Social Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship is viewed as an important tool for tackling complex sustainable development problems and challenges. Social entrepreneurship and sustainable entrepreneurship are becoming mainstream forms of organizing that span the private, public and third sector. The defining features of social and sustainable entrepreneurship are an explicit and central social and/or environmental mission, combined with innovation, creativity and earned income strategies. Well known social and sustainable enterprises that we will explore in the course include Tony’s Chocolonely, Patagonia, and the Grameen Bank, among other worldwide and local interesting cases. This course will provide students the opportunity to learn how to apply entrepreneurship knowledge and skills to address complex social and environmental problems. This course is structured around experiential problem-based learning, providing students the opportunity to synthesize theory and practice as they develop an idea for their own social and sustainable enterprises. Topics will include: critically case analysis; user centered-design; strategizing; measuring social and environmental impact; entrepreneurial pitching.