SBYA Global

Ambassador: Shazeeb Islam , Bangladesh

Shazeeb Islam Founded Social Business Youth Alliance Global (SBYA) to educate and support people in Bangladesh starting a social business. SBYA’s Social Business Development training programme offers three-hour workshops to introduce the concept of social business. 60 people attend each of seven workshops a year. Attending costs $8, a deliberately low, affordable price. SBYA Global also offers two eight-hour Social Business Development (TSBD) programmes, on entrepreneurship and business plan development. 120 people attended the two programmes for $15 each. The Social Business Plan Development training, offers four hours of classes. 200 people attended two training sessions this year and the 30 best business plans were selected from each intake. Participants pay $4 to attend. SBYA’s annual Social Business Champ competition shortlisted 140 teams from 700 applications. After completing a TSBD programme 50 teams were chosen, prepared a business plan and 15 teams became finalists; they presented their plans and received four hours of expert mentoring. The two winning teams received an award and certificate from Professor Muhammad Yunus and start-up funding from Grameen Telecom Trust estimated at $12,000. The competitors paid $12 per team. 650 people attended SBYA Global’s Youth Summit, sponsored by universities and corporations for $13 each. With 20 inspirational speakers including Professor Muhammad Yunus, the Summit offers 11 hours of talks, discussions and workshops. This year, over 1,890 young entrepreneurs benefited from SBYA Global.