Yahoo! Inc. and Nahdet El Mahrousa, an Egypt-based nongovernmental organization (NGO), will launch a social entrepreneurship program and competition on Monday, hoping to inspire young Egyptians to think about social entrepreneurship, and socially responsible business ideas, that are innovative and sustainable and can have a positive impact on Egypt. The competition will foster Internet innovation and growth in emerging markets across the Middle East with the unique combination of Nahdet El Mahrousa's commitment to Egypt's economic and social development, and Yahoo!'s global scale and technology expertise. The “Social Innovation Starts With YOU” competition calls on young Egyptians to visit http://eg.socialinnovation.yahoo.com where inspirational stories are shared by some of today's most successful Egyptian social entrepreneurs. Additional resources will also include an entrepreneurship toolkit, a place to enter social entrepreneurial ideas to be eligible to win monetary grants and project incubation at Nahdet El Mahrousa's Incubator of Innovative Social Enterprises, which includes technical and management support to help bring the entrants ideas to life. “In partnering with Yahoo!, we are furthering Nahdet El Mahrousa's mission to engage and activate young Egyptian professionals in the development and public arenas and in shaping Egypt's future,” said Ehaab Abdou, cofounder and board member of Nahdet El Mahrousa. “Through the Social Innovation Starts With YOU competition we are seeking young social entrepreneurs who are agents of change in their communities and demonstrate strong passion for and appreciation of Egypt and its diversity.” Today more than 16.5 million1 people use the Internet in Egypt, representing one of the largest2 Arab Internet populations. Starting on June 28, Yahoo! and Nahdet El Mahrousa invite individuals from across Egypt to be the next social entrepreneurs of the year by developing new enterprise ideas that have a positive developmental impact on the lives of Egyptians in the categories of education, health, environment, and a wildcard category. The competition's website (http://eg.socialinnovation.yahoo.com) will serve as an entry point for aspiring entrepreneurs by providing an online toolkit of resources, inspirational stories, advice, and Web services to get them started. Ten winners will be honored in November with monetary grants, capacity building, technical support, infrastructure, and performance management. Among the winners will also be current social entrepreneurs who will receive support to scale their efforts and achieve wider impact. In total, Yahoo! will contribute $500,000 to the campaign, and as part of that, will provide close to $250,000 in monetary grants to awardees. Criteria for competition: Each applicant's proposed social enterprise will be evaluated based on the following criteria: • Root Causes: Projects must address the root causes of societal issues rather than addressing the symptoms. • Scalability: Projects must have a clear vision on how to affect large segments of society. • Innovation Projects must take an innovative approach to the need they are addressing. • Sustainability: Projects must consider sustainability as a priority to ensure that the project would continue and would have the necessary means and resources - human, financial, and otherwise – to be able to continue and expand. • Mission: Projects must have clear and specific ideas with well-defined missions and objectives. • Impact: Projects much have tangible impacts on target beneficiaries or clients. • Monitoring and Evaluation: Applicants must list quantitative and qualitative performance indicators. • Utilize the internet: Projects must leverage the internet in some capacity to meet their mission.
