Social entrepreneurship celebrated

12.02.09

Social entrepreneurship was celebrated this week at the Voice 09 conference in Birmingham.

Voice09 is the Social Enterprise Coalition's annual conference for the social enterprise movement in the UK. With over 1,000 delegates and 80 exhibitors, this – the coalition’s fifth annual conference – was the world's largest ever social enterprise event.

Key speakers included minister David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party, and Liam Byrne, minister for the cabinet office and chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

National and international experts on social enterprise were present also, including Nigel Kershaw, chief executive of Big Issue Invest; Robert Egger, president of DC Central Kitchen; and Sophi Tranchell, managing director of Divine Chocolate Ltd.

In his keynote address, David Cameron underlined the importance of social enterprise to the economy, noting that people’s faith in traditional capitalism and free enterprise had been shaken. He said: “These two things - our economy and society - do not exist in isolation to one another.”

Cameron also said that incentives were needed for green technologies and put forward the idea of a new Social Investment Bank.

In his speech, minister Liam Byrne announced a new Social Enterprise Summit that will be hosted by the government in the coming months. The aim of the summit will be to identify ‘aggressive growth strategies’ for the social enterprise sector.

Byrne also mentioned the government’s recent £0.5m investment in the School for Social Entrepreneurs, which is to double the number of people training to become social entrepreneurs.

© Crimson Business Ltd, 2009