Sparkseed Opportunity

Do you have an idea for the next high impact social venture? Want expert advice, funding, and a network of support?  Apply now to be one of Sparkseed's Social Innovators and win the resources you need to launch and grow your venture.

Why should I apply?

Sparkseed helps college students launch world-changing social ventures.  We help by providing:

·  Seed money - up to $11,000

·  Web tools - web site, graphic design, phone lines, & more; worth $10,000

·  Mentoring & consulting - from top professionals worth $20,000+

·  Access to the Sparkseed network - including other student innovators, investors, and entrepreneurs 

How do I apply?

Go to www.sparkseed.org/apply. 
The 5 applicants with the most followers automatically advance to the next round of judging, so start now to increase your chances to win!
Deadline to apply:  February 7, 2010

What is Sparkseed?

Sparkseed (www.sparkseed.org) is a nonprofit organization that supports the next generation of social entrepreneurs. We harness the passion, innovation, and talent of college students in order to increase the impact of their social ventures. Over the past two years, Sparkseed has provided mentoring, seed money, pro-bono consulting, and web tools to over 50 social innovators across the country. 

Social Entrepreneurship Final Project Winner

We recently finished the first ever undergraduate social entrepreneurship course at UofM last Friday (ENGR 490.096). The course was a 1-credit intro to the social entrepreneurship concept. In the last two classes of the semester, we had Derrick Miller from the Community Action Network come in to share about the following social issue in Ann Arbor:

It is very common for high school (sometimes middle school) educators to provide assignments that require computer, printer, and Internet access. For example, many paper assignments require Internet research to collect information for the assignment, a word processing program to type it up, and a printer to print the assignment off. In an educational system that promotes equitable education,  this level of access to these technologies often contributes to inequity in education.

For the final class project, we had students form multidisciplinary teams of 3-4 to answer this question: 

Given what you have learned in the course about social entrepreneurship, develop a reasonable solution to provide technological equity in public education. 

Based on voting from students, faculty, and Derrick Miller, Team #2 was crowned the winner. Congrats Team #2!  You can view the winning presentation above.

Thought of the Day

"To achieve divergent thinking, it is important to have a diverse group of people involved in the process. Multidisciplinary people - architects who have studied psychology, artists with MBAs, or engineers with marketing experiences - often demonstrate this quality. They're people with the capacity and the disposition for collaboration across disciplines."

- Tim Brown and Jocelyn Wyatt (Design Thinking for Social Innovation)

Course is Now Full

Great News! The course is now full. If you are still interested in taking the course, please sign-up for the course wait list on Wolverine Access.

Our first ever SVC course has students from Natural Resources & Environment, Business, Public Policy, Social Work, Public Health, Engineering, Design, LS&A, and Urban Planning. This will truly be a multidisciplinary experience.

Nick and I are extremely excited to work with all of you to develop and launch social ventures!

To Good...Better...Even Better This Holiday Season

Tim Brown on Design Thinking

Our course will incorporate a lot of the principles of design thinking.  To learn more about design thinking, watch the below video:

How to Get on the Wait List

We have officially reached the limit for graduate, non-engineering students in the course. So far, outside of engineering, we have students from policy, public health, social work, business, & urban planning. If you want to take the class but can't register, please email me and let me know why you want to take the class.

Thanks and have a great Thanksgiving!