20 Mar Thank You!

Wedu won the LSE D2Development and Cambridge University Entrepreneur competitions (check out the news on Business Weekly). We really want to express our gratitude to the organizers, the judges and the voters for creating such great opportunities and for having given it to us. These awards just mean so much to us: for now we know that people believe in what Wedu stands for, and, more importantly, they think our plans are doable. It makes the whole team feel encouraged, recognized, motivated. The awards are a big step forward but they also remind us that there is still a long path ahead.

Our belief in social entrepreneurship is what makes Wedu alive.

Our enthusiasm in helping people in less developed countries to fully develop their potentials should be credited for impressing the judges. But none of these, we believe, are as important as our determination to bring about social impact through business strategies in winning people’s favor and trust in us.

We believe that social entrepreneurship is the way to success. It is simply because it delivers higher efficiency and sustainability relative to charities. We are launching operations in these very days;, in fact, applications for the first intake of students are open now. Very soon, various flexible financial products tailored to the expectations of both our investors and the beneficiary students will be introduced. We are targeting a win-win situation: while students benefit from the financial assistance and guidance provided by investors (through us), investors will see their funds coming back. By reinvesting their returns, investors are not investing in one potential leader but two, then three and four, and so on. We believe that such mutual gains will sustain our project and maximize the impact that you can bring about.

We will work very diligently to keep ourselves moving.

What we need to do in the coming future is try our best to realize what we proposed in the D2Develpment and CUE competitions, and we are also expecting to see a ripple effect which students continue to support their own communities and other fellow students. Our network of young, enthusiastic local leaders will then multiply: every single dollar given to these young people goes back to their communities and would grow, grow, and grow… This is what we believe as the path ahead of us, and what Wedu: create positive cycles of leadership, through which students can develop themselves and their communities.

The Author

Stef Lau is currently a MSc Social Policy and Development student at LSE and the communication intern at Wedu Fund. She has previously undertaken internships in both the public and private sector in China and Ghana and she has also had study abroad experiences in National University of Singapore (Singapore) and UCLA (the United States). She is particularly interested in promoting gender equality as well as the welfare of migrants.