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Learning to Think Like a Social Entrepreneur: How Nordic Rebels’ ‘Cooking Slam’ Enhances Entrepreneurship Education
Entrepreneurship is characterized by uncertainty – especially when it's tackling some of society’s biggest challenges. So how can social entrepreneurs learn to navigate this unpredictability as they work to create successful ventures? Nordic Rebels prepares entrepreneurs for these challenges through a unique education program that features a cooking contest. Adithya Varadarajan and Katharina Schilli discuss this innovative approach.
- Categories
- Education, Social Enterprise
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Chronic, Not Acute: The Refugee Crisis Needs Long-Term Solutions – And Social Enterprise Can Help
It’s time to stop addressing the global refugee crisis with short-term emergency measures, and to start seeking long-term solutions, says Thane Kreiner at Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship. One of those solutions is entrepreneurship, and Kreiner shares five lessons from the Center's Social Entrepreneurship at the Margins (SEM) accelerator program for businesses serving or led by refugees and other displaced people. The Center is selecting its second SEM accelerator cohort, and applications are open worldwide until August 23, 2019.
- Categories
- Investing, Social Enterprise
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India’s Demographic Dividend: The Impact Opportunity in Student-Led Social Business
India's social enterprise sector is growing fast, but its overall startup ecosystem doesn’t support social businesses as much it does “commercial” enterprises. And the support it does offer tends to be directed toward larger, more established companies, hampering the sector's broader growth. According to Geet Kalra at Yunus Social Business and Nandan Luthra at Novartis, India can turn this around by leveraging its huge youth population to build multiple small enterprises, through a model called student-led social business. They discuss the potential impact of this innovative approach.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
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Dragons Scale Naturally; Social Enterprises Don’t: Here Are Four Tips That Make It Faster and Easier for Every Entrepreneur
If you’re a social entrepreneur, here's some bad news for you: You weren’t born to scale. According to Rob Shelton at the Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship, in reviewing 100 enterprises from the past 10 years, the Center found that less than 10% were able to scale successfully. But he also offers some good news: In spite of the odds, you can learn to scale successfully – if you're willing to shift management gears, learn some new things and push beyond your existing model. Shelton shares a straightforward process that can make scaling possible for every entrepreneur.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
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Our Obsession with ‘Systems Change’ Leaves Marginalized Women Vulnerable – Let’s Empower Them to Advocate for Themselves
Last December, while driving through rural Uganda, KadAfrica founder Rebecca Kaduru was gravely injured in a car accident. Taken to the district hospital, she faced a stark reality: There was no doctor, no medications, not even gauze and sutures. The experience highlighted the barriers to women's empowerment in the country, where hospitals like this are often the best option for maternal health emergencies, and care is only available to those who fight for it. Kaduru explores why gender equality requires less focus on changing systems, and more on helping women advocate for themselves.
- Categories
- Health Care, Social Enterprise
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It’s Not a Diet, It’s a Lifestyle: Is Developmental Evaluation the Right Measurement Strategy For Your Organization?
Social enterprises working in emerging economies know it’s important to measure their social impact, but they often struggle to find the right approach. Like dieters looking for quick weight loss, they try one strategy or another – then grow frustrated when they fail. But according to Rebecca Baylor at WDI, there’s a solution that's geared toward the unique challenges these businesses face. Called “developmental evaluation,” it resembles not a fad diet, but a new impact measurement lifestyle. She explores this innovative approach, and how organizations can use it successfully.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Social Enterprise
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Overcoming a Roadblock to Scale: How Can We Attract Top Talent to Inclusive Businesses?
Inclusive business is a key way to create sustainable livelihoods for the global poor, but the sector is hitting a roadblock: finding employees. The growing number of inclusive businesses has meant that the demand for talent is outstripping supply. And as existing inclusive businesses scale up, the talent they require has become more specialized. So it's no surprise that in a recent survey of over 100 prominent social enterprises, talent was flagged as a top challenge. Christian Jahn and Susann Tischendorf at the Inclusive Business Action Network discusses the problem – and some emerging solutions.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
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The Power to Produce: How Indian Energy Entrepreneurs are Approaching the Next Big Frontier
The Indian government says 99.99% of houses in India, a staggering 214 million of them, are now on the electrical grid. Even with errors and omissions, it’s an incredible number. So if nearly all dwellings in India are now grid-enabled, is this the end of energy access challenges in the country? Not exactly, writes Ananth Aravamudan at the social enterprise incubator Villgro, since the existing grid does not provide satisfactory service. He shares several mini case studies of innovative startups building energy solutions that create both value and social impact.
- Categories
- Energy, Social Enterprise
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