Four Gates Cambridge Scholars are taking part in a conference at the end of the month which aims to inspire and support those running or seeking to start a social enterprise.
Four Gates Cambridge Scholars are taking part in the Annual
Cambridge Catalyst Conference at the end of the month which aims to inspire and support those running or seeking to start a social enterprise.
The Catalyst conference will take place on 31st January at the Judge Business School in Cambridge. Gates Cambridge Alumna Robyn Scott is one of three keynote speakers. Other Scholars taking part include Toby Norman and Isaac Holeman. Songqiao Yao is helping to organise the conference.
The conference will address the notion of social enterprise as a solution to local and global issues. It is run by the student-led society, Beyond Profit, which aims to spread knowledge about social enterprise and its benefits, and will include an opportunity for participants to submit a pitch for their own social enterprise. Winners will receive £500 and three months hotdesking space at Social Incubator East.
Robyn Scott [2004] is Co-Founder of the social enterprises Brothers for All and Mothers for All and of innovation company OneLeap. Brothers for All helps prisoners, former prisoners and at-risk township youth in South Africa learn coding, entrepreneurship and leadership skills; Mothers for All teaches entrepreneurship skills to AIDS and orphan caregivers; OneLeap helps the world’s leading organisations be more entrepreneurial by working with experienced entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs. She is also author of an acclaimed memoir about growing up in Botswana, an Ambassador for the Access to Medicine Index, one of WIRED’s 50 People About to Change the World and a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. She will speak about how to promote social entrepreneurship worldwide and about her own experiences of setting three social enterprises up.
Isaac Holeman [2013], co-founder of the award-winning Medic Mobile, will be on a panel about design for social innovation. He will be talking about doing that in the context of global health with the team at Medic Mobile. Isaac has been featured twice in Forbes Magazine as one of the top 30 social entrepreneurs under the age of 30. He continues to practice design at Medic Mobile while pursuing research projects as a fellow of the University of Edinburgh’s Global Health Academy and doing a PhD in Innovation, Strategy and Organisation at the University of Cambridge.
Toby Norman [2011], who is also doing a PhD in Management Studies and is co-founder of SimPrints, a fingerprint identification device, will speak on how to fund a social enterprise at different stages in its progression.
Songqiao Yao [2014] is doing an MPhil in Geographical Research. Before she came to Cambridge, she was involved in starting the China office for an international environmental organisation, International Rivers. She also co-founded an ethical juice brand in Beijing.
More information on the conference can be found here – http://www.catalystconference.org.uk/
Picture credit: Medic Mobile
