Moving forward with SABF’s 6th Edition, during Saturday morning, a set of student workshops took place. This activity consisted of the best essays presented by the participants who wrote them in order to be discussed among participants. Nicolas Benielli and Karla Alfaro, from Argentina, exposed their essays about Sustainable Businesses. Meanwhile, Citizen Participation was presented by Pablo Illuzzi (Argentina) and Kehinde Olayinca Fawumi (Nigeria). Finally, when it comes to Synergy, the participants in charge were Ana Maria Misas Tabares (Colombia) and Delfina Maria Vildósola (Argentina).

Nicolas Benielli presented his essay “Sustainable Businesses: Let’s start!”. During his speech, he defined the concepts of development and sustainability. According to Benielli, the three axis of development are social, economic and ecological, and every person or organisation, whether it is private or public, can be an agent of change. In the case of Latin America, even if it is the fourth economy of the world and it is rich in resources. Nonetheless, reality in Latin American differs from the ideal situation. For Benielli, this is the results of some determinants: tolerance of inefficiency and corruption, lack of confidence and pesimism. Moreover, he insists in the need of education and a strong alliance between universities and companies. As a conclusion after participants’ debate, education, law and ethics are fundamental.

The other exposition about Sustainable Businesses, writen and presented by Karla Alfaro, started with the possible benefits of being a sustainable responsible business, among which there were being a valuable tool, building trust and loyalty, and long-term security and stability. Concluding the debate, participants agree that education is a key factor and that consumers have the power to choose what and how to consume.

Citizen participation was discussed by Pablo Illuzzi, in a presentation that included the definition of State, Government and Politics. As a consequence, the objective of Illuzi’s presentation is to inquire why citizen participation is so low nowadays. He defines three kinds of people: the ones that just say what should be done, the ones who are capable of help in the process of doing, and the ones that just do. He pointed out that a leader is the one who wonders about processes and guides those who do and those who help. Finally, he stated that there is no need to think of participation as a sum-zero game, and that leadership is something you are born with.

Kehinde Olayinca Fawumi, on the other hand, based his presentation in the idea that solution for social and political problems currently taking place in Africa and other developing countries has to start with local actions, intercontinental effects and global results. He affirmed that imported policies from Western societies are not sustainable for Africa without taking into account the context. Nevertheless, the general conclusion of the workshop is that western policies may be helpful, only if addressed and evaluated properly, in the long-run.

The last axis, Synergy, was presented by Ana Maria Misas Tabares. In her essay, she exposed the idea of development based on clusters. According to Misas Tabares, governments should be helpful when it comes to development among clusters in a society. For her, the advantages presented by Latin America when it comes to a cluster organisation, are the integrated markets of Peru, Chile and Colombia, and Mercosur, the commercial alliance in South American. As a conclusion, participants agreed that governments and private sector have both responsibilities, but the government’s most important obligation is to ensure stability and trust.

Finally, Delfina María Vildósola presented a specific case of synergy: Internet. According to her, we should think about habits and changes on our thoughts caused by technology. Some problems are presented, as the confiability of information published. Nevertheless, the use of social networks and collaborative websites is increasing faster. Finally, participants debated about the use of information, regarding its public access. They arrived to the conclusion that no matter what information we share, it is all about the values and ethics they are based on.

SABF 2010 started its second day of activities. On saturday morning, participants attended the first round of workshops. In this case, the main topic of them was Synergy, its meaning and implications according to different points of view. The speakers of these workshops were Cecilia Smoglie, Physicist of Instituto Balseiro, Nuclear Engineer (University of London) and Engineering Ph D., University of Karlsruhe; Gastón Mascias, President of Mujeres 2000; Jakarin Srimoon, Executive Director of the SEA-LAC Trade Center; Guillermina Lazzaro, Director of South Cone Region of Ashoka; Agustín Algorta, Social Director of Un Techo para Mi Pais, and Jorge Tersoglio, Ph D. Agricultural Economics and Professor at ITBA and Rifat Lelic, Director of Economics, Finances and Law of ITBA.

In Smoglie’s workshop, the axis of the speech was how participants can change the world by studying. Enlightened by her own experiencies, she made clear the fact that participants, if graduated, will be part of the 1 per thousand part of the population privileged by this condition. In fact, she invited participants to get involved and take action, no matter where, in order to generate change. According to Smoglie, the key factor is not to establish unachievable goals, but to look for closer objectives to make them real, step by step.

Meanwhile, Gastón Mascias presented the case of his ONG, Mujeres 2000. According to his speech, it was founded as the result of synergy between students who wanted to volunteer, following the example of Muhammad Yunnus with Grameen’s Bank. After three years of work, Mujeres 2000 has now four different programmes to help people from lower areas, and lends between 500 and 2500 pesos to each family. After answer the questions participants had, Mascias concluded: “We have been extremely vulnerable, but now we are going through changes that had made us stronger. Those are the changes that keep us motivated”.

Jakarin Srimoon started by asking participants what they thought about Asia. After some answers including “Asian tigers”, he told his experience travelling abroad and he confessed that doing it was a way to know better about his own country, Thailand. He incourages participants to go for their dreams, because he would have never thought he would be in Argentina when he was a young farmer boy. But according to him, today’s biggest blind spot is communication. He concluded that, through values like acceptance and integrity, we can improve our impact on society.

On the other hand, Guillermina Lazzaro introduced a video to start her presentation. The main idea was to point out that synergy is more important than what results from the sum of parts. According to her, the key factors to synergy are trust, assessment of differences and communication. She also recalled her experience in Ashoka, the organisation in which she works with social entrepreneurs. As a conclusion, she affirms that it is important to count on the synergetic work from different sectors to approach problems with holistic solutions.

When it comes to synergy related to social projects, Agustín Algorta also talked about Un Techo para Mi Pais, the ONG he works for as social director. According to him, UTPMP works in order to accomplish equity of opportunities, which are given by hazard at first. He concluded that, after covering urgent basic needs of lower income population, we need to develop the person. “The important thing is not to give fish, but also to teach how to get it” he affirmed, as Guillermina Lazzaro did in her workshop too.

Finally, Jorge Tersoglio and Rifat Lelic debated with participants about the Triple Bottom Line result. They took into account three main points that identify it: a beneficial practice for the community in which business is developed (Human Capital), a positive impact in the environment (Natural Capital) and profit generated for the community by the company but taking into account the costs of human and natural capital, as also the social and environmental benefits to the context. Moreover, they explained that consumers should have a more conscious and ethical attitude. As a final idea during the workshop was to subsidize products made with sustainable practices.