Developing Socially Responsible Leaders-meet the social entrepreneurs

By Charu Verma

One of NanyangBusiness School’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Club’s aims is to help develop leaders who are compassionate, innovative, and who use their business acumen to solve social issues hovering over communities all over the globe.

The first and the most vital step towards this aim was taken through finding opportunities for MBA students to interact with budding social entrepreneurs in Singapore. The club wanted to achieve more than just a talk so that students get to experience the journey to social entrepreneurship rather than just a monologist lecture on how to become a social entrepreneur. This made “The Hub” an obvious choice for us to visit given that it is one of the biggest professional centers that not just provide office space to social entrepreneurs but also promote social entrepreneurship.

14 MBA students coming from both full-time and part-time programmes interacted with  5 social entrepreneurs. . Social entrepreneurs from organizations Akaraka, Milaap, The Hub, and Silverline Mobi shed light on various issues that a social entrepreneur deals with and a few examples of how they dealt with those same issues during their journey. Highlight of the day was the unique opportunity to mingle with several social entrepreneurs present at The Hub in their weekly evening get-together. The enthusiasm of us, Nanyang MBAs ,at the Hub made Akaraka invite the MBA cohort to its forthcoming fund raising event at The Arts House at The Old Parliament.

We at The CSR Club,  will continue to search for more opportunities for MBAs to be a part of such worthy endeavors such as social enterprises such as those in The Hub.