Social Entrepreneurship & Sustainable Development

Catalog description

The course will cover a broad range of cutting-edge social enterprise and social entrepreneurship strategies from around the world. Students will interact with guest social entrepreneurs, policy makers, thought leaders and investors to ensure they gain a comprehensive understanding of this dynamic field, and challenge themselves as agents of social change working in development. Through individual and group exercises, using case studies and mixed media, students will explore the common strategies and pitfalls in creating community-driven, scalable social ventures. Students will collaborate and share their learning in the classroom and online using a new social platform, L2O, within a closed community for this course and an open community on social innovation. The course looks at social entrepreneurship and social ventures through their entire life cycle – from ideation, through start-up to scaling and exit to policy-making – with an emphasis on how market considerations and financial instruments are critical to achieving social and financial goals. The materials we will cover place a strong emphasis on the need for a deeper understanding of the range of human motivations, moving from material self-interest to altruism and gift to duty and obligation to strong reciprocity and cooperation. Students will complete a team project, either their own venture or a project for a social enterprise client, over the term of the course. They will receive constant constructive feedback from their peers and instructor throughout the semester in the classroom and on L2O.