The Global Social Entrepreneurship Lab is a special experiential course that matches students with leaders of award-winning social ventures in areas ranging from low-income families’ access to primary care in West Africa, to the expansion of solar energy throughout Native communities in the U.S., to widows’ economic empowerment in Egypt, India, Kenya, and across the globe. The course’s aim is for students to learn from and accelerate the impact of their “Partner Social Ventures,” and for that learning and impact to inspire ideas for their own potential social entrepreneurship journey.
The most pressing human rights, social, and environmental issues in society – the refugee crisis, racial injustice, homelessness, inadequate and inequitable access to education and health care, threats to environmental sustainability, and so on – are solvable only by innovative leadership. The Global Social Entrepreneurship Lab is an opportunity for students interested in social entrepreneurship to experience operating at inspiring social ventures that are tackling these issues around the world. Students will join teams based on their passion areas and be matched with our Partner Social Ventures led by engaged, supportive founders on strategic projects critical to their mission. At our course meetings, we will learn from the founders of these organizations and more social venture leaders – an incredibly diverse group of guest speakers – about how they designed, refined, launched, and funded their ventures. Students will go from more deeply understanding the issue that most makes them “come alive,” to making an impact on the frontlines of leading social ventures, to designing their own social ventures.
This course is for anyone who has an interest in social entrepreneurship and wants to use their quarter making a real impact on an issue of consequence around the world. Additionally, it is designed to have a global feel and to feature placement partners and guest speakers representing a wide range of backgrounds. As the son of immigrants from Egypt, Professor Hanna – along with the broader teaching team – is particularly conscious of making this course an experience that will ensure everyone feels energized, represented, and included as much as possible.
+Application is Live: Click here to apply. The application deadline is Friday, February 2nd at 11:59pm CT.
+'24 Partner Social Ventures: See linked here for our '24 Partner Social Ventures as of today, along with the founder/CEO our course team will be working closely with and the likely project they will be working on. Students are asked for a preliminary ranking of their favored placement options in the course application, but there will be an official and final opportunity to submit rankings – with the finalized list of placements – before the first day of class. The official teams will be announced on the first day of class, and we'll do our best to group people with ventures that they rank as one of their top 2-3 selections.
