Financing for Impact Workshop

Located in Semarang, on 13 September 2019 a workshop on the topic of “Financing for Impact” was conducted by our program, led by Dr. Mohamad Ikhsan Modjo, one of our faculty members. The audience of this workshop was approximately 400 high school students. This workshop was part of Binus’ IFEST (Inspiring Festival), an event expected to inspire youth people to build a quality future and to contribute to the larger society.

In this workshop, the audience was made aware of several social and environmental problems and challenges, such as: poverty, inequality, education quality; sustainable income; forest fire; lack of sanitation facility; plastic waste. It is predicted that the investment gap in key social and environmental sectors in 2015-2030 to reach 2.5 trillion USD. New approach to solve these challenges is necessary, one of which is sustainable investing, which millennials nowadays are interested in. It is part of impact investing, which refers to investments made into companies, organizations, and funds with the intention to generate a measurable, beneficial social or environmental impact alongside a financial return.

Industrial revolution 4.0 triggers impact investing 4.0 as portrayed below:

Fintech is a very important element in impact investing 4.0. Fintech describes any company that provides financial services through software or other technology, and includes anything from mobile payment apps to cryptocurrency. Some traditional uses of fintech are crowdfunding platforms, blockchain and cryptocurrency, mobile payments, insurance, robo-advising and stock-trading apps, budgeting apps. Globally and in Indonesia, there are numerous fintech platforms in various sectors. Equipped with this knowledge, the audience was then participated actively in a workshop of how to initiate and fund impact start-up using available fintech platforms.

It is expected that this workshop would widen the audience’s perspective, who is the future of this country, to start thinking about potential solutions faced by the society, especially in terms of social and environmental aspects. In the workshop, they were also given practical steps and techniques to develop their proposal to raise fund from external sources. Hopefully this event would serve as a catalyst for these young-spirited audience to come up with new solutions which will benefit our beloved country in the future.