We recently came across a program whose objective is to promote economic development in villages. The progam is tailored at training and equipping individuals who are interested to engage in social enterpreneurship. Some details of SEED are provided below.

SEED – Social Enterprise for Economic Development
The SEED program seeks to expose student to cultural management and enterprise development, and in the forthcoming program students will go to a unique context in Cisondari village and the city of Bandung in West Java, Indonesia.

Participants will work in multicultural teams and actively engage in social entrepreneurship by developing viable business plans, each to improve a specific village enterprise and to develop markets for its products in particular. The students will be given the relevant information about the agricultural enterprise that will allow them to work on their own to develop different possibilities of assistance for the villagers. The business plans with proposals for Village Enterprise Development will then be presented to business sponsors.

The School of Business and Management at Institut Teknologi Bandung (SBM – ITB) and the Asia Research Centre (ARC) at the Chair for International Management (Southeast Asia), University of St. Gallen (HSG) co-organize this program.

Participation is open to students with any background willing to learn cross-culturally.

Objectives
Promoting Economic Development in the Target Village:
Students are encouraged to look for business and other sponsors to invest in appropriate production facilities, provide new markets for the products, new technology, and knowledge to improve agricultural production methods and yields in the village.

Cross-Cultural Learning in Real Life Asian Context:
Through this project students will gain valuable experience in enterprise development in a unique Asian contexts and develop skills in working cross-culturally within an international and multicultural team. Students will learn about the unique contexts, the management approach and development of their conceptualized enterprises.