2012 CIDG Conference
Frankfurt
September 17-19, 2012
The conference of the Community Impact Development Group (CIDG), launched by Siemens Stiftung and Ashoka, took place in September 2012 for the third time consecutively. This year, CIDG-members met in Frankfurt, in the building of the German Development Bank (KfW). The network has grown further since last year and now includes 18 social entrepreneurs from Africa, Latin America and Asia. All CIDG-members hold in common the fact that they have founded and now lead a social business that meets the basic needs of a community and at the same time offers opportunities for training, jobs and income generation for this community. The social entrepreneurs manage companies in the areas of economic development, agriculture, energy, sanitation and waste management.
This year’s CIDG-conference has focused on the question of how to scale the social impact of the entrepreneur’s innovative solutions to tackle problems regarding the satisfaction of basic needs. The conference program included workshops, discussions and lectures on this issue.
On the first day, after a retrospect on the last twelve months, the conference has dealt with the question of how to scale the social impact of one’s business without necessarily having to grow the business itself. This question was initially taken on in two lectures. Later, the CIDG-members had the opportunity to exchange their views, experiences and best practices regarding the scaling of social impact.
Day 2 was all about finding partners. In three sessions, the CIDG-members has presented their ideas on scaling the social impact of their businesses to different social investors. Thus, they get feedback on their ideas and had the chance to find partners to implement their ideas.
At the last day of the conference, the CIDG-members had the opportunity to suggest topics and questions around the issue of scaling social impact that they want to deal with in small working groups.
Like last year, the conference program included a public panel discussion. The panel discussion took place at the KfW on Monday, Sept 17, 2012 from 7 to 8.30 p.m. We will publish a document with some conclusions on our website in the next days.
More information on the panel discussion
More informationen on the CIDG members
