| Social Entrepreneur Guide

Local — Week of March 11

March 11, 2012 By Joe

TUESDAY, MARCH 13

•Frank Crandall Horticultural Solutions of Wakefield, R.I., will hold a horticultural business seminar from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the MassAudubon Broad Meadow Brook Conservation Center and Wildlife Sanctuary in Worcester. The cost is $275; $250 for NOFA, RINLA, MNLA and ELA members; and $250 for two or more employees from the same company. Checks should be made payable to Frank Crandall, Horticultural Solutions and mailed to P.O. Box 451, Wakefield, RI 02880. To pay by credit card, contact Mr. Crandall at (401) 742-7619 or FrankCrandall3@gmail.com.

•CMEA The Employers Association will present a program, “Leadership Skills For Lead People,” from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Worcester Country Club, 2 Rice St., Worcester. The program will cover the functions of lead workers and group leaders, transitioning to leadership, leadership styles and behaviors, communications skills development, managing performance and managing change. The cost is $190 for CMEA members, $250 for nonmembers.

•The Society of Professional Communicators will hold a program on mobile marketing, presented by Steffan Berelowitz, chief executive officer of BlueTrain Mobile in Cambridge, at 11:30 a.m. at the Coral Seafood restaurant, Shrewsbury Street, Worcester. The cost is $17 for members, $25 for nonmembers. To register, email info@spcgroup.org or go to www.spcgroup.org.

•The Quaboag Valley Community Development Corp. and the Quaboag Hills Chamber of Commerce are sponsoring a training and expo event for local businesses and customers from 1 to 6 p.m. (followed by dinner) at Salem Cross Inn in West Brookfield. The cost for the training conference, including workshops and dinner, is $45. The cost for expo displays is $130 for chamber members, including dinner. Dave Ratner of Dave’s Soda and Pet Food City will speak at dinner on “How to make your customer LOVE you.” For more information, call the CDC at (413) 967-3001 or the chamber at (413) 283-2418. For more information and to register, go to www.qhma.com and click on events.

•The Central Massachusetts South Chamber of Commerce will hold its Fun at Five networking event at 5 p.m. Admiral T.J. O’Brien’s in Sturbridge.

•The Greater Gardner Chamber of Commerce will hold its March Business After Hours program from 5 to 7:30 p.m. at King Phillip Restaurant, 35 State Road, Phillipston. The cost is $5 for chamber members, $7 for nonmembers. For more information or to reserve a seat, contact the chamber at (978) 632-1780 or email epenney@gardnerma.com.

•The Auburn and Webster-Dudley-Oxford chambers of commerce will hold a joint Business After Hours networking event from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at Bistro Eight Ates, 172 Gore Road, Webster. The cost is $10 for chamber members, $15 for nonmembers and at the door.

•The WPI Venture Forum will hold a program on sports entrepreneurship from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute’s Campus Center — Odeum, third floor. The program is free for members, sponsors and students; $15 for WPI alumni; and $30 for the general public. For more information, call (508) 831-5075.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 14

•Wake Up Wachusett, the quarterly business breakfast of the Wachusett Chamber of Commerce, will be held from 7:30 to 9 a.m. at Four Points Hotel, Leominster. Sarah Devaney-O’Neil, a social media and marketing consultant and coach, will present “Blending Traditional and Social Media.”

•The Webster Square Business Association will meet from 11:45 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. at Zorba’s Taverna, 97 Stafford St., Worcester. The guest speaker will be Will O’Brien, executive in residence at Clark University’s Graduate School of Management, who will talk about the Worcester Sustainable Business Leader Program. The cost is $15, which includes lunch. RSVP to Jim Finnegan at (508) 754-2033 or info@finneganphotographers.com.

•The Central Massachusetts Metropolitan Planning Organization will meet at 4:30 p.m. at Union Station, 2 Washington Square, second floor, Worcester.

THURSDAY, MARCH 15
•BNI Golden Triangle/Shrewsbury will meet from 7 to 8:30 a.m. at Vets Inc., 59 South St., Shrewsbury. Admission is free and coffee is served. Area businesspeople are welcome. For more information, contact Dave at (508) 579-4381 or emaildave@davelima.com.

•The Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce will hold a free Business Owners Dialogue from 8 to 9:30 a.m. in the Chamber Conference Room, 446 Main St., Worcester.

•The Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce Women’s Information Network will meet from noon to 1:30 p.m. in the Chamber Conference Room, 446 Main St., Suite 200, Worcester. The event is free for WIN members, $10 for nonmembers.

•Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce will host a Business After Hours networking event from 5 to 7:30 p.m. at Hirosaki Prime, 1121 Grafton St., Worcester. The cost is $10 for members, $20 for nonmembers. Parking is limited, so use the valet or shuttle service provided by Worcester Airport Limousine.

•As part of its Sustainable Leader Speaker Series, Clark University will host Bob Pojasek, a professor at Harvard University and sustainability leader at The Shaw Group, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at Carlson Hall, Room 128, at the university.

FRIDAY, MARCH 16

•The North Central Massachusetts Chamber of Commerce will hold a breakfast program featuring House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo from 6:45 to 8:30 a.m. at the Four Points by Sheraton Hotel in Leominster. A buffet breakfast will be provided. The cost is $21 for members, $40 for nonmembers.

•The Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce Connect For Success referral group will meet from 7:15 to 9 a.m. in the Chamber Conference Room, 446 Main St., Worcester.

•The Auburn Chamber of Commerce Referral Group will meet from 7:30 to 9 a.m. at AMF Auburn Lanes, 101 Southbridge St., Auburn. There is no cost for guests. The cost to join is $150 a year.

•The Center for Women Enterprise and Clark University’s innovation and entrepreneurship department will present a free program, “The World is Yours: Failure Resiliency,” from 4 to 7 p.m. at Clark University’s Dana Commons, 950 Main St., Worcester. To register, call Amy Whitney at (508) 421-3730 or email innovation@clarku.edu.

COMING UP

•The Colleges of Worcester Consortium career services offices will host Career Fair 2012 from noon to 3:30 p.m., Tuesday, March 27, at the Beechwood Hotel in Worcester. The event will feature 70 employers and graduate schools from across New England. Employers must register online at www.cowc.org. For more information, including profiles of participating companies, directions to the Beechwood Hotel, visit www.cowc.org/college-student-resources.

•The Corridor Nine Area Chamber of Commerce is accepting reservations for booths at its Open for Business Expo 2012 on Wednesday, April 4, at the DoubleTree Hotel in Westboro. To reserve a booth, call (508) 836-4444.

To have business-related events published, send information to Aaron Nicodemus, Telegram Gazette, Box 15012, Worcester MA 01615-0012, or send email to anicodemus@telegram.com.

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Article source: http://www.telegram.com/article/20120311/DIGESTS/103119994/1002/BUSINESS

Filed Under: Education

Marshall to host Kiva co-founder as speaker

March 11, 2012 By Joe

HUNTINGTON — Jessica Jackley, co-founder of the microlending website Kiva, will speak Monday at Marshall University.

Jackley will speak on “Love, Money and Work: Social Entrepreneurship as a Career” at 7:30 p.m. at the Erickson Alumni Center. The event, sponsored by the Honors College and the College of Business, is free to the public.

Kiva is a website through which users lend as little as $25 to poor entrepreneurs around the world. It was launched in 2005 and now channels $2 million every week to entrepreneurs in the world’s poorest communities. It works with microfinance institutions on five continents to provide loans to people without access to traditional banking systems.

Lenders making optional donations are the primary source of funding, though it also raises funds through grants, corporate sponsors and foundations.

Locally, there have been efforts by CAFE Huntington to provide matching mini grants to help small business owners meet smaller needs for various projects. And Create Huntington has a matching grant program to provide professional development opportunities for small businesses.

On a statewide level, Vision Shared aims to find more programs like these. It aims to nurture a vibrant entrepreneurial presence in West Virginia to create diverse economic growth, and that needs to start at the grassroots level, said its president, Rebecca Randolph.

Vision Shared has formed a committee dedicated to finding ways of helping small business owners thrive.

“Sometimes, it’s not hundreds of thousands of dollars people need, it’s …just a place where they can make a small investment to start a business,” she said.

“Huntington is in many ways leading the charge with some innovative programming at the community level,” Randolph said. “One of the things we think is very important to growing the entrepreneur base in the state is to look at what works in the communities and provide models for other communities with similar opportunities and demographics.”

Unlimited Future Inc. In Huntington is starting an Entrepreneur’s Cafe beginning at lunchtime April 18 at the Cabell County Library. Modeled after CAFE Huntington, it will give local entrepreneurs a chance to pitch their ideas to a group, and then participants vote on the best and microgrants will be handed out to the winning entrepreneurs.

Randolph added that there’s a website called kickstarter.com, through which entrepreneurs can present a business plan online and folks can support it.

“They can make a contribution to your efforts,” Randolph said. “There are some great things happening $5 or $10 at a time through these campaigns. We are just really starting to explore these types of options.”

Along with Kiva, Jackley co-founded and runs ProFounder, a platform providing new ways for small business entrepreneurs in the U.S. to access startup capital through crowdfunding and community involvement.

She’s now a visiting practitioner at Stanford’s Center for Philanthropy and Civil Society, has taught Global Entrepreneurship at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business, and she lectures frequently at other universities around the country.

“She is an inspiring, young entrepreneur who offers a strong message and model of service and leadership,” Mary Todd, dean of Marshall’s Honors College, said in a press release. “We are delighted to provide a forum for such a creative and energetic speaker.”

Jackley is the recipient of the 2012 Symons Innovator Award, which recognizes the importance of women’s participation in technology innovation and business. She received USA Networks’ Character approved award in 2010.

Visit www.kiva.org for more information.

The event Monday is the Harry and Betty Wolfe Lecture, serving for the first time as a convocation for students in the Honors College’s new Second-Year Seminar in Leadership, Ethics and Civic Engagement.

Article source: http://www.herald-dispatch.com/business/x1556329453/Marshall-to-host-Kiva-co-founder-as-speaker

Filed Under: Education

Filipino student chosen Young Global Leader 2012

March 11, 2012 By Joe

Philippine Daily Inquirer

CARANDANG. De La Salle grad

A Filipino scholar in the United Kingdom has been chosen the 2012 Young Global Leader (YGL) by the World Economic Forum.

A statement from the British Embassy in Manila said Benedict Carandang, 30, was one of the youngest selected for the prestigious honor from thousands of nominees across the world and joins the 191 other honorees of the YGL Class of 2012.

Carandang, a graduate of De La Salle University in Manila, is currently in the United Kingdom pursuing an MBA at the University of Westminster under the Chevening Scholarship Program of the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO).

Creative industries

He was nominated for the Young Global Leaders scheme for his work promoting the creative industries in his home country.

The Young Global Leaders are selected by the World Economic Forum each year to recognize the world’s most distinguished leaders under the age of 40.

At just 24, Carandang co-founded Tuldok Animation Studios, a social enterprise that aims to promote creative talent in the Philippines through animation. Since then, he has become a champion of the country’s creative industries and has been recognized for his work through awards in 2008 from the British Council’s International Young Creative Entrepreneur for Screen scheme and in 2009 he was awarded the Most Inspiring Young Entrepreneur by the Philippine Center for Entrepreneurship. Most recently, he was the recipient of the prestigious Chevening Scholarship awarded by the UK FCO which enabled him to pursue his postgraduate studies in the United Kingdom.

Of the Young Global Leader title, Carandang said, “I have a lot to thank the United Kingdom for opening my horizons about the positive impact of the creative economy, on how it can help effect change and perhaps even become a catalyst in my country by creating more jobs using the talent and entrepreneurship of my countrymen.”

Carandang is now hoping to use his knowledge from the Westminster MBA to continue his work to help support his social enterprise and as part of his commitment to help shape the global future with the Young Global Leaders community around the world.

The honor, bestowed each year by the forum, recognizes up to 200 outstanding young leaders from around the world for their professional accomplishments, commitment to society and potential to contribute to shaping the future of the world. Past YGLs include Maria Bartiromo, anchor and managing editor, Wall Street Journal Report, CNBC, USA; David Cameron, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; Esther Duflo, professor of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA; Larry Page, cofounder and Chief Executive Officer, Google, USA; Zhang Xin, Chief Executive Officer, SOHO China, People’s Republic of China.

19 Southeast Asians

For 2012, the forum has selected 192 YGLs from 59 countries and all sectors of society, including business; civil society; social entrepreneurs; politics and government; arts and culture; and opinion and media. The new class originates from East Asia (38), South Asia (19), Europe (46), Middle East and North Africa (15), sub-Saharan Africa (18), North America (37) and Latin America (19).

http://ukinthephilippines.fco. gov.uk

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