By KEITH CHEE

SOCIAL entrepreneurship is still a fairly new concept to Singapore and Asia but two university students, leading two different projects, aim to jumpstart the idea across the region.

Both the Social Entrepreneurship Forum (SEforum) and Xun Ji are online portals that look to promote the venture throughout Asia, link up social entrepreneurs in the region, and educate and gear up those aspiring to become one.

The common thread between the two is that both are funded by the National University of Singapore's (NUS) Centre for Social Entrepreneurship and Philanthropy (CSEP).

The centre, officially launched in 2008, was initially formed to help NUS Business School students and alumni who were involved in various social and community projects who looked to their alma mater for financial help. It now works with NUS students from other departments too, and has since its launch given out about $100,000 worth of grants to sustainable projects with a social cause.

Andrew Wang - one of the first students who fuelled demand for such a centre - now heads SEforum, which serves as an online directory for social enterprises in South-east Asia and features articles on them.

SEforum began in 2004 when Mr Wang, together with nine other students, scanned the field to find a gap in the local social entrepreneurship scene - there were no conferences on the subject then.

The initial idea had been to organise a conference for students alone, but at the suggestion of their business school dean then, the team decided to host it on a national level instead.

'We then got funding from NUS and the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS) through a friend who was on attachment there,' said Mr Wang.

'Speakers such as Bunker Roy - who founded the Barefoot College in India which aims to make rural communities self-sufficient and sustainable by educating the villagers - were obtained through the project manager at MCYS and from there things just fell in place,' he said.

In 2007, the team took stock of the social entrepreneurship scene and found a growing number of good quality conferences coming up within Singapore. Seeking to find 'what was missing', the group then came up with the idea of an online directory of accessible information and SEforum was born.

As the team's focus shifted from being a conference coordinator to being a directory, its staff grew too, to include more freelance designers and journalists.

SEforum's current team of seven now produces a monthly newsletter with a readership of 1,200 people, and hosts 25 companies and 23 features from Singapore, Thailand and Hong Kong on its website.

Of course, there are costs to maintaining the directory and generating articles. Though it currently runs on a grant from CSEP, SEforum has drawn up plans to become self-sufficient. Last December, the team set up an e-commerce portal, dothingsdifferent.com, that sells products from social enterprises. In addition, Mr Wang says his team has also had preliminary talks with NUS Business School on the idea of having SEforum host classes on social entrepreneurship, paid for by NUS.

The strong focus on creating a greater awareness about social entrepreneurship is one shared by another CSEP-sponsored project, now underway in China.

Xun Ji was started last January by students from NUS and Fudan University in collaboration with students from other institutions and organisations such as Xi'An-Jiaotong Liverpool University and Social Innovation Park China Students' Chapter.

Soh Sin En, a third-year student at NUS who leads the project, said the idea of starting an annual forum for students in China came about while she was on an exchange programme there.

Having previously done voluntary work during her secondary school and junior college years, Ms Soh started thinking about how social enterprises could offer both financial viability and social benefits, while studying business in NUS.

During her exchange stint in China, Ms Soh realised that there were social enterprises in China. But they were not getting enough exposure, especially among students, who were reluctant to dabble in the field.

After meeting Chinese contacts through a friend on exchange as well in Fudan University, Ms Soh, together with a team of Singaporean and Chinese students, obtained funding from both Fudan University and NUS.

Last October, Xun Ji hosted its first forum in Fudan University, which was attended by 200 students. Guest speakers spoke on the challenges social entrepreneurs in China face and students had the chance to network with like-minded aspiring social entrepreneurs.

Xun Ji also hosts four short documentaries on its website which highlight existing social enterprises so as to give them more exposure and communicate the value of incorporating social responsibility into businesses.

Ms Soh will hand over the reins at Xun Ji soon to a student from Fudan University, though the project will remain a collaboration between the two. She hopes that Xun Ji will eventually branch out of China to other countries where there is a lack of understanding and documentation of social entrepreneurship.

So with organisations such as CSEP and SEforum now in place to support and feature social entrepreneurships, what should budding social entrepreneurs keep in mind?

'Don't just jump into social entrepreneurship just because it sounds sexy or because there are grants available,' said Mr Wang. 'Always figure out what is needed first and make sure you understand the needs of the people you want to benefit because sometimes, what may be a benefit in your eyes may not apply to them.'

He added: 'It's a lot of hard work and requires a lot of perseverance and, if anything, it's about two times harder than running a for-profit business but when you do jump into it and succeed, it's a very fulfilling feeling.'

This article was first published in The Business Times.