Context: Extreme poverty continues to exist

Malnutrition, insalubrious living conditions, illiteracy: there are multiple layers to poverty. Today, 2.5 billion people (30% of the world's population) live on less than $2 US per day. If nothing is done by 2050, 50% of the world population will be living below the poverty level.

In developing countries:

- Major future issues linked to current environmental and demographical changes such as global warming, a strain on natural resources and loss of biodiversity are foreseeable.
- Extreme poverty in numerous countries will continue.

In developed countries, like France:

- 8 million people still live below the poverty level - 2 million of whom are children
- Individuals are often ill-equipped to react when confronted by a demanding economic system
- A critical state of affairs exists in certain businesses, in deprived city areas and in rural zones threatened by desertification.

Missions and Objectives

The aim of the Social Business Certificate is to contribute to training a new generation of managers, aware of societal challenges and aspiring to be part of the solution, regardless of their professional activity.
Across the Social Business Certificate, the objectives of HEC Paris and its partners are:

- To train students in innovative business approaches that reduce poverty, by offering new economic models in both developed and developing countries;
- To investigate new ways of co-creation and distribution of wealth to reduce poverty;
- To allow students to incorporate their valuable experience in humanitarian associations into their professional life and to acquire key questioning skills on the role of business in society.

The objective is not necessarily for all students to work in Social Business, but for them to acquire an awareness of the importance of SB in their field of work.

Candidates

In 2010-2011, the Certificate welcomed more than 80 participants among which:

- 3rd year HEC MSc in Management Grande Ecole students, already specialized in a Major.
- Students in the HEC Paris MSc in Sustainable Development or in the other Masters when compatible with the curriculum.
- MBA students.
- Students from other schools and universities on a case-by-case basis. Special requests will be addressed to Elisabeth de Réals at: dereals@hec.fr
- Visiting Professors who want to develop similar courses in their home Universities.
- A small number of managers who are seriously considering shifting career to develop a social business.

Program

- 2 months in class examining Social Business themes and studying the involvement of business in the fight against poverty, complementing students' main fields of study.
- A Hands-on experience in a business, in a structure of social integration, or in a project of social entrepreneurship project involved in fighting poverty (as part of the course on "Business and poverty in developed countries").
- A certificate is awarded to students who complete the above.

 

The  HEC Paris Social Business/Enterprise and Poverty Chair

The Chair seeks to promote Social Business by an action that is threefold:

 

- Teaching, with the Social Business Certificate.

- Research, by developing quality research on strategic innovation in societal fields on the theme of social business, and the ways in which business can fight poverty.

- Action research, by contributing to an inclusive economy, in France and in other developed countries as well as in developing countries. This initiative brings together HEC academics, large firms, government members and heads of the non-profit organizations with the objective of alleviating poverty through business.

Below the video of our Digital 4 Change event realized with Muhammad Yunus, on December 9, 2010.