To foster the development of social entrepreneurship through applied research, SKEMA Business School launched the SKEMA Social Ventures Lab on October 24.
The event took place at Impact Hub Belo Horizonte in Brazil. Impact Hub is a global network of impact entrepreneurs, co-working spaces, and incubators that inspires, connects and empowers its members to develop their entrepreneurial ideas for a more sustainable world.
Prof. Philippe Chereau, director of SKEMA Ventures, launched the SKEMA Social Ventures Lab in the presence of representatives from Belo Horizonte’s entrepreneurship ecosystem, academics, startups, and students.
The SKEMA Social Ventures Lab will be present at all the campuses of SKEMA and will facilitate social entrepreneurship education through various online and offline resources strongly anchored in applied research from SKEMA scholars. SKEMA strongly believes that this initiative will go a long way in supporting entrepreneurs’ self-sufficiency and boost creativity, empathy, rational thinking, and entrepreneurship skills.
Several professors from SKEMA are working on training modules built from applied research works in areas such as frugal innovation, reverse innovation, effectual innovation and ecosystems of entrepreneurship, among others, for the lab.
To illustrate the research that has been developed, Prof. Eduardo Rossetto, associate professor of global innovation and entrepreneurship at SKEMA, introduced the framework of frugal innovation to the audience. Florian Fournier, a SKEMA alumnus and founder of SIKANA, complemented this by presenting his own entrepreneurship journey and the challenges he faced while combining the creation of societal and economic value.
Reports have shown that social entrepreneurs experience tougher barriers in the beginning. Many of them face several hurdles in terms of lack of financial, administrative, and informational support. The raison d’être of SKEMA Social Ventures Lab is to provide these entrepreneurs with the methods and tools for mentoring, incubation, acceleration, funding, and go-to-market strategy. For more details, visit the SKEMA Social Ventures Lab page.