The Global Social Entrepreneurship Lab (GSEL) is an experiential course in which students ideate, research, validate, and test new concepts for impactful social ventures. Each week we have guest speakers (“Founder-Mentors”) who are founders of award-winning for-profit and non-profit social ventures around the world – including edtech for refugees in Lebanon, climate tech supporting farmers in Kenya, youth empowerment programs in El Salvador, innovative mental health interventions in the U.S., and microbanks for widows in India, Egypt, and across the globe. Students come into the class without an idea or with an early idea and – after becoming more proximate to a social or environmental problem, developing and validating potential solution ideas, and testing those ideas – leave with a pressure-tested social venture that they can take forward.
The most pressing human rights, social, and environmental issues in society – the refugee crisis, homelessness, inadequate and inequitable access to education and health care, racial injustice, threats to environmental sustainability, and so on – are solvable only by innovative leadership. GSEL provides an opportunity to build the early foundations of a potentially world-changing social venture. At our course meetings, we will learn from the founders of leading social ventures – 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 designing and rapidly testing their own social ventures – many of which our students go on to launch after concluding the course, often as part of SNVC.
Students apply individually and can work in groups of one to three. If you already have potential team members in mind, there is a place to note this on your application. This course is for anyone who has an interest in social entrepreneurship and wants to spend their quarter crafting their own social venture. It is designed to have a global feel and to feature placement partners and guest speakers representing a wide range of backgrounds. Note that this year, unlike in the previous two years, this year's course will focus fully on designing your own social venture ideas; there will not be an additional project component with partner social ventures.
Applications are now open here and are due by Friday, November 7th at 11:59pm CT.
