29 – 30 November, 2016
Maribor, Slovenia

Representatives of the Association EPEKA, Soc. Ent., participated in the event on Social Entrepreneurship in Tkalka on 29 and 30 November 2016.

The conference brought together a group of internationally active political foundations, consisting of the European Liberal Forum from Brussels, the International Centre for Education from Croatia, the Novum Institute from Slovenia, and in cooperation with the development cooperative Tkalka. They organised the international conference Social Entrepreneurship in Europe – A supportive environment for innovative forms of business ownership, which took place at the Tkalka co-working space.

Social entrepreneurship is an innovative form of entrepreneurship with a strong sense of responsibility for society and people. Social entrepreneurship is characterised by the fact that the motives of the business are to solve social, economic, environmental and other problems of society in an innovative way. The basic purpose of this alternative form of entrepreneurship is to operate in the marketplace, taking into account the principles of social entrepreneurship. Social entrepreneurship creates new jobs for vulnerable groups of people and carries out socially useful activities.

Like traditional businesses, social enterprises operate on the market, except that they do not usually share profits, but rather return them back to the company. Social entrepreneurship is cohesive because it encourages people to work together and to volunteer, thus strengthening solidarity in society.

Social enterprises are businesses owned and managed by different stakeholder groups and respond to the needs of these stakeholders. This type of ownership and the concept of ownership in such enterprises still poses a legal and practical challenge in many European countries. On the other hand, there are past experiences and contemporary good practices to learn from and to encourage the development of new innovative forms of ownership in the growing social economy sector in Europe.

GALLERY