The Global Social Venture Competition was a global competition that empowered the next generation of social entrepreneurs to transform their ideas into fundable, scalable ventures that address the world’s most pressing challenges. Berytech was the Regional Partner of GSVC in Beirut.
The Global Social Venture Competition (GSVC) empowered the next generation of social entrepreneurs by providing them with mentoring, exposure, and over $50,000 in prizes to transform their ideas into ventures that address the world’s most pressing challenges.
Teams from across the globe, including Lebanon, learned how to design scalable models through a process that emphasizes stakeholder discovery, business innovation, and social impact assessment.
Founded at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business in 1999, the GSVC evolved into a global network of 13 premier business schools, universities, and programs in the US, Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America. Each partner school and program was supported by vast regional and local networks that included other universities and organizations, student organizers, judges, mentors, and investors in the social impact, innovation, and entrepreneurship space.
Berytech managed the competition in Lebanon from 2013 to 2019, supporting Lebanese social entrepreneurs to develop their startups and giving them access to participate in the international finals.
As of December 2019, the Global Social Venture Competition ceased operations, replaced by a new initiative, Sustainable and Impact Finance (SAIF).
FabricAID – First Prize Winners 2018
FabricAID – secondhand clothes collector and distributor, landed first place in the world finals where 19 finalists were chosen to compete among 550 startups from 60 countries. The journey of the young, change-seeking startup began in Beirut after winning first-place in the local competition organized by Berytech.
Omar Itani – FabricAID co-founder, then travelled to the GSVC world finals held in Milan in April 2018 to pitch along with the finalists chosen from across nine regional competitions bringing home the first prize of $40,000.
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“Berytech has helped us to move from a volatile team into a robust startup by connecting us with mentors and experts. They helped us shape our business plan and form a strategy by helping us connect with international bodies and potential partners in Europe and Middle East. GSVC gave us exposure to potential investors.”
Antoine Skayem, Founder of Riego and winner of GSVC 2016
If you have any questions about GSVC, please email us on community@berytech.org, and we will get back to you.
If you have a competition you would like to partner with Berytech to manage, please email Mr. Fadi Khoneisser – Director of Development and Growth on fadi.khoneirsser@berytech.org.
Berytech is the ecosystem for entrepreneurs, providing a dynamic environment for the creation and development of startups and SMEs, fostering innovation, technology and entrepreneurship in Lebanon.
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