I recently had the opportunity to join 95 other StartingBloc Fellows from 25 countries for the first Global Institute for Social Innovation at London Business School. The Global Institute for Social Innovation is a 4-day long educational conference focusing on corporate social innovation, social enterprise, sustainability and cross-sector partnerships. Founded in 2002 in partnership with MIT Sloan School of Management, StartingBloc educates, empowers and connects emerging leaders to drive positive social change across sectors.

Few of the many interesting speakers:Nat Wei, Absolute Return for Kids
ARK's mission is to transform children's lives. This is achieved by providing grants to charities and charitable projects whose activities have been comprehensively researched by ARK, and where ARK has a high degree of confidence that funds will be efficiently and effectively deployed.

Jessica Shortall, Catalyst Strategy Advisors
CSA is a strategy consultancy, launched in response to the unique opportunities to drive innovation and business value through proactive social and sustainable models. CSA provides business analysis and planning, growth strategy, strategic venturing planning and implementation, and ongoing advisory and board-level work.

Bill Kramer, World Resources Institute
Our very own Bill Kramer, WRI, spoke of the many different definitions of CSR - and went on to give a presentation on the opportunities for sustainable businesses aimed at the bottom of the economic pyramid.

It was great to see that every participant was passionate about a different approach to social innovation.

My opinion is that StartingBloc would do well by extending such programming to live and emerging centers of development and green enterprise.