The Birth of the First “Yunus Prize” Winners in the Promotion of Social Business
The team “Fabric-lous Life” won the championship of the first Yunus Prize. With excitement, members took pictures with Dr. Yunus (middle). PHOTO: Chu Yun-hsuan
To promote Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Dr. Muhammad Yunus’ idea of social innovation and social business, the Yunus Social Business Centre at NCU held “the 2016 Youth Forum on Social Business” and the Final of the “Yunus Prize: 1st Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition” on August 25, 2016. Dr. Yunus was invited to attend the event, being the chairman of the Judges Committee and delivering a speech. A total of more than 400 people from the industry, government, and academia participated this event at NCU.
“The word ‘innovation’ connotes different meanings to social business and general business entrepreneurship, respectively. General startups continue to follow traditional business approach aiming for maximizing profit. However, social business entrepreneurship makes a breakthrough and creates new rules, which are neither for shareholders nor for profit maximization, but for offering solutions to social problems. This is the point that makes ‘innovative social business entrepreneurship’ extraordinary,” stated Dr. Yunus.
Dr. Yunus agreed that holding a competition like the Yunus Prize can attract the public’s attention, and people can realize what social business is. “Participants should design and propose proper social business models which can help people. The Judges Committee should also examine the feasibility and completeness of the participants’ proposals. If the social innovation proposals from the semi-final’s teams can be successfully carried out, I believe that they will not only solve the problems in Taiwan but also help deal with the similar situations around the globe. To lift more people out of poverty and to become the power to change the world are the top priorities of starting up social businesses,” said Dr. Yunus.
The team “Fabric-lous Life” organized by students from National Sun Yat-Sen University, National Quemoy University, and Chung Shan Medical University won the 1st place of the first Yunus Prize. Their proposal was motivated by the phenomena of production exploitation and waste under the trend of fast fashion. In view of modern people’s highclothing elimination rate, they came up with the business model of “Fun-E Closet,” which provides solutions to the increased problem of apparel waste due to one-time life circle of clothes. This model aims to maximize the benefits of recycling clothes to reach the goal of being economical and environmental-friendly.
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