Socializing Entrepreneurship in Desa Balik Pulau

The movement has begun. And the virus will spread across the country bringing the message of development for both urban and rural areas of Malaysia - self-development that is! Less than three months from today, Global Entrepeneurship Week will run across over 60 countries, with thousands of activities at regional and national levels to promote entrepreneurship as a mean to elevate economic and social status of affected communities. And these activities will not be run entirely by government or big corporations. In fact, most of these activities will be run by smaller organizations and groups of entrepreneurial people. These individuals and groups of people will strive to bring significant impacts to the local and global communities they would respectively cater to. How better can you learn entrepreneurship, besides actually getting your hands 'dirty' deep in it?

Today marked the day when the smallest ripple will spread out and virally infect the entire pool with synergized movements to create a better impact to the society, at least, in Balik Pulau. And I'm sure many more small ripples are being initiated in various villages and towns at this very moment to move the entire nation, and when nations collaborate, the entire world will vibrate. We started with a formation of Kelab Usahawan Sosial (Social Entrepreneurs Club - SEC/KUSBP) where a dozen local citizens of Balik Pulau congregated and one of the only two Pusat Internet Desa (Rural Internet Centre) in Penang (with another one in Tasek Gelugor, Seberang Perai) and agreed to push forward with its establishment as fast as possible.

En. Yuhezri Mohd Yusoff agreed to serve as a the Protem Chairman and he is to be assisted by Sarina Ishak as the Protem Honorary Secretary. The other ten attendees will serve as the committee protem executives. This small group of 'enterprising' individuals come from various walks of economic life including a farmer, a shop operator, a financial consultant, a telecentre supervisor, an IT engineer, an Microsoft-certified IT administrator, a gym operator, a government worker, a kindergarten teacher etc.

Next week, the committee will welcome representatives from Kuala Lumpur-based Warisan Global Sdn Bhd, host for Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) Malaysia 2008. And in weeks ahead, expect intense discussions on activities planned for GEW Penang/Malaysia and back-to-back trainings for would-be social entrepreneurs ("usahawan sosial", as an opposed to commercial/for-profit-only entrepeneurs).

Read more about social entrepeneurship at:-

1. Wikipedia
2. WikiVersity
3. GKP's Young Social Enterprise Initiative (YSEI)
   
4. UK-based School for Social Entrepeneurs (SSE) and Canada-based University of Alberta School of Business's CCSE.
   
5. Palo Alto, USA-based Skoll Foundation and its Social Edge portal
   
6. Switzerland-based Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship
7. Inspired Pragmatism Blog by Madhukar Shukla
   
8. New York University (NYU) Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation Program in Social Entrepreneurship
9. Telecentre.org
10. And supporting agencies including Canada-based IDRC, Swiss-based SDC, Microsoft (Unlimited Potential Program) and Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP, with Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia based Secretariat)