Jul 2010 14

Career: CEO and Founding Member of Grameen Creative Lab
Interests: Social Business, Politics, Dance
Hometowns: Frankfurt, Germany

Saskia Bruysten is CEO and Strategic Director of The Grameen Creative Lab GmbH (GCL). She was one of the founding members of the GCL, along with Nobel Peace Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus. Previously she worked at The Boston Consulting Group as a senior consultant (Munich and New York). She completed her Bachelor and MBA at the European Business School (ebs), and went on to graduate with a distinction, MSc in Theory and History of International Relations from the London School of Economics. Saskia comes from a German / Canadian background, and has studied in the USA and Argentina.

The Grameen Creative Lab (GCL) was founded at the end of 2008 by Nobel Peace Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus. Its goal is to fight poverty through the spread of the model of social business. A social business is a non-loss, non-dividend company aimed at achieving a social goal. As such, it exists only for the purpose of solving a social problem, such as hunger, disease, etc. It addresses this issue very much like a conventional business would. However, the social business can make money, but investors don’t take money out of it. Profits get reinvested to further the social goal. The GCL undertakes two main activities; 1. Creating awareness to social business through events; 2. Providing consulting services to companies, entrepreneurs and organizations interested in founding a social business.

The GCL has consulted or is in the process of consulting and partnering with the following companies, universities, governments and organisations: BASF, Otto Group, SAP, adidas Group; EBS University, Kyushu University, McGill University, Istituto Europeo di Design, Finance University of Moscow; Government of Caldas, Colombia, Government of Albania, City of Wiesbaden; World Economic Forum, Clinton Global Initiative, Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurs, Sing for Hope, Erste Stiftung. Additionally, the Grameen Creative Lab has initiated the setup of social business funds in Mumbai and Haiti.

More:
www.grameencreativelab.com
GCL Facebook
GCL on Twitter
GCL on Vimeo

Twitter: @saskiabruysten

Wikipedia: Social Business
Wikipedia: Muhammad Yunus
Yunus Center
Grameen Bank

Other articles/links/videos:
TruthDive.com: Mohammad Yunus and Social Business. Poor people are more socially conscious and honest.
Fora.tv: Muhammad Yunus – The Social Business Model
YouTube: Microfinance pioneer Muhammad Yunus speaks at the University of Virginia
Book by Muhammad Yunus: Building Social Business: The New Kind of Capitalism that Serves Humanity’s Most Pressing Needs
Book by Muhammad Yunus: Creating a world without poverty

Short intro to Grameen Creative Lab:


1 Comment

  1. Siddhartha Bandyopadhyay says:

    As you know most of the communities (such as Bengali) in this sub-continent are infected by ‘Culture of Poverty(hopelessness)’, irrespective of class or economic strata, lives in pavement or apartment. Nobody is seriously ashamed of or regret the deep-rooted corruption, decaying general quality of life, worst Politico-Governance, bad work place, weak mother language, filth, continuous consumption of common social space (mental as well as physical, both). We are becoming parents only by self-procreation – mindlessly, blindfold (supported by some lame excuses), depriving the forthcoming children’s fundamental right(of a decent & caring society, fearless & dignified living). We are being driven by the very animal instinct, pushing persons for a nasty survival, indulging the entire community to go perish. Do not ever look for other positive alternative gesture/values to perform more human way of parenthood – deliberately stop giving birth to any child him/herself till the entire society improves up to the mark, co-parenting children those are born out of extreme poverty willfully, instead. If the Bengali people ever opt for a freedom from vicious cycle of poverty, need to involve in Production of Space(Henri Lefebvre), form a positive sentiment to overcome the inherent ‘hopeless’ mindset, definite application of human dignity, decent Politics would certainly come up. – SB, 16/4, Girish Banerjee Lane, Howrah -711101, India.

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