The Edible Social Entrepreneur: Food Security and Social Justice

This program investigates social entrepreneurship in our food system.  Participants examine the numerous innovative ways that social entrepreneurs use food as a means for solving social, environmental and economic injustices as well as building resilient food systems.  In doing so, they follow the food value chain from growing to recycling and learn from entrepreneurs who are addressing hunger and food insecurity, community disenfranchisement, and unemployment. 

Employment Social Enterprise: Jobs for the Unemployable

Explores social enterprise as a strategy to create jobs and economic opportunities for people who face extreme barriers to employment and economic survival.  Program participants take an in-depth look at barriers to employment—such as homelessness, school dropout, disabilities, mental illness, criminal histories, etc.—that often serve to perpetuate joblessness and the cycle of poverty. Then they learn the many ways that social enterprises can be vehicles to transition people from joblessness to  productive, contributing and wage-earning members of society. 

Social Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Development

Designing for long term sustainability is at once an age old challenge and an overarching goal of international development. Social entrepreneurship introduces new approaches to sustain development initiatives.  In this program participants study a range of sustainable development models from the self-help groups to NGOs and whole communities. Participants learn and practice design that uses community contributions, renewable resources, earned income and democratic principles to solve social problems and create systemic change. 

Impact Investing and Social Finance

Explores the nature and range of investment instruments and markets for capital markets for social enterprises and socially motivated businesses. As well, this course looks at policies and legal issues that either enable or inhibit social investment. Participants follow investments to understand how social capital is employed from seed to scale in social enterprises and how returns are quantified. They also learn  how social audits and valuation is conducted in due diligence prior to investment. 

Inventions for Impact

This program focuses at engineering and technology solutions at the base of the pyramid. Through a creative and experiential process, participants explore the many different ways that appropriate and high technology is being used to combat poverty and other social problems in the developing world.  Participants identify problems that can be solved with engineering or technology, conduct a rapid prototyping exercise, and apply design techniques to craft a new process, technology or invention that benefit society. Throughout, they work with counterparts using locally available technology and resources to invent for impact. 

Eco-Social Entrepeneur: Social Enterprise, Society and the Environment

Global warming, deforestation, pollution, threatened wild life, diminishing water sources are just some of the environmental issues that keep eco-social entrepreneurs busy.  In this program participants explore the many ways in which social entrepreneurs are working to protect the environment. Businesses and social innovations in eco- and community-based tourism, recycling initiatives, water-conserving irrigation, tree planting and renewable energy are some of the examples this course explores.

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Social Enterprise Design is about finding business solutions to poverty and other social problems. This program teaches the complex and messy art of identifying business opportunities in social problems and then designing solutions using business vehicles and entrepreneurship. Social Enterprise Design teaches pragmatic and human centered approaches to design for sustainable impact while imparting concrete development experience and building practical skills. Participants conduct consulting projects with social entrepreneurs on practical issues they face such as social enterprise scale and sustainability.

This introductory program gives participants a comprehensive overview of social innovation, social enterprise, corporate social responsibility program, and the use of entrepreneurship and market-based approaches to address social problems at the base of the pyramid.  The field is the classroom where students take a deep dive into poverty, examining its causes, effects and social, environmental and financial costs. They then survey a range of social innovations and entrepreneurship models that help break the cycle of poverty.

Youth Discovery

For high school students and families with high school age kids, Youth Discovery is as much about self discovery and leadership as it is about exploring social entrepreneurship and development.   Deeply inspiring and profoundly personal, young people learn about problems that children and youth in developing countries face as well as how courageous young leaders are finding entrepreneurial solutions to these problems.