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Our History

Where We Began

Initially developed by collaborating with universities and the business sector, Socionext offered opportunities for students in the Netherlands to develop social entrepreneurship projects that generate income for scholarships for talented students from disadvantaged communities.

Through this we developed a programme that provides practical training in social innovation, entrepreneurship skills and “rapid prototyping” based on “design thinking” and the “lean start-up” method, as recommended by Harvard and Stanford universities.

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2010

The Socionext foundation was established

Following a successful pilot at the Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies (IIS) at the University of Amsterdam (UvA), the Socionext Social Entrepreneurship Challenge has been integrated into the university curriculum. In September 2011, the Socionext Challenge became part of the formal teaching program at the Department of Political Science at the UvA and students could earn study credits by participating in the Challenge. The course was offered as an elective open to students from all disciplines. In September 2014 the sixth official Challenge at the UvA. Socionext took place and was one of the first practical social entrepreneurship courses available at a Dutch University.

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2013

Expansion to Denmark

Given the strong focus on (social) entrepreneurship and social innovation in Denmark, Socionext decided to explore the possibility of bringing the course to universities in Copenhagen. We encountered a strong interest in and support for expanding the Socionext program because of the practical and hands-on orientation of our course. In 2013 Socionext in cooperation with the Copenhagen Innovation and Entrepreneurship Lab (CIEL) launched a pilot program at the Socionext Social Entrepreneurship Challenge at the Copenhagen Business School.

 

In total the students in Europe generated more than 32.000 euro in our courses in the period 2010-2014. This income went towards providing scholarships for talented young people in South Africa through our partners TSiBA and Studietrust.

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2014

Socionext in South Africa

In 2013, Socionext decided to bring the challenge to South Africa and started with a trial with 15 students in Johannesburg. In 2014 Socionext was running the program in Cape Town and Johannesburg with over 150 students. In the same year, Socionext decided to move their focus to South Africa and developed a shorter version of the program for unemployed youth. In 2015 Socionext Africa was registered and since then we have reached almost 1500 young people in South Africa with the program.

The University of Amsterdam course material developed in the Netherlands, which is applied in South Africa, is copyright protected and owned by Socionext. 

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SOCIONEXT

Experience and Track Record

Socionext pioneered the application of the Harvard Business School Lean Start-up method to social entrepreneurship and social innovation at universities in Europe, starting in 2010.

Socionext has more than 10 years of experience implementing its programs for different target groups in the Netherlands, Denmark, Georgia, South Africa and Botswana.

Socionext Africa is applying this method to the activation of social innovation and entrepreneurship throughout South Africa.

Since 2014, more than 3000 participants have succeeded in creating innovative business ideas, that were tested with real customers, validating their businesses and often generating their first sales and contracts.

Over this period, Socionext has proven that the Lean Start-up methodology can be applied successfully for different target groups in South Africa. For example, Socionext was commissioned to prepare 20 finalists in the City of Johannesburg Green City Challenge with a prize money of 1 million rand

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