*According to Muhammad Yunus (Nobel Peace Prize Winner 2006): "Social Business" means establishing, from private wealth, a business whose main objective is not profit-making nor philanthropy, but rather the community good. These businesses should be profitable, creating profit that they can then reinvest.

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:

- 7 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 / Enterprise and Poverty 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 / Enterprise and Poverty Certificate, the objectives of HEC 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

- 3rd year HEC students, already specialized in a Major
- Students in the HEC Sustainable Development Specialized Master or 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 Catherine Rousseau, rousseau@hec.fr.

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
- Hands-on experience in a business, in a structure of social integration, or in a project of social entrepreneurship project involved in fighting poverty
- A certificate is awarded to students who complete the above