Our second Rural Social Enterprise Session took place on the 20th of April and prompted some interesting discussion.
We were first joined by Jennifer & Sarah-Jane from CodeBase. The main aim of CodeBase is to help people build better businesses with a focus on building culture, community and education that promotes and supports tech innovation.
To do this, CodeBase work with start-ups, scale-ups, corporates, governments, academia and the 3rd sector to help support innovation ecosystems, using worldwide start up best practice and tailoring it to local realities. Jennifer is the Head of Regional Engagement at CodeBase and covers Argyll and Bute, all the way to Fife.
Next Duncan from Social Enterprise Scotland spoke about opportunities for collaboration between academic organisations and social enterprise.
Recently, SES held a webinar where University partners were invited along and given a platform to speak about what they have been doing in terms of social enterprise development. In this meeting, they identified two main strands of the project; producing academic research and developing practical business support for social enterprise development. They have planned for the group to meet quarterly.
Finally, the group were joined by Carmen from Firstport who spoke about the Social Innovation Challenge is a programme that funds and supports innovators to kick-start solutions that tackle some of the most pressing challenges of our time.
The programme is centred around a new theme each year, the theme for 2023 is focussed on issues connected with the rising cost of living. The programme will award up to £50,000 in grant funding to support the development of a new social enterprise solution, as well as tailored support to launch and implement the solution.
The full notes from the session can be found here.
