The Business of Social and Environmental Innovation (BSEI) conference will take place at the GSB’s campus in Cape Town from 15-16 November 2011 and will also provide the foundation for an ongoing network of collaboration that will link practitioners, teachers, researchers and policy makers interested and engaged in these issues.

At the same event, the school will also formally launch the Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship – an exciting new venture that will boost research, teaching and outreach in this field.

The UCT GSB is a leading business school in Africa and the only business school on the continent with an MBA ranked in the Financial Times’ Top 100. With an already strong emerging market focus, these new initiatives are set to boost its pioneering work in the area of social innovation and entrepreneurship.

According to Professor Ralph Hamann of the UCT GSB, gaining a better understanding of the role of business in developing innovative responses to complex social and environmental problems is becoming more urgent globally.

“In the context of limited progress by national and multilateral efforts in meeting some of the Millennium Development Goals, or in establishing a fairer climate change regime, there are a number of initiatives springing up that seek to harness the entrepreneurial, innovative, managerial and financial capacities of business, at various scales, to contribute to improved social and environmental outcomes,” he said. “Part of the urgency, perhaps, is due to the obvious need for new sources of innovation and systemic change in the face of the major problems we face as humanity.”

One of the best know examples of this kind of entrepreneurial response to a social issue that has led to a systemic change is the Grameen Bank. Working with poor Bangladeshi villagers, Mohammed Yunus realized that a vital challenge faced by them was a lack of access to loans, with which they could make modest investments in education, infrastructure or technology, in order to help generate better incomes. So he set up groups of women to manage a process of distributing small loans based on predetermined criteria. Loan repayments were remarkably reliable. Grameen Bank was born and it has contributed to a worldwide surge in micro-finance.

But social entrepreneurs can also operate within established businesses to affect change in corporate strategy or international value chains, going well beyond traditional corporate social responsibility (CSR) to develop new business propositions blending financial and social value. Many such initiatives rely on informal networks, as well as diverse forms of partnership between different businesses or sectors often across geographical boundaries.

Professor Hamann said that a specific objective of the BSEI conference will be to connect and cross-fertilise these diverse partnerships.

“How can models of social innovation in South Africa provide insights into tackling economic marginalisation in Europe’s cities, or conversely, how can European experiences with developing innovation systems – for instance in renewable energy – inform public policy and business strategy in a country like South Africa?” he asks.

“We are also interested in the role that business schools play (or can play) in equipping at least some of their students to contribute to social and environmental innovation,” he said.

It is in this regard that the newly established Bertha Centre will play a significant role. The centre has been established with the investment of the Bertha Foundation in order to drive new thinking to bring new energy to social and environmental innovation.

UCT Graduate School of Business

The UCT GSB has a reputation for innovation and excellence that has helped it to take its place amongst the very best in the world. Ranked 60th in the prestigious Financial Times Global Top 100 MBA, and with full EQUIS accreditation, the GSB offers four core academic programmes: Associate in Management; Postgraduate Diploma in Business Administration; MBA and Executive MBA, as well as numerous short courses. The school also offers customized courses and programmes for corporate clients.

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