Social Problem Based Entrepreneurship

This course is designed to put the idea of teaching social entrepreneurship to its ultimate test—with the objective of incubating a series of social ventures through the course of a semester.  Before the semester begins, “start-up” teams of three to four students each will be formed.  Teams will be tasked with generating ideas for their start-ups by identifying a social problem they are looking to help solve, in a sector of their choice.  While teams can ultimately choose their market of focus, the class will focus on India and will entail a trip to India.

Over 3 weeks in India, the teams will conduct a “deep-dive” on the problem they have chosen and attempt to understand it holistically by meeting users, non-profits, researchers, other social ventures, regulatory agencies and more.  During the spring semester back in New York, they will then conduct a need-gap analysis, build prototypes of their solution using human centered design techniques, develop their business model using Lean Launchpad methods and articulate strategy and mission statements.