The beginning: Banpu and ChangeFusion launch the first social enterprise incubation programme
In B.E. 2554, Banpu initiated the Banpu Champions for Change programme with ChangeFusion, providing seed funding and incubation for young people who wanted to address social problems through business. It began with the first cohort of 5 teams.
Translated from Thai · reviewed by the CF team
Banpu believes that sustainable economic growth must be driven by businesses that create positive impacts on society and the environment at the same time. It therefore partnered with ChangeFusion to establish the Banpu Champions for Change (BC4C) programme in B.E. 2554, providing seed funding and incubation for people with ideas for addressing social problems, and helping them develop these ideas into enterprises where business and impact grow sustainably together.
The first cohort (B.E. 2554) included 5 selected teams: Free Hap, a-chieve, Freedom Solution, Sputnik Tales and Khon Jai Ban. Cohorts 1–2 did not yet divide funding into two rounds as they do today. The two-round funding structure (seed funding to test the market for 3 months, followed by a second round of funding for the teams with the strongest results) was adopted in earnest from cohort 3 onwards.
Over the following years, the programme gradually built a network of more than 100 professional mentors from a wide range of fields. This would later become one of the resources that Champions valued most.