Aimed towards creating awareness and inspiring social entrepreneurship among Cambodians, Social Enterprise Cambodia and Impact Hub Phnom Penh together with Cellcard has developed the Social Entrepreneurship Launchpad initiative – 5 pocket workshops that show participants how to transform an idea into a viable business proposition.

With the intent to reach and benefit primarily Khmer participants, the SE Launchpad workshops are fully delivered in Khmer and features inspirational talks and mentoring from successful Khmer entrepreneurs, making it the first of its kind at least in its own category.

Participants will learn how to identify and tackle social or environmental problems affecting their community; how to create an effective solution; develop a strong value proposition and innovative business model; build a sustainable financial plan; create an inspirational vision and mission; ensure positive, scalable impact and finally teams will pitch their venture to a panel of real-life investors and entrepreneurs.

The first leg of the initiative was held in Siem Reap from July 3-5, which identified 3 big start up ideas.

Cam Bamboo won the competition with their innovative idea to produce bamboo chopsticks made by bamboos in their community. Panhavath Neron from Cam Bamboo said, “ Our business focuses on utilizing bamboo in Cambodia as raw material for making various products. Chopsticks is the product we want to start producing firstly. We see that it is in a very high daily demand in the world especially in countries in Asia. The core value in our business is to provide jobs to people in our community by encouraging them to plant bamboo on the land they have.”

For the Sihanoukville leg guest speakers include Kongny Hav, CEO of My Dream Home, Sopheak Monkol Sok, CEO of Codingate and Seila Chham, CEO of The Duck Soup and Eco-Trails Cambodia.

For more information on the SE Launchpad and upcoming events, please visit phnompenh.impacthub.net