Question-1: what is a social business? Answer: According to Prof.

Muhammad Yunus, a social business is a non-loss, non-dividend company designed to address a social objective within the highly regulated marketplace of today. Social Businesses seek profit from the activities that generate social improvements and serve a broader human development purpose. A key attribute of social businesses is that an increase in revenue corresponds to an incremental social enhancement.

Question-2: Who is the Pioneer of this concept? Answer: The concept of social business is pioneered by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Prof. Muhammad Yunus . The concept of social business is described in his books named Creating a world without povertySocial Business and the future of capitalism and Building Social BusinessThe new kind of capitalism that serves humanity's most pressing needs.

Question-3: How do you differentiate a social business from a conventional (i.e. profit oriented) business and not-for-profit businesses? Answer: In a profit oriented business the main objective is to maximize the profit where normally owner of the business retain and enjoy all the profit ignoring benefit of the society as a whole. Whenever, on the other side a social business also make profit but the maximization of profit objective is replaced by the social benefit principle. In case of not for profit business, it is a corporation or an association that conducts business for the benefit of the general public without considering the benefit of shareholders and without a profit motive. On the other hand a social business company has to generate enough income to cover its own costs, possibly recover the initial amount invested and allow for expansion at the same time achieve the social objective, such as, healthcare for the poor.

Question-4: There will be a Social Business Forum at North South University on June 29th ,2012 which will bring together some well known people around the world directly or indirectly related with social business. Name three of them and also include their brief introduction. Answer: North South University organized the event, Social Business Forum 2012 with the theme-Social Business Practices Evaluating Impacts, on June 29,2012. Researchers, scholars and experts from all over the world joined in this forum to discuss the significance, power and influence of social business. Among all famous people I mention here a brief introduction of three 1. Professor Muhammad Yunus( Nobel Peace Laureate) : Muhammad Yunus is a Bangladeshi banker, economist and Nobel Peace Prize recipient. He is a member of advisory board at Shahjalal University of Science and Technology. He previously was a professor of economics at Chittagong University where he developed the concepts of microcredit and microfinance. Yunus also serves on the board of directors of the United Nations Foundation, he is also the pioneer of the concept of Social Business. 2. Professor H.I.Latifee: Professor Latifee is the Managing Director of Grameen Trust. He is recognized as an expert in the area of Microfinance, Poverty Reduction and Value Building Growth due to his long experience with Grameen Bank, Grameen Trust, Grameen partners and Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) worldwide. 3. Mr. Ronald J.Garan,Jr(Colonel,USAF,Rtd.): Ronald John Garan, Jr. is a NASA astronaut. After graduating he joined the Air Force. Before becoming an astronaut he was the Operations Officer. He was selected as a pilot by NASA in July 2000. He spend 177 days, 23 hours,54 minutes in space.

Question-5: From you understanding, what do you think is the purpose of this Social Business Forum? Please discuss some of its main objectives. Answer: North South University in association with the Professional Society for Social Business arranged Social Business Forum 2012 with the theme-Social Business Practices Evaluating Impacts, to provide us with an opportunity to learn, understand, experience the new concept of social business in greater depths. The main objective of this forum is includes to inform us the impact of the existing social business, to impart knowledge and learning to social business enthusiast and objectives includes To promote the concept of social business To motivate us to involve with the activities of social business To educate us about the concept of social business To inform us about the effectiveness of social business etc.

Question-6: Identify three social businesses currently operating in Bangladesh with a brief background (year of establishment, industry of operation and entrepreneurs who started the businesses) of each. Answer: Bangladesh is an emerging country with tremendous opportunities in various sectors. In order to fully utilize the opportunities, a significant number of social businesses are currently operating in Bangladesh. A brief background of three of them are given below-

1. Grameen Bank: Grammen Bank is the mother of social business and it is operating in the industry of financial service/banking industry. The origin of Grameen Bank can be traced back to 1976 when Professor Muhammad Yunus launched a research project to examine the possibility of designing a credit delivery system to provide banking services targeted to the rural poor. In October 1983, the Grameen Bank Project was transformed into an independent bank by government legislation. In 2006, Grameen Bank and its founder Prof. Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize "for their efforts to create economic and social development from below".

2. Grameen Danone Foods Ltd.: "Grameen Danone" is a social business enterprise which is operating its business in Food Processing industry. In 2005 Professor Muhammad Yunus proposed to form a joint venture between Grameen and Groupe Danone (French Food Company) with the objective of supplying nutritious food to poor children of Bangladesh. As a result Grameen Danone Foods Ltd was launched in 2006. The company's goal was to provide nutritional yogurt (brand name Shoktidoi) for the nearly 50 million Bangladeshi poor children using an innovative Social Business model. 3. Grameen Veolia Water Ltd: In 2008, Grameen and Veolia Water, based in France established Grameen-Veolia Water. Ltd. It is a joint venture between Veolia Water and Grameen Bank ( founded by Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus,) the entity aims to provide clean drinking water to 100,000 people in Bangladesh at the low price of 3 taka per 10 liters. It is operating its business in Water supply, water treatment and sewage treatment industry.

Question-7: Discuss at least two possible social businesses that you would be interested to initiate and why. Answer: Now a day, in our society drug addiction became serious problem. Unemployment and frustration is one of the main reasons of this problem. Especially poor city people are affected by this problem. When there is no hope left for the young they generally become addicted to drugs for temporary pleasure. As a result we lost our valuable human resource. These problems can be solved by making themself busy in work. Thats why we want to open a social- self employment centre from where unemployed young people can train them up with a little cost and then start their own business successfully. In our country, there are lots of problems in agricultural sector. Some are natural and some are created by our poor economic system. We can fight with these problems by making the social co- relation such as collective farming and working together. So we can promote a social business like innovative social farming where every farmer will get some money from the fund and they can bear the expenses of farming together. When they will sell their products some money will be deducted from their revenue and these will keep in the fund.

References: 1. http://www.muhammadyunus.org/ 2. http://www.grameentrust.org/ 3. http://www.grameeninfo.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=29&Itemid=140 4. http://www.veoliawater.com/media/news/2009-06-24,Grameen-Veolia-WaterGoalmari.htm 5. http://hbr.org/product/grameen-danone-foods-ltd-a-social-business/an/511025-PDFENG 6. Social Business Forum 2012