US students turn to entrepreneurship to help poor
Saturday, 27 September 2008
Andrzej Zwaniecki
A solar-rechargeable LED light for use in villages with no electricity was a class project at the Stanford University Institute of Design for four engineering and business students. Now d.light, a company the Stanford students started, sells the $20-$30 Nova lamp in Africa and Asia, where it replaces expensive and unhealthy kerosene lanterns.
The Nova lamp was developed during the Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability course, one among many at U.S. universities that teach how to harness creativity and innovation to start a business. The number of schools offering such courses has doubled from 2000 to 2005, and most universities that did not offer them plan to have one, according to a 2006 Kennesaw State University study.
Courses in at least at two universities have focused on applying entrepreneurial innovation to real-life problems in the developing world.
The yearlong course at Stanford helps graduate students from different disciplines come together to design practical, affordable solutions to real-life problems of poor people. About 40 students working in multidisciplinary teams go through a structured design process in a close partnership with local and international not-for-profit organizations in developing countries.
James Patell, a management professor, said it is important to listen to people in those countries because they know what kind of products and services would make their lives easier and healthier.
That is why team representatives travel to the international project sites to interact with their target audiences, particularly potential customers. Most often, when they return, they revise and refine their ideas.
Many students decide to push their projects beyond the class by helping implement the ideas, transferring them to partners or starting their own commercial or not-for-profit ventures. The products they have designed range from $25 portable incubators for premature babies to a paper spacer for asthma inhalers to a collapsible water storage container. The container, intended for small irrigation projects, was rushed into mass production earlier in 2008 by a partner, International Development Enterprises (IDE), to help provide clean water to the residents of Burma affected by Cyclone Nargis.
The university is proud of these successes. But Patell has a contrarian view of teams that went on their own rather than continuing to work with partners.
"Each represents a failure to find a right partner for them that would smooth out the way for their products," he told America.gov.
Patell said partners have turned out to be more important than he anticipated four years ago, when he started the course, because they can help craft the project to specific cultural and social conditions.
The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania also emphasizes the role of local partners, particularly local entrepreneurs, in its course called Entrepreneurship and Social Wealth Generation. Ian MacMillan, director of the Snider Entrepreneurial Research Center, who helped design the course, teaches students to look at social problems through "an entrepreneurial lens" and thereby discern business opportunities in alleviating those problems. Those opportunities can turn people in poor countries into entrepreneurs once innovators from the developed world involve them in setting up business ventures.
"This sets in motion a virtuous cycle: The [local] entrepreneur is incented to generate more profits and, by doing so, solves more problems," MacMillan told a university magazine.
Similar to the Stanford class, the course brings together students from different disciplines who work in teams to develop business plans for addressing real-life social issues. Some ideas come from students, some from MacMillan.
The Snider Center has set up several pilot programs to carry out projects aimed at seizing on social entrepreneurship opportunities. They include an HIV-specific patient-record monitoring system in Botswana and low-cost mechanical peanut collection and processing in South Africa. A livestock-feed production venture in Zambia based on locally available components has already gone beyond the pilot phase.
Emily Cieri, managing director of Wharton entrepreneurial programs, said students realize that a pure for-profit model does not always work in the social context. A not-for-profit enterprise with basic aspects of a commercial venture has an advantage over a traditional not-for-profit group, she told America.gov. It can generate profits that can be plowed back into its operations.
In such a case, "you probably have a more sustainable organization than traditional not-for-profit, which needs regular infusion of [donated] money," Cieri said.
Most students attending the class are not going to work on development projects in their professional lives. But the course exposes them to an innovative way of thinking about social problems, which large corporations must face, she said.
More information on social entrepreneurship programs is available on the Web site of the Stanford University Institute of Design and the Web site of Wharton Entrepreneurial Programs.
By courtesy : The US Embassy in Dhaka. A feature produced by the US Department of State's Bureau of International Information Programs
A solar-rechargeable LED light for use in villages with no electricity was a class project at the Stanford University Institute of Design for four engineering and business students. Now d.light, a company the Stanford students started, sells the $20-$30 Nova lamp in Africa and Asia, where it replaces expensive and unhealthy kerosene lanterns.
The Nova lamp was developed during the Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability course, one among many at U.S. universities that teach how to harness creativity and innovation to start a business. The number of schools offering such courses has doubled from 2000 to 2005, and most universities that did not offer them plan to have one, according to a 2006 Kennesaw State University study.
Courses in at least at two universities have focused on applying entrepreneurial innovation to real-life problems in the developing world.
The yearlong course at Stanford helps graduate students from different disciplines come together to design practical, affordable solutions to real-life problems of poor people. About 40 students working in multidisciplinary teams go through a structured design process in a close partnership with local and international not-for-profit organizations in developing countries.
James Patell, a management professor, said it is important to listen to people in those countries because they know what kind of products and services would make their lives easier and healthier.
That is why team representatives travel to the international project sites to interact with their target audiences, particularly potential customers. Most often, when they return, they revise and refine their ideas.
Many students decide to push their projects beyond the class by helping implement the ideas, transferring them to partners or starting their own commercial or not-for-profit ventures. The products they have designed range from $25 portable incubators for premature babies to a paper spacer for asthma inhalers to a collapsible water storage container. The container, intended for small irrigation projects, was rushed into mass production earlier in 2008 by a partner, International Development Enterprises (IDE), to help provide clean water to the residents of Burma affected by Cyclone Nargis.
The university is proud of these successes. But Patell has a contrarian view of teams that went on their own rather than continuing to work with partners.
"Each represents a failure to find a right partner for them that would smooth out the way for their products," he told America.gov.
Patell said partners have turned out to be more important than he anticipated four years ago, when he started the course, because they can help craft the project to specific cultural and social conditions.
The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania also emphasizes the role of local partners, particularly local entrepreneurs, in its course called Entrepreneurship and Social Wealth Generation. Ian MacMillan, director of the Snider Entrepreneurial Research Center, who helped design the course, teaches students to look at social problems through "an entrepreneurial lens" and thereby discern business opportunities in alleviating those problems. Those opportunities can turn people in poor countries into entrepreneurs once innovators from the developed world involve them in setting up business ventures.
"This sets in motion a virtuous cycle: The [local] entrepreneur is incented to generate more profits and, by doing so, solves more problems," MacMillan told a university magazine.
Similar to the Stanford class, the course brings together students from different disciplines who work in teams to develop business plans for addressing real-life social issues. Some ideas come from students, some from MacMillan.
The Snider Center has set up several pilot programs to carry out projects aimed at seizing on social entrepreneurship opportunities. They include an HIV-specific patient-record monitoring system in Botswana and low-cost mechanical peanut collection and processing in South Africa. A livestock-feed production venture in Zambia based on locally available components has already gone beyond the pilot phase.
Emily Cieri, managing director of Wharton entrepreneurial programs, said students realize that a pure for-profit model does not always work in the social context. A not-for-profit enterprise with basic aspects of a commercial venture has an advantage over a traditional not-for-profit group, she told America.gov. It can generate profits that can be plowed back into its operations.
In such a case, "you probably have a more sustainable organization than traditional not-for-profit, which needs regular infusion of [donated] money," Cieri said.
Most students attending the class are not going to work on development projects in their professional lives. But the course exposes them to an innovative way of thinking about social problems, which large corporations must face, she said.
More information on social entrepreneurship programs is available on the Web site of the Stanford University Institute of Design and the Web site of Wharton Entrepreneurial Programs.
By courtesy : The US Embassy in Dhaka. A feature produced by the US Department of State's Bureau of International Information Programs