Community Impact Development Group (CIDG) for social entrepreneurs
Social entrepreneurs can effectively contribute to lasting improvements in living conditions in developing and emerging countries. The Siemens Stiftung and Ashoka, one of the largest international organizations for promoting social entrepreneurs, have combined their efforts to identify and support these individuals. Together they have launched the Community Impact Development Group (CIDG) for social entrepreneurs.
Working under the motto “Technology for Human Needs,” CIDG is a network that unites people who want to benefit their communities. The selected social entrepreneurs use simple technologies to develop products and services to improve living conditions in their home countries. The network offers them the opportunity to share their experiences and apply the knowledge they acquire to further develop their own enterprises.
CIDG’s goal is to support leading social entrepreneurs working on impacting local communities in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America with the help of a technological product or service. The program works toward this goal on three levels:
- Elaboration and refinement of participants’ social business plans, establishing clear paths towards the financial sustainability of their social ventures
- Facilitation of knowledge exchange among participants and development of methodologies on how to impact local communities
- Mobilization of external resources to enable social ventures’ impact growth through introducing potential replicators, investors and partners to participating social entrepreneurs
An annual conference gives CIDG-members the opportunity to meet personally and share their ideas and experiences. Members give updates and discuss the progress of their projects and work on common concepts. The third conference took place in Frankfurt in September 2012. The key topic was “Scaling Social Impact”. to 2012 CIDG conference
