The future is brighter than it might seem at the moment, because there is a critical number of young people willing to put their minds, knowledge and hard work into making a positive change.
What is Smart Kolektiv?
Smart Kolektiv has been working on the crossroads of business and community development since it was founded (almost 20 years ago). The organization has been working with a number of leading companies, mainly gathered in the network Responsible Business Forum (odgovornoposlovanje.rs) that Smart has initiated, on a variety of socially responsible and sustainability related initiatives. On the other hand it has also developed a strong portfolio of support programs for solidarity economy actors – mainly CSOs and small enterprises, trying to support their business endeavours while also maintaining and growing their positive social and environmental impact.
How do you and your local incubator contribute to raising awareness of the importance of social entrepreneurship?
Smart Kolektiv has been very active in the area of awareness raising. From various events that we organize, the main one being the annual Social Innovations Forum, and buy social campaign, to development of our own social business initiatives to a number of support programs to social businesses and policy related initiatives. These also included social enterprises marketplaces that we organize for the business community and cooperation on the development of the Serbian law on social entrepreneurship.
How are you helping young entrepreneurs in their project?
We provide a comprehensive support package that involves technical support, training, mentoring with financial support and promotion of the very businesses. We are able to attract mentors and partners from the private sector which also adds to the overall support package.