Global Social Entrepreneurship Program, 2013

Launched in 2008 at the Yale School of Management, the Global Social Entrepreneurship (GSE) program links teams of Yale students with social enterprises based in India. GSE is committed to channeling the skills of Yale students and faculty to assist Indian organizations to expand their reach and impact on “bottom of the pyramid” communities. Yale students partner with mission-driven social entrepreneurs (SEs) to focus on a specific management challenge that the student/SE teams work together to address during the semester. In five years, GSE has worked with 25 leading and emerging Indian social enterprises engaged in economic development, sustainable energy, women’s empowerment, education, environmental conservation, and housing.

The program is structured to maximize the value to both the students and the partner social entrepreneurs. Through a competitive process, five social enterprises are selected each year, and five students are selected for each team, matching the project requirements with students’ skills and interests.

Between October and December, each student team conducts relevant research, engaging with their SE colleagues through weekly emails and conference calls. In January, the students travel to India for a week of intensive work and field visits with their SE partners. Then all GSE participants convene for a conference at which all five projects are presented and discussed, interspersed with panels exploring broader issues related to social enterprise in India. Panels have featured GSE partners and other leading Indian social entrepreneurs and investors, including BASIX, SELCO, Ashoka, Acumen Fund, Dell Foundation, and Intellecap. During January and February the student/SE teams continue to work on their project, culminating in development of a presentation and report addressing the management challenges they are exploring.

The course is being offered again from October 2013 – February 2014. The five participating social enterprises this year are: Babajob.com, Frontier Markets, Room To Read, TaraLife, and ZMQ Software. According to Tony Sheldon, the lead professor for the course and Executive Director of the Yale School of Management’s Program on Social Enterprise, “GSE offers students the opportunity to apply the skills they are developing, as well as their past work experience, to projects that deliver lasting social impact. GSE exemplifies the School’s mission to ‘educate leaders for business and society.’”