On 5 October at the One Young World Summit in Bogotá, Facebook’s VP of Global Marketing Solutions and One Young World Counsellor Carolyn Everson launched the Facebook Social Entrepreneurship Award, offering a Grand Prize worth $55,000, plus three prizes worth $5,000.
The four winners will come from the four regions in which Facebook operates, with each winning social entrepreneur receiving Facebook advertising credits, Facebook marketing expertise and Facebook executive sponsorship.
The Grand Prize winner will be mentored by both Carolyn Everson herself, and a Facebook executive from their region. The regional winners will also receive mentorship.
Carolyn Everson shared, '“There are so many young leaders in the world that are focused on finding new ways to help and strengthen their own communities. And we want to do our part for those leaders because this goes hand in hand with Facebook’s mission. The Facebook Social Entrepreneurship Award was created with One Young World to empower businesses that can help communities be healthier, make education more affordable, use technology to improve the environment and so much more. One great idea can change the world and we are committed to helping more leaders make a difference.”
The award is open only to One Young World Ambassadors with scalable and growing businesses of more than 1,000 monthly users. The businesses must address a major social and/or economic issue in their region and empower their community. The Ambassadors must come from either North America, EMEA, Asia Pacific or Latin America.
The deadline for entry submissions is 17 November.
Everson’s announcement wrapped up her session of “Connecting Communities for Good”. She also participated in the Summit’s Plenary Session on Poverty Alleviation & Economic Development.
Back in July, Everson participated in a special Q&A with Co-Founder of One Young World, David Jones, at the 2017 New York Caucus hosted at Facebook’s Astor Place office. She highlighted the role of Facebook’s virtual reality platform, Oculus, in bringing “sensitivity and empathy” to the refugee crisis through the film Clouds Over Sidra, which immerses the viewer in the world of a 12-year-old Syrian girl living in a Jordanian refugee camp.
Everson predicted that Facebook will be doing more to help such socially responsible projects, noting that “as a result of us changing and updating our mission…you are going to see a very big emphasis on tools for communities.”
