In the month the organization celebrates its 13th anniversary, Sasha Bezuhanova, founder of MOVE.BG, has given an interview to Bulgarian National Radio (BNR).
The give-get culture is a tool to overcome various challenges, especially in times of crisis such as the current COVID-19 pandemic. A lot of businesses have begun to experience serious financial difficulties and the need to help each other by sharing our professional expertise is crucial. Those are the main conclusions of the MOVE.BG's special discussion called “How does the Give-Get Culture Help Us in Times of Crisis?”. The event, which took place on the first day after the end of Bulgarian national COVID-19 emergency, marked the second month of “Squad for Change”: the latest initiative of our club “The ChangeMakers of Bulgaria”, which aims to help innovative Bulgarian art, digital, green, and societal startups that are at risk due to the impact of coronavirus on the market. The online session was part of the Trending Topics’s conference - “The Big Reset: From a Crisis Mode To Entrepreneurial Mindset”.
“The initiative was born right after the spread of COVID-19 as many businesses suffer the consequences of the isolation. Our project aims to help those who need prompt actions to adapt their business model to handle the situation. On one side we have those businesses in need, and on the other side, we have professionals and experts in different industries. They are consulting the businesses pro bono how to adapt to the challenges they face," Bratan Bratanov, the program coordinator of “The ChangeMakers of Bulgaria,” said.
“We have behind us, next to us a precious community we are working with," explained Gergana Daneva, manager of MOVE.BG's shared physical space "Coworking by MOVE.BG".
Give-get culture in action
Participants in the discussion shared their experience in overcoming the challenges of COVID-19, how they transformed their work, what difficulties they faced, what questions they sought answers to, and how ”Squad for Change“ was useful to them. Among the speakers were “today’s heroes” who are disrupting industries such as biotechnology, beekeeping, organizational psychology, mindset design, robotics.
“I am part of this initiative because I really like helping others to grow, to achieve their goals, and to bring positive change to society” - with these words of Karina Karagaeva, managing partner and mindset designer at Human Business Studio, we can summarize the inspiration of organizers and participants in the initiative ”Squad for Change”. Karina is a club member and one of the creators of the initiative, which has been born by the philosophy of give-get culture.
“I don`t think that the voice of the community must be to go back to normal, the voice must be to go back to future,” said another ChangeMaker - Spas Kerimov, founder of an innovative startup for 3D printing of human organs Printivo.
According to Eduard Tsvetanov from Revolut it’s critical right now for professionals across the globe to bring this experience and knowledge to the people who can use it here because Bulgaria has a huge potential to become a leading hub in Central and Eastern Europe. Eduard was a consultant to Elena Nikolova from ESCREO. She considered him more as a friend and mentor, who gave her a new perspective to the problems she is facing, and thanks to the ideas generated by Eduard she got more exposure to her business.
Vladimir Vasilev, an entrepreneur from Pollenity and a member of “The ChangeMakers” club, and Stela Atanasova who is in charge of customer value management at Telenor, also shared their experience in more than 3 hours session which resulted in the application of some of the mentioned ideas into practice.
The stories we heard at this webinar were only possible because people embraced the give-get philosophy and believed that sharing ideas and knowledge will help us find the way out of the crisis.
”A short exchange of experience and then you can launch an idea” - this is the driving force of Olga Mineva, organizational psychologist and consultant, and Karina Karagaeva - both creators of the idea behind the “Squad for Change” project. They are convinced that it is a beautiful illustration of how “The ChangeMakers” club exists.
The most emotional description was given by Spas Kerimov, who was the last speaker at the webinar and managed to summarise the spirit of the conversation and the idea that unites the members of the “The ChangeMakers”`s community:
”There is a feeling of interconnectedness. This was a huge change of me to find people who can charge me again with passion. The club is so vital. I can’t see the future without such a community in Bulgaria."
The ChangeMakers of Bulgaria
MOVE.BG’s project which identifies, connects, and unites the drivers of change in Bulgaria in a national network. Bulgaria has talents who address challenges from around the world.
We want to show their faces, in order to stimulate the change coming from Bulgaria to the world. And create our tomorrow together.
Do you know a person, who has clear values and vision for a positive societal change, and applies innovation and new technologies in the support of the societal and economic development?
Nominate "The ChangeMakers" so that we show how many we are.
