NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

The extent of economic inequality is very high in the world as the world’s richest 1% own more than twice as much wealth as 6.9 billion people own and it is rising drastically. The greed-based profit-maximizing motive of the current economic system is contributing significantly to this rising inequality. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has further worsened this inequality scenario. Millions of people have lost their jobs and thus, they have lost their livelihood. Consequently, millions of families from all over the world have become poor. Thousands of children have dropped out of school. The extent of child labor and child marriage has gone up. The economically marginalized people, especially those who are from minority groups, have been dying disproportionately due to the COVID-19 pandemic. When millions of people are becoming unemployed and poor, the world’s 500 richest people have added approximately $1.8 trillion to their combined wealth in 2020, bringing them to a total net worth of $7.6 trillion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Under such circumstances, the concept of social business promoted by Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus could be HERE.

General Subjects for Conference Papers:

The 10th Social Business Academia Conference (SBAC 2021), an interdisciplinary conference to be held in Nairobi, Kenya on November 5-6, 2021. We invite academic papers, practitioner cases, and concept notes on innovative ideas on any issues related to social business. We especially invite submissions on social business issues in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The regular and online presentations are going to be allowed.

The suggested themes for papers include:

• The importance of social business in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Poverty and wealth concentration.
• Promoting sustainable development including climate change, health improvement, plastic pollution control, and environmental sustainability.
• Achieving UN SDGs through the application of the social business methodology.
• Affordable healthcare for the bottom-most people.
• Application of technologies in achieving qualitative changes in the lives of the unreachable people.
• Identifies the differences and similarities among the concepts of social business, social entrepreneurship, social enterprise, social economy, social impact investment, corporate social responsibility, etc.
• Issues related to the financing of social businesses including innovative financing techniques (potentials and limitations of various financing options, like bonds, venture capital, crowdfunding, philanthropic capital, etc.).
• Various examples of the application of the social business concept.
• Research and teaching methodologies of social business.
• Measurement of social impacts of social businesses.
• Emerging management methodologies for managing social businesses.
• Social businesses in developed countries.
• Theoretical basis and practical experiences of establishing and operating social business funds.
• From unemployment to entrepreneurship through social business funds.
• Development of an ecosystem for the steady growth of the social business.
• Social Business, marketing, and social marketing.
• Social business and strategic alliances.
• Social business, empathy, and active compassion.
• Social business and education.
• Social business and customer service relationship.
• Application of Artificial intelligence and robotics in social business
• Social business and sports.