Impact

Recently I've been doing 2 things which made me even more excited about my job:

I've called around 20 entrepreneurs to ask what was the impact of the intern they had in their organization. I spent quite a lot of time to find 20 very busy entrepreneurs and take 10 minutes of their time, but it became worthed when I started hearing things like:

"The only problem we had is that our intern became crucial to my organization."

"The intern created tools which improve our efficiency and will be used by all future generations"

"We could see the intern was not only commited, she had passion for the job, and always wanted to do more"

At the same time, I was collecting testimonials written by the interns who worked for 6 months in those organizations, and read some stories like these:

"I realized it's possible to cause positive impact and be financially sustainable at the same time"

"The internship changed my career path"

"I understood it's possible to apply my technical skills to social development"

The quotes talk by themselves, and it made me very happy to realize I work for a program which impacts people as much as impacts organizations.

(if you are an AIESEC members, you can see more intern stories here)

Creating social change in China

We have received the following blog contribution from a Chinese participant of the Artemisia Social-Business Competition, Melody Chang. Due to internet censorship, Melody was not able to post herself, and asked us to share her thoughts here.

"Participating in Artemisia Social Business Competition has been one of the most valuable learning experiences for me. Social responsibility and youth development and many other world issues and topics have been some of the motivations for us to pursue and to launch our social business "Youth&Leader" (for more information, please visit http://www.youthandleader.org/ ), but also to make impact to the society and especially youth for they are the future of tomorrow's world.

It's a stimulating environment and team group. Everyone is of strong team work spirit and is with open-minded ideas and strong execution ability. I have to say I am really lucky to the opportunity to work with them, not to mention about how much we have learned from mentors, Henrique Bussacos and Howard Weinstein who I am sincerely thankful to for their efforts. Not only have I learnt from those great people and preeminent leaders of different fields, but also be inspired from the experiences to communicate with them and actually grow under their guidance, which would also be the drive for us to further develop our idea and put it into practice.

Youth&Leader's mission is to provide integrated platform and career opportunities via online learning platforms and connections to social networks that broaden the ability of our youth to participate in ways to combat poverty at the same time to provide the resources necessary to empower them to build a brighter future and make positive changes in their communities.

Recently we have held an event of Andrew Fiddaman's speech on entrepreneurship at Renmin University in Beijing, Mainland China. Andrew is the Managing Director of Youth Business International (YBI), one of The Prince of Wales Charities. Youth Business International (YBI) operates through a network of locally based Youth Business Programmes in 39 countries that help young people start their own business. Andrew is also on the advisory boards of various organizations dealing with leadership skills, enterprise development and social responsibility and is a member of the UN Economic Commission for Europe’s Team of Specialists on Entrepreneurship. Many of (the participating students) have already talked to me about the excitement at the time and after the event. I believe it would be one of the wonderful memory and learning experience for them to truly witness the charm and brightness of a leader from international level and to be encouraged to strive for excellence and fulfill our dreams. This is a start, and Youth&Leader would like to invite and gather more leaders and young students in the near future."

A letter to Artemisia

This is a letter that I've sent to Artemisia and now I'm posting here to share with you all.

--------------------------------------------------------

Dear Rob, Carol and all Artemisia team,

I’ve been thinking in what would be the best way to thank you all for being part of my life so, I decided to write, sharing with you what this experience close to Artemisia mean to me.

Since 2001 I’m looking for to build my career based on sustainable development values: helping people to do best choices or helping companies in change their way to do their business in a sustainable way. I started in CSR, the first concept I knew, and then my knowledge have been growing through my studies and experiences.

When I became an AIESEC member, I was leaving behind two years studying to public contests to enter in a big company like Petrobras or similar ones ‘cause I saw in there the only possible way to achieve my professional goals because I was tired to search in Belo Horizonte and don’t find an opportunity. Almost all my relatives and friends tried to make me give this path up because they used to say that “idealism” is for rich people or to the ones who wants to “die in hungry”, because, according to them, I couldn’t go on involved with this “social and environmental issues” because no one care about it enough to give me a job.

Only one person believed in me then and he always supported me in fighting for the things I believe, specially during those hard days and because of him I don’t have a thing to regret about it when I look back.

When I applied to Artemisia Sustainability Challenge in 2007 I didn’t know the difference it would make in my life. After 3 months of hard work I left that CONAL Conference with a lot more than a proud winner feeling: I had discovered a new way to do “the right thing”, a new way to see world’s problem, people to inspire me to bring my hopes back, and a “life mission” that would turn into my life-saver some months later.

One year later, in last october/november, after a tsunami on my personal life, I was motivated to apply to “Ser Más” initiative to an internship funded by Artemisia. Now, another year later, I’m here to say “THANK YOU” to Artemisia. My internship was one of the most amazing experiences I’ve ever had. México is an inspiring country, with sweet people but my experience in New Ventures was priceless. The opportunity to work close to a visionary and well succeed Ashoka fellow and all New Ventures team, so young and competent people, added much to me.

This experience helped me to open my mind to see new solutions for old issues and gave me new projects, new wings and new hopes.

My next steps include more experience in sustainable business development, a master course in entrepreneurship and a career helping people to grow in a sustainable way.

This is the Artemisia’s legacy in my life and I’d like to share with you because I think that feedbacks are important.

Entrepreneurial motivation and process

I became an AIESEC alumnus in 2005, after 5 exciting years which included being LCP in Rio de Janeiro, MCVP ER in Brazil and ABN AMRO Global Exchange Partnership Manager. While most of my team members in both the MC and LC were also heading for the future through very different paths, we had one certainty: we wanted to work together again in the future!!!

Some of us actually started to get very serious about it in 2008. We had been working for other organizations for some time, and really needed to create something of our own, using chaordic principles to strive to solve some of the world's toughest problems. We did not know exactly what, although we were sure it should build on our experiences. We did not know exactly when, apart from "soon". Then we called this organization a KOAN: we could feel it, but not exactly explain it!!!

Our process evolved to listing different things we were interested in tackling along with our skills: "Where your talents and world's needs cross, there lies your vocation", said Aristotle. The list was long and would be really difficult to prioritize and get started. To make things, I was attending business school in Madrid, Henrique attending the KaosPilots in Denmark, others doing long hours in consulting or banking back in Brazil...

Enter Artemisia
Nothing better to get you started than engaging with a third party, committing to deadlines while getting just the right support. The Artemisia Social-Business Ventures Competition came just in time. Furthermore, I needed to submit a business idea to my entrepreneurship track in the MBA as well.

The initial idea of KOANedu was suggested by Henrique. He had met the founder of QiFang in Shanghai and got excited about the idea of P2P lending for education. I got thrilled, as I had done a case study on Prosper couple of months before for my MBA. But most importantly, we had felt the same pain: both of us struggled to finance our education. We were very committed to KOANedu's vision:
"Youth access to higher education is a matter of ambition and will, not financial resources".

The rest is history: we have worked very hard to meet Artemisia's deadlines, despite being in different countries and timezones. We got feedback from lots of other AIESEC alumni, classmates, friends and potential partners, on top of great coaching from Artemisia's network of entrepreneurs. We were a finalist at the SEEC social business plan competition last July in Spain. We have pitched to angels last September in Sao Paulo. We have an attorney who will help us incorporate the business pro-bono. We have another 3 great AIESEC alumni about to join the management team, and some key individuals as prospects for our Board of Advisory.

In summary: WE GOT STARTED!!! And it is a very exciting journey!!!

Cruisin'

...around the world? Sure, that's part of the Artemisia experience - different people from around the world are brought together to foster and work on common ideas. I am not here to elaborate more on how awesome this whole thing is, especially when I haven't even arrived to my destination city and start my internship yet.

What I'm talking about is cruising on the net as a spokesperson of the many initiatives, ideas and concepts that come along with being an Artemisia intern. Yes we love it already, obviously, but how do we make it big and as interactive as possible other than, say, blogging about our experiences?

This is not by any means to convey a negative feeling about the blog. Don't get me wrong! I've started blogging in 1999, creating from scratch blog designs and only recently dropped from updating my blog. I was too lazy a high school student to bother keeping a hand-written journal, and loves the way one can play around with blog designs and meet people from all walks of life online via blogging. I'm just curious to find out who reads this blog, how they'd found it, and what we could learn from the people who stopped by and read our thoughts.

I guess I am particularly intrigued by the question since I'd be working in the communications and media area in my internship, and online marketing is obviously indispensable in the whole shebang. Also, I've seen more than a few blogs which, despite a lot of organized effort and steady updates, somehow just didn't make it to the newsfeed of the targeted group we were trying to reach. The blog my team and I worked on during my MC term was exactly one of those.

No offense to any of the contributors here, as this blog is already seeing a constant feed of updates, and most importantly, updates of various kinds- Francis shares her feelings on her first days in Brazil; Rob talks about the ongoing challenges and cool facts about his work; news from Romania and Artemisia contest finalists, etc.

I just thought the below blog post, via www.chrisbrogan.com (currently one of the net's biggest, larger-than-virtual-life social media gurus), proposes some of the answers into looking at the challenge. Not that we are blogging for a living. But perhaps it's quick tip if ever we are looking into increasing virtual exposure for ourselves, or for our work?

http://www.chrisbrogan.com/how-to-blog-almost-every-day/

Artemisia Competition - The Romanian Experience (1)

Hi!

Just a short post from my side as a greeting for launching this blog!

It`s a cool initiative and I hope it will bring together more people who have the knowledge or are interested in the matter of social entrepreneurship.

Pitesti, Romania



Both me and my partner - Dragos Belduganu (Beldy for friends)- are curently working for AIESEC Romania, as Vicepresidents for Local Committee Development and External Relations. We have started our AIESEC career in 2005, we both have a background in doing corporate sales and have experience one year of leading a Local Committee as Presidents, in Iasi and Pitesti.

Our experience with Artemisia started this year, in spring, when we heard about the competition on social entrepreneurship at an international conference - EuroXPro. We did hear about Artemisia before, but that was the very first time when we made a connection to how we could interact with the organization.

Further on, it proved that relaxed, friendly chats can bring people together in creating something that really brought a lot of enthusiasm to us and to the people we shared our idea with.

Iasi, Romania



We are both passionate about mountains and travelling, we are generally passionate fans of Romania, about our history, our culture, the places that are a part of who we are as a nation.

We are also sad to see that not many young people (Romanian and foreigners) were fortunate enough to fully discover and further treasure our cultural heritage and the things that make us who we are today...

So it was not long untill we came up with a vision which sticks pretty close to what we imagine our ideal business to be:

La Plimbare

We create life-time memories and authentic experiences that engage YOU in discovering and treasuring the cultural heritage of our country. We bring friends together and tell the stories of people, places and ideas that have shaped our past times.

That`s it for today, but we`ll surely continue our story in the next days!

Greetings from Romania,

Iulian & Beldy

Being a pioneer

It's been one year since i started my internship with Artemisia. Since Social Business is a relatively new area, one of the phrases that I've used the most during this time is that we are "developing a new field". Today I've discovered some elements of what this means, by participating in a strategic planning meeeting with the whole Artemisia team in Brazil.

1. however much time you spend trying to find answers, there will always appear more questions
2. it's important to keep an open mind and challenge your own paradigms regularly

It's interesting because i believed i had developed this understanding in AIESEC, through my MC and AI experiences. I thought that i was comfortable, even was at my best, working in such circumstancs. Yet several times today i became frustrated, only later realizing that this frustration came from me forgetting these useful lessons.

In AIESEC, although countries and LCs often had very different realities, I could be sure of some fundamental elements of my work, because the organization had 60years of experience in designing, testing, refining and replicating its programs. I had dozens of real examples from my own personal network to underpin my ideas.

Now in Artemisia I'm discovering what its like to work in an environment where your very mission relates to something new, something untested. You need to constantly test your theories - even ones that seem most obvious - in the real world; to ask how and why the reality you observe is different than the one that you expected. You need to be open to challenge not only operational matters but fundamental beliefs and paradigms.

It's incredibly challenging. It requires maturity, patience and humility. It's provoking a lot of reflections about my own behaviours and attitudes. And I feel incredibly lucky to be walking on this journey with such talented, committed and caring people.

A fragment about my experience...from Northeast of Brazil

Hello Everyone!

I hope all of you are very well these days. I am writing to you from Gloria dô Goita, it is a rural sector of interior the Pernambuco, Brazil (60 km from Recife, Capital of the state) and it is where I am working in my social business ventures traineeship.

I began my internship almost 3 weeks ago. In the general review have been meaning a so amazing experience to me, because the challenge to learn a new language (not so similar with my Spanish as the people think -he, he) and to improve more and more my knowledge about issues with relation to the management of ONG work and Social Business Ventures, are making me feel so excited.

My background it is in marketing, I recently obtained my bachelor degree making my final thesis about social marketing in an ONG what it works together to the victims of breast cancer, and in another side of that, I obtained short professional jobs in a health services company and in a CSR department in a food company…so, I think I still feel like a personal impress about all of this are happening to me, because it really looks so amazing that through AIESEC and Artemisia, I obtained the chance to keep continue gaining professional development in relation to the 3rd sector in a relevant country as Brazil is in this moment in the worldwide perspective.

The people of this town, from the Acreditar (ONG name where I am working for) and the AIESEC people from Recife Committee too, they really have been extraordinary with me. So, for all that I can say that I spent a good time in the beginning of this new professional and personal experience.

In general overview about my first days in Acreditar, I noted that they have made a good work about Microcredit Issue, considering that they don’t have a lot of year as organizational trajectory (just 2 years) and it is an organization what is managing through young people, personally I think they have gotten a notable numbers of beneficiates with their social services in different communities.

In just a couple days working here, I took the chance to go with the staff of Acreditar to Sao Paulo for an awards ceremony (Claudia Magazine) and to visit another ONG what make a similar Acreditar work. For me it meant a good experience because I could work in a personal observation and immersion about how Acreditar People sell and communicate what they do with others.

We went to Claudia Awards because Lilian Do Prado (Ashoka fellow and Acreditar Director) had been nominated to a category of that award as Social Worker. She didn’t get to win because it was another lady who has a longer trajectory in social work who gained the award. And the next day of the ceremony, we spent all day in Sorocaba City, visiting Perola Foundation, who has a social bank too.

I met with Lilian and Daisy (days before to go a Sao Paulo), to start to make the overview about my work in Acreditar. And their first concerns were: Institutional Communication Plan (PowerPoint presentation about Acreditar, Newsletters, Blog and Website, Branding, presentation cards, improves the partnership relationship) and Methodology to evaluate the social impact of their social project in its beneficiates.

In relation with Communication Plan, they had shown their worry about this personal concern; because the external view of the organization especially with the media (TV, newspapers) has been just because know the Lilian work as Director (and Ashoka fellow). So personally, I think this is happening because she is the actual director and she communicates her personal history being part of the origin of this organization. For that, I think I have to found the way to work on the first elements of communications; I started to work improving the actual presentation materials. But my personal concern right now it is if I should or not to start with the logo and brand. Just because that implicate internal motivation, and it is recently the beginning of the Acreditar History, I think it is no the right moment to do it, but probably I should to do some propose about that.

About the methodology to make the evaluation of Acreditar service social impact, now I have to define the variables and indicators what get direct connection with microcredit and entrepreneurship activities which Acreditar support.

Well, this is all until now, I’m sorry because this first message was so extended; I would love to know feedbacks from your experience or some comments or ideas about all this I shared with you.

I hope all of you are getting and enjoying a great internship experience too.

We keep on touch.

Abraços, Hugs, Abrazos,

Francis Tovar

Venezuela!

Gmail / G-talk: francis.tovar.c@gmail.com

MSN: francys85@gmail.com

MYAIESEC: francisg.tovar@aiesec.net

Mobil: +55 81 9206 4301

Who will be the winners?

The four finalists in the Artemisia Social-Business Competition have submitted their revised business plans. Here is a summary of their Social-Business Ventures:

Venture	E-Vetiver	KOANedu	La Plimbare	Youth & Leader
Entre-preneurs	SIN Chung Hong, Derek + Tam King Pui, Juliana	Gustavo Pimentel + Henrique Vedana	Iulian Boia + Dragos Petru Belduganu	Alex Wang + Chang Young-Ting
Country	Hong Kong	Brazil	Romania	Mainland of China
Product/ Service	Vetiver grass, sold to poor farmers in Guizhou provice, China	online lending platform for young people to access student loans	Low-cost youth hostels with story-based cultural education	high-quality, low-cost education for young people in poor rural areas
Social impact	reduction of soil erosion, leading to increased farmers´ incomes, in China’s poorest region	makes higher education affordable to more people in Brazil	possibility for young people with low incomes to travel and become more aware of Romania’s culture & history	young people with improved education can lift their families out of poverty
Business model	farmers pay to get the seeds, and the harvested roots are sold for use in medicine, cosmetics and handicrafts	transaction fees from students & lenders, financial income from account holdings, premium membership from institutions	guests pay a fee to stay in the hostels	tuition fees paid by participants, online & event advertising

We will announce the winners on Wednesday 21st October.

As well as using Artemisia's innovative resources to develop their Social-Business plan, the four finalist teams have received coaching from experienced entrepreneurs in Artemisia's networks.

The two winning teams will receive seed funding to support them in starting their venture, and invitations to the 'Social-Business Summit' in São Paulo, December 2009.

A new chapter begins...

Since our 1st post, 13 talented young people have started internships with Social-Business Ventures around the world - 10 across Latin America and 3 in India. 4 more have been matched to internships and will start in the next few weeks.

This international group is made up of people from:

• Belgium
• Brazil
• Canada
• Colombia
• Greece
• Mexico
• Netherlands
• Peru
• Singapore
• Taiwan
• Ukraine
• USA
• Venezuela

We wish them all an incredible experience, with the Social-Business Ventures Program!

Welcome to our blog!

100's of young people have experienced the world of Social Business since 2005, thanks to the global partnership between Artemisia and AIESEC. And this shows no sign of stopping!

• 15 people have recently been matched to INTERNSHIPS with Social-Business Ventures around the world. They will start this experience in the coming weeks
• 16 entrepreneurs have submitted business plans as a part of the Artemisia Social-Business Competition. Artemisia is currently selecting the finalists
• Artemisia will participate in the Global Youth to Business Forum at AIESEC's upcoming International Congress, hearing the views and dreams of young people from all around the world on the topic of entrepreneurship

Follow their incredible experiences here!
'