CSIF——China Social Innovation Foundation
In the past few years, the world has been presented with numerous serious problems: economic crisis, global warming, regional conflicts, poverty, etc. While they are mostly regarded as separate issues, the roots, in fact, lie deeply in the development model of most parts of the world, which overlooked the importance of sustainability and harmony. However, in face of the challenges, it is our mission to explore a new model for the world’s future development.
In the light of this goal, a group of students from the University of Michigan initiated China Social Innovation Foundation, which aims to innovate new development paths, from the stage of theory to practical experience, for underdevelopment regions in the context of China. CSIF features itself with strong social network among different fields, including the technology field, the business field, the academic field and so forth. With the collaborative devotion from these parts, CSIF wish to create a bright future for the grand China.
As its main concerns, sustainability and environmental-friendliness are, CSIF has been working on “Green Leap”, one of its major concepts. Instead of using the development model in the Industrialization Age, CSIF wishes the rural parts of China could adopt Clean Technology at the very beginning. Consequently, it works on introducing cutting-edge green technologies to the BoP (Base of the Pyramid) market of rural parts of China. This is the concept of “Green Leap”.
Other than the program in technology, CSIF also works on education, medication, poverty alleviation and so on, in order to provide a holistic outline for the new development model. In order to involve in younger minds and cultivate entrepreneurs, CSIF launched its university based program CEN- China Entrepreneur Network.
CEN ——Innovation and entrepreneurship for a sustainable future
CEN is the university-based program of CSIF, which shares with the latter one the same vision. It aims to develop entrepreneurship among university students to serve a sustainable future. CEN involves students into the seeking of resolution to real problems presented by the Chinese society, especially the rural parts, and the raising of their awareness of social responsibility and community contribution, so that they could carry on the value into their post- student life.
One of the core concepts for CEN is social enterprise. Generally speaking, social enterprises are financially self-sustainable organizations that aim to promote public welfare. In the earlier decades, there were numerous NGOs and non-profit organizations that wish to devote into public welfare. However, they mostly rely on external funding and could not support themselves financially. However, they are usually constrained by this limitation and could not be fully developed. With the will to sustain themselves, a number of non-profit organizations transformed into social enterprises, which share the same purpose, but have stable revenue to sustain the organizations. Social enterprise is where business, social value, technology etc. meet together, since with the methodological approach from a number of fields, like technology, business could manifest its value in public welfare. That gives the explanation for the name of CEN- China Entrepreneur Network.
Up to now, CEN has had 8 Chapters all over the world. They are Chapters at University of Michigan, Cornell University, Michigan State University, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Southwest Jiaotong University, Shandong University, Central South University and Guizhou University.
CEN Chapter of HKUST
Inspired by our co-founder and adviser, Prof. Po Chi Wu, we established CEN-HKUST last year to promote sustainable social innovation in HK especially among the young generation. The Chapter in HK plays a critical role in the interaction between the US chapters and mainland ones. As Mr. Xiaojian You, Chairman of CSIF has pointed out,” we find problems to solve in mainland and technologies to solve them in US, and HK is the bridge in between,
which plays the key role in financing and promotion.” Currently, the team consists of 9 people: Advisor and co-founder Prof. Po Chi Wu (吴葆之)
Co-founder Cherry Ren (任春)
Co-founder Rita Li (李琼诗)
Vice president in operation Serene Shi (石宁)
Vice president in marketing and promotion Tracy Wen (温馨)
Vice president in marketing and promotion Scarlet Chen (陈思嘉)
Vice president in sponsorship Maggie Lin (林琪)
Vice president in sponsorship Tonney Yu (于容浩)
Vice president in technology Xiangzhou Kong (孔祥舟)
