Months ago, Little Marios was fortunate to be enrolled into the first global fellow class of Yunus and Youth. The story of Yunus and Youth is simply amazing. In last Global Social Business Summit 2013, 35 young challengers from all over the world gathered in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to interact with world’s leader in social business and impact. In just one day, they saw a need to bridge the gap between social entrepreneurs and global leaders. They didn’t stop at the ideation phase, in fact they founded Yunus and Youth as a platform to realize it.
In the fellowship program, we met with our mentor, Jose Martinez Lopez, who is a environmental sustainability officer in FEMSA. And lucky enough, we finally able to meet him in person in Global Social Business Summit 2014 here in Mexico. Chefo (as he prefers to be called) is experienced in mentoring startups related to blue economy, and also startups who are doing waste to food management. We have few Skype call throughout the mentorship period, and it was insightful and rewarding. Not forget to mention, when I met Chefo in person today, only then I know how fun and cheerful he is! Yeah, always work with joy in social business, the 7th principle of social business.
Now let’s introduce another awesome Mexican guy, who is introduced to me by Chefo.
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Chefo in the middle, and Luiz on the left
His name is Luiz Martin del Campo, and he is working on a social business named Sporah. I was surprise on the similarity on what both of us are doing, although we are half a planet apart from each other. Through meeting in this summit, we exchange our knowledge. Some of the questions I asked are as below.
Q – What is the concept that Sporah used in promoting coffee mushroom box, which is Sporah main product.
A – Sporah is creating consciousness in the public of Mexico about waste management. There is so much waste created each day, are those waste truly waste? Or we are just ignoring the value that those waste carry? Both of our business model is related to blue economy, where the best for health and the environment is cheapest and the necessities for life are free thanks to a local system of production and consumption that works with what you have.
Q – Do you have official contract with partnered coffee shop in retrieving coffee waste from them including Starbucks?
A – At the piloting stage, no official contract is signed as the business is still small and is in experimenting stage. But now, Sporah is targeting in a national movement, to raise awareness on waste through Sporah. Since the scale is getting larger, official contract is therefore necessary to maintain the operation.
Q – How do you sell Sporah Mushroom Box?
A – We sell it as premium product. Firstly, we sell it online where you can find it in the catalog of our website. Secondly, we sell it at the cafe where we have our mushroom waste from. It is good in the sense that customers who consume coffee are glad to see how can coffee waste be transform into something special.
Conversations with Chefo and Luiz is so interesting, and from this conversation I also got to know that Chefo is the one who convinced Luiz to kick away his original job and jump into social business. The way they talked about it was so funny, and one sentence that I personally liked the most is, jump in now or never. We are young right?! So do something while you have so much to burn.
So this marked the end of Global Social Business Summit 2014 in Mexico City. Until now, I still couldn’t believe that I am physically here. Since May this year, I got to know about the GSBS in Mexico City, and I was on the hunt for sponsorship to be able to be here.
At last, thanks to myHarapan I was able to realize my dream. With the cold wind blowing across my face, I am proud to say that I am here at the Global Social Business Summit 2014!!
Last but not least, allow me to express my gratitude to Yunus & Youth, Cecilia and Bozhanka. Although I couldn’t meet Bozhanka in this summit, but I am definitely looking forward for the next activity in this fellowship program.