Social Entrepreneurship Workshop 2022 Pitch Day

On August 12, this year’s Building Blocks Social Entrepreneurship Workshop for high school students ended with student presentations where they pitched their projects for socially responsible companies to an esteemed panel that consisted of Öykü Gül, an academic at Bilgi University; Liana Varon, coordinator of Support Foundation for Civil Society and İlayda Küçükafacan, Chairperson at Simurg Association. The pitch day was the final product of a week-long program where high school students from various backgrounds came together to learn about social entrepreneurship from scratch, and experienced designing their own social enterprises in groups, which provided the perfect ending to the workshop.

The students learned the importance of observation in solving problems – in order to develop solutions for them, they must first understand them. Hence, they turned their attention to their lives to recognize situations where enterprises lack social considerations and worked on developing projects that addressed them. The social issues the participating students tried addressing with their pitches are as follows:

The high number of educational websites

One group, based on their own experiences with online learning, noted that the proliferation of many online educational platforms started creating problems for schools who find it difficult to select the platforms that will be the most beneficial for them. Hence, they proposed developing a wider platform that assesses the educational requirements of schools, as well as their budget, and make suggestions of what online educational tools would best cater for their needs.

Connecting Chronically Ill Patients

The second group recognized how isolated chronically ill patients, especially children, can feel when they are receiving their medical treatments. They came up with the idea of an online game platform where patients can have their avatars to interact with each other virtually as a substitute for in-person interaction, while also being reminded of their health requirements in an entertaining way.

Internet Addiction

The next group wanted to focus on internet addiction, with some of the group members mentioning their own experiences with it. Having tried other apps that target internet addiction and left unsatisfied, these students wanted to build a more user-friendly app that provides incentives to reduce internet and social media usage.

Mental Health

The fourth group wanted to focus on the importance of mental health. They  aim to highlight support networks, listening services and social opportunities through their initiative to promote mental health awareness and a positive mental outlook for their users.

Domestic Violence

The last group wanted to focus their project on domestic violence. Providing anecdotes from what they see on Turkish media on a daily basis, the students came up with an idea of a supporting network that provides safe spaces and help to those who are affected by domestic violence.

After each presentation, the panelists asked questions and gave feedback to the students on their pitches. With the wide ranges of social issues addressed in 5 different pitches, pitch day was a clear demonstration of how successfully the students learned identifying, developing, and executing projects that have a social cause in their core.

Contributed by H. Cenker Camcı