Udderly Fantastic Opportunity for Young Social Entrepreneurs

Editor's note: This post was written by Rob Wilson, Entrepreneur in Residence at Ashoka U.K.

As a young social entrepreneur, I am hugely excited to say that Ben & Jerry’s, the ice cream company whose philosophy is about giving back to the community, is launching a competition with Ashoka to search for the brightest young things who can create a business which takes on our social and environmental challenges.

All of us, young and old, can see the monumental challenges facing the world—including climate change, financial instability, famine, and homelessness (to name just a few). So many young people are facing unemployment or looking for something more from their jobs.

Many of these issues are not being solved by the pillars of our society, like government or the private sector, so how can young people make a difference and drive change? How can we be changemakers?

Many young people (both in actual age and attitude) are trying to find answers to these questions—they are choosing to tackle these issues head on and making it their career. Young social entrepreneurs—some on a small, local level and some on a much larger grand scale—are taking an idea and working out how to make it happen. They are utterly driven through their passion and determination to make it successful.

From my experience, I understand well that every project can benefit from some help along the way—because passion and determination can only get you so far. Starting today, we are encouraging young social entrepreneurs to enter the Join Our Core competition.

You might just be one of the top five winners and take away a €10,000 cash prize, mentoring from Ashoka, and the chance to see your social business idea on tubs of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream!

In addition, the first 100 entries (or “keen beans”) submitted by March 15, will all scoop a year’s supply of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, and 25 entrepreneurial semi-finalists will be invited to present their ideas to the judging panel in London. Then 15 finalists will be whisked off to Uganda for the last stage of the program, where they will join development gurus VSO to share social business ideas, live with vanilla farmers, and help local development projects in their community.

If you need some inspiration, check out videos of Ashoka Fellows who will tell you what they are doing to tackle these difficult challenges, and give you a few words of advice on how to do it yourself.

I always love hearing about new social business innovations, and I really look forward to finding out more about the people and projects that are making a difference through this—so go on! Take this opportunity and tell us more.