Digital Partners' Social Enterprise Laboratory (SEL) Call for Applications
Please forward the following opportunity to anyone that you think may be interested in applying or any appropriate listserves you may be aware of. We have attached a copy of the announcement as well. Digital Partners, a United States-based non-profit organization, invites for-profit and non-profit social entrepreneurs and organizations serving disenfranchised communities in developing countries to submit a proposal for entry into this year's Social Enterprise Laboratory (SEL). Entries are due by midnight, September 1, 2002. SEL is a new model of collaborative social-problem solving. The entries selected as the ìMost Promising Social Enterprisesî will be matched with a team of Digital Partners Brain Trust members and graduate students to help the social entrepreneurs maximize the potential of the idea. The Brain Trust is composed of IT professionals, business leaders, venture capitalists, and other professionals in their fields. The students are selected from prestigious graduate schools in business, public policy, and IT. After an assessment of the projectís needs for success, the team works with the leadership to identify funding sources, make strategic introductions, effectively incorporate information and communication technologies and market mechanisms into the enterprise, develop implementation strategies, and transform proposals into sustainable business plans. The most promising projects are eligible for up to $100,000 in grants, loans, or equity investments from Digital Partners. SEL is a year-long collaboration to support the design, development, and deployment of projects or businesses that incorporate the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) to address the needs of disenfranchised communities. Supported projects can be undertaken by any combination of businesses, non-profits, governments, or individuals seeking to develop sustainable, ICT-enhanced mechanisms to serve markets at the bottom of the economic pyramid. Preference is given to projects that are grass-roots/bottom-up, market-based forsustainability, collaborative for community building, scalable, replicable, and catalytic in terms of systemic social and/or market change. If you intend to apply for SEL, please send an email message to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> with "Applying for SEL" as the subject. You need not include anything in the body of the email. This will allow us to keep you updated on new developments. For more details please refer to <http://www.digitalpartners.org/sel.html>. Applications are available on the website. ------------ ***GKD is solely supported by EDC, an NGO that is a GKP member*** To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: <http://www.edc.org/GLG/gkd/>
