SEAL-Asia Conference

The Social Enterprise Advocacy and Leveraging (SEAL) Asia is an event organized by ISEA that envisioned to become a regional platform that will support the social enterprise sector to be a major player in addressing poverty, inequality and sustainable development in the region. ISEA and Oxfam are on a strategic partnership to pursue this initiative.

1st SEAL Asia Conference

“Over 100 participants representing 13 countries attended the first Social Enterprise Advocacy and Leveraging Conference in Asia (SEAL-Asia) co-organised by the Institute for Social Entrepreneurship in Asia and Oxfam held on November 25-27, 2014 at the AIM Conference Center, Makati, Philippines. The two-day event with the theme, Transforming Economies through Social Entrepreneurship: Towards a Post 2015 Agenda brought together representatives from social entrepreneurship organizations, networks and resource institutions in Asia, scholars doing research on social entrepreneurship in the region, and resource persons from the business sector and government.

The conference served as a venue for sharing perspectives, experiences and insights in the understanding and practice of social enterprise development in Asia. An integral component of the event was the presentation of the results of the ISEA-Oxfam research on poverty reduction and women economic leadership, which was about the roles, potentials and challenges of social enterprises in developing countries in Asia.”

2nd SEAL Asia Conference

Over 90 participants representing 10 countries attended the Second Social Enterprise Advocacy and Leveraging Conference in Asia (SEAL-Asia) held on September 26-30, 2017 at the H Sovereign Bali Hotel, Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia. The Conference was organized by the Institute for Social Entrepreneurship in Asia (ISEA) in cooperation with a Local Organizing Committee led by Dompet Dhuafa Philanthropy and Bina Swadaya Foundation.  The Conference was supported by Japan Foundation Asia Center, Oxfam and the Swedish Government.  SEAL-Asia was envisioned as a regional platform to promote social entrepreneurship and the social enterprise sector as a major player in addressing poverty, inequality and sustainable development in the region.

The four-day event with the theme, “Social Enterprise: Addressing Inequality for a Just Economy” served as a venue for learning exchange on social enterprise impacts and the sustainable development goals (SDGs). It brought together representatives from social enterprises, social entrepreneurship organizations, networks and resource institutions in Asia, practitioners and scholars engaged in social impact measurement in the region, and resource persons from the government and the business sector.

The conference served as a venue for sharing perspectives, experiences and insights on social entrepreneurship and impact measurement in Asia. The conference featured 4 parallel sessions that showcased 12 significant practices on impact measurement among social enterprises and social entrepreneurship initiatives from Thailand, Myanmar, Indonesia, the Philippines, Cambodia, Japan, Hongkong and Singapore.  Three of these were cases developed by ISEA in cooperation with Dompet Dhuafa, Bina Swadaya and Gandang Kalikasan using the tools of social return on investment and development indexing. 

The conference featured a dialogue on the role of social enterprises in advancing the SDGs with UNESCAP; a discussion on the Benchmarks for Transformational Partnerships and Women’s Economic Empowerment in Agricultural Value Chains as aspirational standards for such initiatives to contribute to the SDGs; social entrepreneurship models addressing poverty and inequality in Indonesia featuring  the experiences of Bina Swadaya, Dompet Dhuafa and Dian Desa; and a field visit to Mitra Bali, a social enterprise practicing the 10 Fair Trade Principles espoused by the World Fair Trade Organization.

SEAL-Asia Conference 2020

ISEA and UNESCAP hosted the Third Social Enterprise Advocacy and Leveraging Conference (SEAL Asia) Conference 2020 virtually on September 16-17, 2020. This was the first virtual conference conducted by the institute.

SEAL Asia Conference convened more than 200 representatives from the leading social enterprises and social enterprise resource institutions, civil society, businesses and governments who are engaged and interested in assisting the social enterprise sector recover amid COVID19 and enable social entrepreneurship and cross-sectoral collaboration as a means of implementation to build back better and achieve the SDGs.

The core participants were social entrepreneurs and social intrapreneurs from ISEA’s network and Schwab Fellows who have exhibited best practices in their respective contexts, and key civil society organizations and networks that have an interest to integrate social entrepreneurship in their strategies to build back better and accelerate the SDGs.

During the conference, our distinguished speakers engaged with an ASEAN audience in wide-ranging dialogues from food security, resilience, and women empowerment in agricultural value chains, rural revitalization, youth and social entrepreneurship, health for all, decent work for all in sustainable value chains, and technological innovations for sustainable development, among others. The virtual conference will also look at the opportunities in a rapidly developing region in crisis, and how to seize them.