Archive for year: 2017

Take a game and mix it with the passion and the commitment to creating a better world: the result you get is The Good Cards, a real life game for individuals and organizations to achieve collective goals, co-founded by Dorota Sobieszczuk, an AIESEC Alumna, entrepreneur and change maker. The project is currently raising funds on Kickstarter and it has already reached the goal and started the overfunding phase ten days before the campaign ends. I had the the opportunity to interview her for the AIESEC Alumni blog. Enjoy the reading.

AAE: Dorota, what’s your AIESEC experience ?  What do you do in your life?  

D: I’m an AIESEC Alumna and since I finished my over 3 years AIESEC career I’m continually following the path of the change maker.  My AIESEC experience was all about the working with Local Committee Poznan in Poland. Mainly working in the incoming exchange area. Firstly I was a team member of the project than I become project manager, executive board member and local president. In the meantime I was engaged and helping out with notional working groups. Recently,  I co-founded The Good Cards – a real life game for individuals and organizations to achieve collective goals that can help create a better world. I’m living in Bali, the wonderful island where I can connect with like-minded people and grow spiritually and in the business wise way everyday. My mission is to help transform businesses into more socially responsible entities and  empower women to love themselves fully and become more courageous with persuading their business aspiration.

A: What about your project?  

D: Well, I do believe in the individual power of the collective action. How wonderful it would be to be a part of the community that creates habits to become more kind to each other and the planet. And we can all measure it and don’t feel anymore that “my small action doesn’t matter”. When we really see what’s happening in the world it’s obvious that people want change, but not necessarily now what they could potentially do to change anything.So The Good Cards helps you to take action to make a change and motivates you to repeat it by providing fun and gamified experience of leveling up in your good deeds action.

The Core idea comes from the Pay It Forward movement which emphasizes repaying the good deed to the others. The main attribute of the game is “The Good Card”: this is a physical card that gives a user access to the mobile app. He has to scan the QR code on the back of the card in order to find the set of missions for doing something good e.g for his/her family and friends, for strangers and more.

To accomplish the mission the user has to commence an action, share his experience and pass the card to the next recipient.

The next person that gets the card through the good deed has to go on a mission in order to pay it forward. As the card travels from hand to hand, the initial user is able to track it, and see the chain reaction: various stories are shared with the whole community of players from all over the world. The process of how to play the game could be found here:

There are a lot of changes in front of us, before we find the way the really engage millions into doing good. But nothing is impossible.

AAE: What about impacting the business world?

D: Due to my personal experience I’m very passionate about transforming the business world as well, that’s why we want to closely cooperate with business around The Good Cards. That’s why I see The Good Cards as a way to transform businesses for the better, according to the philosophy “do good and do well” at the same time.  The core idea of the game is very simple: people are sent on a “good deed mission” and they share the story in the mobile app. The app is connected with The Good Card – a biodegradable plastic card that users pass on to other people, challenging them to keep the good going. On the app, everybody can track how the card travels, learn what other people are doing, and see the current location of the card on the global map.

The app can be customized for use by brands, and adjusted to their vision of their social impact. It can be used as a tool to do more good, collectively, with all of their employees and customers. I would underline three main aspects of the magic of The Good Cards for businesses:

• Making their internal culture more kind and loving
• Co-creating social impact with their customers
• Increasing their bottom line

It all starts with the leader. Imagine a CEO doing good by challenging employees to do something good as well – and later customers are also challenged to do something good and everybody contributes to the brand’s collective goals that are aligned with their CSR strategy.

We’re entering an era where communication of a company’s impact is not enough. Today, people want to be part of the brand experience and social impact is becoming a more and more important factor for customers when it comes to choosing the brands they stick to. What is personally important for me is that brands have the power to shape their customers’ behaviour and create global trends. Imagine what would happen if doing good deeds became very trendy and customers were engaged in playing The Good Game through their favourite brands – and then they got rewarded for it.

At the end it’s all about our Good Game Prime philosophy, which is win-win-win  for the world, customers and companies

AAE: Why did you decide to launch a crowdfunding campaign?

D: We decided to launch this project on the community platform because the B2C side of the The Good Cards is purely based on the community building mechanism and crowdfunding is a great test.  Nevertheless we have reached our funding goal we need much more support to really put this project on the new level and be able to fully focus on its development, that’s why the support and feedback from the AIESEC network would be great. Thank  you all in advance.

Find out more about The Good Cards at thegoodcards.com

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We are pleased to present you the story of another AIESEC Alumni, Jean Gombya from Sweden. We would like to thank Jean for sharing with us her story and most recent project.

AAE: Hi Jean, tell us a bit about yourself.

Jean: My name is Jean and I am your everyday 27 year old girl with a passion for helping other young women to achieve their goals. My background is in business, accounting and finance and I have throughout my career helped several companies with finance and accounting. My aim is now to use this knowledge and experience to equip young women for success in their businesses. I am a woman of faith and spend most of my free time with friends, family and in church. I love to travel and dance, well travel to warm countries (above 25 Celsius degrees that is!) J

AAE: What motivates you?

Jean: I think that my motivation partly comes from my desire to make a difference in the world as cliché as it may sound. My faith teaches me to give and help others and I also find joy in doing that which motivates me to keep going with SheSupp even through the hard times. Secondly I am a person who needs my freedom, I love to travel, I love to spend time with friends and family and would love to have the freedom to do that as and when I desire. So I guess the freedom for more quality time with friends and family is a motivator.

AAE: How and when did SheSupp start? Or I should I ask what inspired you to start SheSupp? How did you spot the market need for such an organization?

Jean: I have had the SheSupp idea in mind for quite some time. A few seeds were sown after having worked as a client manager towards small to medium sized companies for a large financial services company. By doing so I had the chance to speak to business owners and really hear their passion about their business and also the pros and cons about it. From there I developed an interest in using my knowledge to help them. I have always had a passion for empowering and encouraging young women to pursue their potential which has then led me to focus on that group.  But it was only after a failed business attempt and when I realized that I really wanted the freedom to run my own business and do what I am passionate about that I really got the ball rolling in 2016. During that time I also realized how lonely it was to be a business owner and found that there were other women that felt the same. So it all started with a Facebook group that grew to about 400+ members and in late 2016 I decided to do a complete rebranding and changed to doing events and workshops to help the women in a more practical way.

AAE: What does the company do? What do you want to achieve with it?

Jean: SheSupp is a business network with a dream of inspiring and encouraging young women to start and grow their own businesses. We hope to create a strong global network of young female entrepreneurs to facilitate their growth and impact in the world.

The young women of SheSupp are able to find other female business partners globally and locally to make it easier for them to start and run their own businesses and grow domestically as well as internationally. SheSupp believes that if She can Support Her, there is a greater chance of all of us succeeding together, thus using the power of sharing to teach and learn from each other.

AAE: Tell us about the team you are working with.

Jean: I am currently a solopreneur. I did in fact have a fantastic girl working with me and who handled all the marketing and digital stuff, but due to her having to relocate I am back to being on my own. I have come to find that it is a good place for me to be in as I am still figuring out the success factors for SheSupp. By being a solopreneur I am able to make my own decisions and quickly without consulting anyone or involving my team, this way I can also adapt to chances and be more flexible with who I choose to collaborate with etc. In the future as SheSupp grows I do hope to hire a full team. However right now I am in fact looking for a tech-savvy person to help build an app!

AAE: What projects have you been involved with so far?

Jean: In my entire career I have been a part of several different projects from helping to set up a subsidiary in Sweden for a financial services company to volunteering in Uganda with AIESEC to help develop the organisation in Uganda. By working on these projects I found myself incredibly excited about entrepreneurship and also passionate about young women’s development. This in turn led to the start of SheSupp, so I am now building my dream with SheSupp and which in itself is just a big long-term project with several micro projects, it couldn’t be more fun!

AAE: What’s the most important thing you’re working on right now and how are you making it happen?

Jean: Right now in life my focus is on building SheSupp and trying to build a business that will help thousands of young women to start to pursue their dreams and dare to start their own businesses. I am working on a super exciting program that I am hoping to offer women in Sweden to be a part of, in order to help them start and/or build their businesses for success. It is a tough journey but incredibly fun. I am working around the clock, networking and ensuring that my name and SheSupp is visible to my target group and companies with the same vision or willing to invest in young women.

AAE: What are the plans for the future (yours and/or the company’s)?

Jean: My vision for the future is to grow SheSupp internationally. My hope is that SheSupp will be able to contribute to minimizing the gender gap amongst business leaders in the business world by facilitating for more women to have the courage and the opportunity to build their own business and if these businesses go well it will result in more women being in leading positions in leading companies. Kind of like a domino effect.

AAE: How can people interested get involved?

Jean: Well I should say to stay updated with what is happening on Facebook and Instagram as we have monthly events and will shortly be launching digital content to help our members’ progress with their businesses. So be it you are in Sweden or not you can still become a SheSupp member just go to the website www.shesupp.com and sign up and you will get newsletters and exclusive content.

Secondly if your company or you know of a company that would like to get involved in this kind of initiative feel free to send me an email on info@shesupp.com. Or if you know there is an interest for such an initiative in your country / town please do contact us as I am looking to expand and looking to suitable cities.

AAE: How can the Alumni community help?

Jean: I would love if the alumni network could connect me with powerful AIESEC alumni that could speak at events or hold workshops or even just become members or sponsors. I am currently looking for partners, and people/companies to collaborate with. So any recommendations are welcome. And of course spreading the word about SheSupp and the work we are doing for young women!

If you have any questions regarding this project, or any other AIESEC Alumni projects, please do not hesitate to contact us.

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