Social Entrepreneurship at SIPA COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - SIPA Admissions Blog

Social Entrepreneurship at SIPA COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - SIPA Admissions Blog The following post was written by Kevin Hong.   Kevin is a second-year student concentrating in Economic and Political Development with a specialization in Management. Kevin graduated from Cornell University in 2005 and focused on Computational and Systems Biology.   Prior to joining SIPA Kevin was Study Coordinator at the Francis I. Proctor Foundation based at the University of California in San Francisco. _________________________ Whether it is corporate social responsibility, sustainability, or social entrepreneurship, there has been increasing interest in the intersection of the private and public sectors expressed by SIPA students. As I served as the Social Entrepreneurship Chair for SIPA Net Impact, I met more and more students at SIPA who are interested in how to encourage more business to promote social causes or how to use entrepreneurial approaches in social sectors. Net Impact is a national organization with chapters around the world to bring together students and professionals who are interested in these issues (netimpact.org).   The chapter at SIPA has been particularly active in the past year putting together a variety of events to raises awareness about social entrepreneurship (Face Book page here). Here are some of events we hosted: AfroReggae- Social Entrepreneurship and Arts Education in Brazils Favelas KOPERNIK ~ Entrepreneuring Breakthrough Technologies Food in the Sky: Vertical Farming for Sustainable Food Supply with Dr. Dickson Despommier Conversation with Paul Polak, Author of Out of Poverty and Founder of International Development Enterprises (IDE) The Power of Social Entrepreneurship The Mae Fah Luang Foundation Social Entrepreneurship: Insights from Practitioners In partnership with Wagner School of Public Services at NYU, SIPA Net Impact also organized the Social Enterprise Boot Camp which offered skill-building workshops, an elevator pitch competition, and speed networking for aspiring social entrepreneurs (www.socialenterprisebootcamp.org). This event was a huge success with over dozen speakers and over 100 participants and SIPA Net Impact is working to offer the Boot Camp again this year with more workshops. Social Enterprise Boot Camp Now with two full courses dedicated on social entrepreneurship taught by professors Sarah Holloway and Sara Minard and exciting extracurricular activities on the topic, SIPA provides unique opportunities for students who are interested in public policy and development to explore social entrepreneurship as an innovative tool to promote social causes in which they are interested.   So join us and find out how you can make the world a better place with social entrepreneurship at SIPA!