Some announcements of distinct relevance:

– First up, the nominees for the Edge Upstarts Social Enterprise Awards have been announced; there are some SSE connections which we are happy to see; 2 out of the 3 nominees for trainee of the year (Michelle Baharier and Bernadette Wright) are SSE Fellows from London and Salford respectively; also, up for the prestigious Social Entrepreneur of the Year award is current London student Simon Fenton-Jones……best of luck to all.

Also heavily represented are our friends at Training for Life, who are up for an award, along with their CEO Gordon D’Silva, and their flagship enterprise, the Hoxton Apprentice.

– Secondly, in the US, Echoing Green (who’ve been working with and connecting social entrepreneurs for many years) have announced the finalists for their 2006 Fellowship Finalists. You can see the first finalist here, and then click through to the rest…Some really impressive people/projects here (mostly US-based) competing for some serious money. They cover a range of areas including leadership in Africa, clean technology in Latin America, helping Palestinians travel freely and supporting farmers in North Korea… well worth a look, as is the whole Echoing Green site