A BRAC University alumni team has secured 1st prize of a “Social Entrepreneurship Challenge (SEC) 2022” organized by a university in Brussels. Of the winning team, Md. Umayer Islam graduated in 2013 attaining a BBA degree with a major in marketing whereas Rishad Azim is studying for a BBA degree, majoring in finance, banking & insurance and computer information management (CIM) and will be graduating next month.
Md Umayer Islam and Rishad Azim came up with sustainable social business Homefectionery Limited, a hybrid of a home-cooked food marketplace, skills-sharing platform, and an e-commerce site for raw materials and tools. By connecting the home-based chefs with consumers seeking affordable food, it in effect uses technology to address unemployment and the demand for nutritious home-cooked meals. The duo’s vision is to become Bangladesh’s largest employer by empowering 700,000 women by 2027.
The SEC is primarily organized by the Chair for Social Entrepreneurship at the Solvay Business School of Vrije Universiteit Brussel, a university in Brussels. The contest seeks to stimulate the creativity of students, entrepreneurs and employees to develop sustainable solutions for the most challenging problematics of the world, coming up with innovative ideas and solutions to achieve any of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The social entrepreneurs focus on using the available resources to create a better and progressive society by using business strategies to develop solutions.
The SEC 2022 was launched online in April 2022 when 45 applications from 13 countries were submitted. Food and drinks were areas which received focus the most, followed by circular economy, disabilities, social and others. The contest consisted of two individual coaching rounds, a workshop and a final hybrid event, which was held on 2 June, 2022 when 12 teams presented their ideas to an audience of investors, academics and program partners. A voting system determined the prize winners.