Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation

Undergraduate / Graduate

We will study social innovation with a focus on the role of social entrepreneurship for implementing innovative solutions to society's problems. A team of 4 students will be assigned with an innovative idea that addresses a social problem and could become a (for-profit or non-profit) social venture. Students will provide their preferences for assignment from a list of preselected ideas. Teams will essentially develop a business idea around this innovation. To achieve this, students will research the relevant literature, conduct customer discovery, analyze the competitive landscape, validate and refine the offering, propose a business model, articulate a theory of change, and identify an impact management strategy. Teams will present to the idea sponsor at the end of the quarter and in a mid-quarter check-in. The hope is that there will be sufficient validation and interest to move forward with some of these ventures with students involved in or leading the venture. One path is to participate in the John Edwardson, '72, Social New Venture Challenge. Much of class time will be devoted to group exercises to implement frameworks to answer these questions for the projects as well as a set of case study examples we will use throughout the course. In addition, there will be readings and discussions on a set of topics to provide a broader understanding of the economics of social innovation and its relationship to more traditional innovation. Grading will be based weekly project