executive Director of Yunus Centre Lamiya Morshed, Prime Minister of Cape Verde, His Excellency Ulisses Correira e Silva, Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development His Excellency Gerd Müller, Head of Global Patient Solutions at Gilead Sciences Dr. Harald Nusser, Founder and CEO of Seed Global Health Dr. Vanessa Kerry, CEO of BNP Paribas Jean-Laurent Bonnafe, Vice Chancellor of Mount Kenya University Prof. Deogratius Jaganyi, President of IOC, Thomas Bach along with many others.  

 

Program

The Summit will be a 5-day programme consisting of plenary sessions, 

6 November – Opening Ceremony

7 November – Plenaries and Workshops

8 November – Plenaries and Workshops

9 November – Country Forums

10 November – Report Back from Country Forums and Closing Ceremony

 

Impact of the Summit

This year we had a whopping 238940 total reach across all the platforms (Hubilo and social media) along with 90+ countries from 6 continents. Among the organizations represented, we had BNP Paribas, Google Inc. ILO, UNICEF, WFP, Kofi Annan Foundation, European Commission, Danone, Red Cross, International Olympic Committee, European Central Bank, Jack Wolfskin, Unilever, USAID, FAO.