Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Prof Muhammad Yunus and his creative adviser Hans Reitz are organising the annual event and the leading conference on social business or entrepreneurship.

The main topics of the GSBS 2018 are plastic and circular economy, mobility, solidarity, sports and social business and food and its value.

The worldwide leading forum serves to spread awareness about social business, foster discussions and collaboration between practitioners and stakeholders, as well as present and conceive best practices.

Prof Muhammad Yunus, Executive Director Yunus Centre Lamiya Morshed, Member of the Board of Management of Volkswagen AG; Human Resources and Organization Gunnar Kilian, former NASA Austronaut Ron Garan, CEO Autostadt Roland Clement, CEO The Grameen Creative Lab, Head of GSBS Hans Reitz, Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director of Sing for Hope Monica Yunus, Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director of Sing for Hope Camille Zamora, President and Founder of Jean Bernou Consulting Jean Bernou, Peter Schwarzen­bauer, Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development Dr Maria Flachsbarth, Impact Investor and Social Entrepreneur Ruben Vardanyan and adviser to Prof Yunus Nurjahan Begum and Board of Management Volkswagen AG, Integrity and Legal Affairs Hiltrud Werner are among the speakers of the GSBS 2018.

The participants will experience outstanding Social Business entrepreneurs, great keynotes, master classes, workshops and networking sessions during the two-day Summit.

Hans Reitz said plastic does not belong to nature and they need a fundamental system change to address the problem. “What we need is a circular economy.”

“I always felt amazed at the limitless power of sport. It’s powerful because it is basic to human nature. Where there’s power there’s always a chance to make a meaningful difference in people’s lives,” said Prof Yunus.

The 9th edition, organisers said, represents an important step for the social business community they have fostered over the past years, as they are working concretely on action steps that will aim on building a new civilization.

In this spirit, the organisers will spread out in different hubs where they concentrate on the topics of plastic, sports, food, solidarity and mobility.

Prior to the main Summit, the Social Business Academia Conference (SBAC) was held on Tuesday and Wednesday at the Autostadt, the headquarters of Volkswagen.

Prof Muhammad Yunus, while opening the Social Business Academia Conference on Tuesday, said the academics are the navigators.

"They’re the pilots who’re navigating everyone in the direction we should go as a global society. If we continue on the current path we’ll head towards disaster with wealth concentration and environmental degradation," he said.

Prof Yunus said academics have to find a way to get to a new destination which is sustainable for all of them and social business is one way to do that.

Lamiya Morshed said the goal of the conference was to foster an inter-disciplinary and international academic and research community around Social Business, and generate more research and curricula in the field of social business.

The Social Business Academia Conference was jointly organised by Yunus Centre and the Grameen Creative Lab, and with the help of the Scientific and Organising Committee of SBAC.

The conference saw around 150 academics and researchers from at least a dozen countries representing many Yunus Social Business Centres (YSBCs).

SBAC is a platform for networking of the growing network of Yunus Social Business Centers at universities around the world to share their experiences and future plans.

There are currently 64 YSBCs in 28 countries.

At the SBAC, 37 papers were selected from among 52 submitted papers.

Nineteen of them were presented at the SBAC covering issues like SDGs, health, education and training, technology, marketing, financing Social Business, wealth concentration and other issues.