Social Entrepreneurship – StartUpArabia

4SITE Forum (Investing in Sustainability, Innovation, Technology & Entrepeneurship) is an event being held in Beirut, Lebanon, bringing together over 200 investors, innovators, and entrepreneurs in Lebanon and the Middle East region. The goal of the event is to promote innovation and entrepreneurship towards sustainable economic development and social impact.

The event is organized by RootSpace and Baraka Group in conjunction with Global Entrepreneurship Week (a yearly event taking place in November in over 80 countries worldwide), and will be held over two days, full of participatory panels, keynotes, workshops, demonstrations, and networking.

The event will be taking place at Bayt El-Tabib Conference Center in Beirut, Lebanon, on November 17-18th. The plan is for this event to be the first in a series of other 4SITE Forums to take place around the region.

The keynote speakers at the event include Joi Ito, the CEO of Creative Commons, John Wilbanks, the CEO of Science Commons, and Rabea Ataya, the CEO of Bayt.com.

Besides the fixed program, there are some slots in the schedule that are planned for Barcamp-style presentations and demos by the participants.

The full program schedule for the event can be viewed online at the official website here: 4SITE Forum Schedule. Tickets to the event can be bought here.

Along with the event, 4SITE Forum and Hibr are also hosting the Global Innovation Tournament (GIT), an initiative of Global Entrepreneurship Week, in Lebanon, with this year’s challenge being to come up with a way to make saving money fun, in light of the current global recession.

The Schwab Foundation is running a competition, looking for the Social Entrepreneurs of the Year 2009 from the different regions of the world.

The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship is a not-for-profit, independent and neutral organization, founded in 1998, with the purpose to advance social entrepreneurship and to foster social entrepreneurs as an important catalyst for societal innovation and progress.

The most important criteria to be considered a finalist are:

An innovative product or service
An idea that has been sustained through a successful infrastructure
The implemented idea has a direct social impact
You were able to reach beyond the initial context
Your idea is applicable to other situations, regions and countries

The winners will be included in the Schwab Foundation network of social entrepreneurs. This includes access to a peer network of social entrepreneurs, special benefits such as pro-bono consulting services and scholarships to executive education courses at world-class institutions such as Harvard Business School, Stanford University and INSEAD.

The winners will also be invited to one regional meeting of the World Economic Forum.

Excellent finalists or winners under 40 will also be nominated to the Young Global Leaders network of the World Economic Forum. Worldclass social entrepreneurs will be invited to join the global social entrepreneur community, which includes the possibility to be invited to the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos and to contribute to the Global Agenda Councils of the Forum.

For more information on the competition and the detailed criteria to join, you can check out the competition site.

The deadline for submissions from the Middle East and North Africa is February 16th 2009, and you can apply online here.