Center for Social Innovation

¿BUSCAS OPORTUNIDADES PARA REGRESAR A TU PAÍS COMO EMPRENDEDOR?
¿BUSCAS OPORTUNIDADES PARA EXPANDIR TU EMPRESA EN NUEVOS MERCADOS?
¡TRABAJEMOS JUNTOS!
INMIGRANTES: Ayudamos a individuos procedentes de países en vías de desarrollo a acceder a oportunidades de desarrollo socio-económico como emprendedor-franquiciado en sus países de origen. Buscamos personas originarias de países en vías de desarrollo que estén interesados en volver a sus países para gestionar una franquicia que generará actividad económica y empleo para sí mismo y para su comunidad. Para participar se requiere tener experiencia profesional previa y posibilidades de financiación.

How do you create an (almost) fully blown business plan for Rabea, a 33 year old Moroccan lady living in Spain, whose children are both at school and would like an opportunity to regain the autonomy she had in her home country?

Answer, invite nine different NGOs to a Jornada de Innovación and let them run wild with a whiteboard and some post-its.

Last week we held our first Jornada de Innovación. The aim of the day was to demonstrate the Design Thinking process to representatives from various NGOs and organizations in Madrid, including Oxfam, IE Business School, whilst also using the ideas to harness the creativity of our peers in designing potential programs to aid immigrant entrepreneurs.

For a long time, Spain was an exporter of people. During the 20th Century, some six million Spanish people, looking for a better life and better opportunities abroad, settled in the Americas, North Africa and Northern Europe. In the 1970s, this flow reversed, and by 1992, the foreign population in Spain was increasing by 10% annually. Spain now has one of the highest foreign populations, with 12.2% of its 45M inhabitants of foreign nationality.

On Monday, we ran our first brainstorming session with immigrant entrepreneurs. The day was coordinated by MITA ONG, a Spanish NGO that works with entrepreneurs, particularly immigrants and women.

As this was our first attempt at using the ‘design method' with an outside audience, Fede, Conchita and I were all excited to see how the session would work, and hoped that the participants Five entrepreneurs came to our session, ranging from website designers to a cheese producer. One of our challenges will be deciding who to design for, as a person trying to start a large manufacturing business is likely to have very different needs from someone running a one-man website shop.

After a long hiatus, I'm happy to reawaken the Puentes Global blog!

My name is Aisha Washington, and I have just completed the first year of my MBA at Stanford GSB. Thanks to a generous SMIF fellowship, I am interning with Fede and Conchita at Puentes in Spain this summer.

Welcome to our new blog!

I’m Federico Lozano (you can call me Fede), founder and CEO of Puentes Global, a nonprofit international employment agency for workers at the base of the pyramid.  We aim to help break down international borders and the global economic divide by connecting poor, semiskilled workers from the developing world with legal, well-paying jobs in the developed world.