University Innovation Fellows - User contributions [en]

Fellow:Hanan Ahmed

2018-10-24T07:16:25Z

Hahmed1:

[[File:Hanan Headshot.JPG|thumb|Hanan Ahmed, 2019]]

'''Hanan Ahmed '''is a Richard Rubin Scholar at Swarthmore College studying Psychology and Peace and Conflict Studies. She serves as a Student Academic Mentor, interns for the Dean of Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Development, and is a lab associate in the Educational Psychology lab with Professor Ann Renninger.

This past summer, Hanan interned at Black Women's Health Alliance (BWHA) in North Philadelphia and co-facilitated Safe Dates Teen Dating Violence workshops, researched and assessed community needs, and helped organize the National Coalition of Black Women's Domestic Violence Summit in conjunction with BWHA.  
<div> </div>
= Related Links =

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Swarthmore_College Swarthmore College Overview]

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Swarthmore_College_Student_Priorities Swarthmore College Student Priorities]

2018 Swarthmore University Innovation Fellows

'''Hanan Ahmed'''

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Cassandra_Stone Cassandra Stone] 

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Lamia_Makkar Lamia Makkar]

2017 Swarthmore University Innovation Fellows

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Michelle_Ma#Related_Links Michelle Ma]

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Omri_Gal Omri Gal]

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Natasha_Markov-Riss Natasha Markov-Riss]

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Mariam_Bahmane Mariam Bahmane]

[[Category:Universities]]

Fellow:Hanan Ahmed

2018-10-24T07:16:01Z

Hahmed1:

[[File:Hanan Headshot.JPG|Hanan Ahmed, 2019]]

'''Hanan Ahmed '''is a Richard Rubin Scholar at Swarthmore College studying Psychology and Peace and Conflict Studies. She serves as a Student Academic Mentor, interns for the Dean of Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Development, and is a lab associate in the Educational Psychology lab with Professor Ann Renninger.

This past summer, Hanan interned at Black Women's Health Alliance (BWHA) in North Philadelphia and co-facilitated Safe Dates Teen Dating Violence workshops, researched and assessed community needs, and helped organize the National Coalition of Black Women's Domestic Violence Summit in conjunction with BWHA.  
<div> </div>
= Related Links =

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Swarthmore_College Swarthmore College Overview]

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Swarthmore_College_Student_Priorities Swarthmore College Student Priorities]

2018 Swarthmore University Innovation Fellows

'''Hanan Ahmed'''

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Cassandra_Stone Cassandra Stone] 

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Lamia_Makkar Lamia Makkar]

2017 Swarthmore University Innovation Fellows

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Michelle_Ma#Related_Links Michelle Ma]

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Omri_Gal Omri Gal]

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Natasha_Markov-Riss Natasha Markov-Riss]

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Mariam_Bahmane Mariam Bahmane]

[[Category:Universities]]

Fellow:Hanan Ahmed

2018-10-24T07:15:22Z

Hahmed1:

[[File:Hanan Headshot.JPG|thumb|Hanan Headshot.JPG]]

'''Hanan Ahmed '''is a Richard Rubin Scholar at Swarthmore College studying Psychology and Peace and Conflict Studies. She serves as a Student Academic Mentor, interns for the Dean of Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Development, and is a lab associate in the Educational Psychology lab with Professor Ann Renninger.

This past summer, Hanan interned at Black Women's Health Alliance (BWHA) in North Philadelphia and co-facilitated Safe Dates Teen Dating Violence workshops, researched and assessed community needs, and helped organize the National Coalition of Black Women's Domestic Violence Summit in conjunction with BWHA.  
<div> </div>
= Related Links =

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Swarthmore_College Swarthmore College Overview]

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Swarthmore_College_Student_Priorities Swarthmore College Student Priorities]

2018 Swarthmore University Innovation Fellows

'''Hanan Ahmed'''

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Cassandra_Stone Cassandra Stone] 

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Lamia_Makkar Lamia Makkar]

2017 Swarthmore University Innovation Fellows

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Michelle_Ma#Related_Links Michelle Ma]

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Omri_Gal Omri Gal]

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Natasha_Markov-Riss Natasha Markov-Riss]

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Mariam_Bahmane Mariam Bahmane]

[[Category:Universities]]

File:Hanan Headshot.JPG

2018-10-24T07:13:28Z

Hahmed1:

Fellow:Hanan Ahmed

2018-10-24T07:08:45Z

Hahmed1:

'''Hanan Ahmed '''is a Richard Rubin Scholar at Swarthmore College studying Psychology and Peace and Conflict Studies. She serves as a Student Academic Mentor, interns for the Dean of Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Development, and is a lab associate in the Educational Psychology lab with Professor Ann Renninger.

This past summer, Hanan interned at Black Women's Health Alliance (BWHA) in North Philadelphia and co-facilitated Safe Dates Teen Dating Violence workshops, researched and assessed community needs, and helped organize the National Coalition of Black Women's Domestic Violence Summit in conjunction with BWHA.  
<div> </div>
= Related Links =

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Swarthmore_College Swarthmore College Overview]

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Swarthmore_College_Student_Priorities Swarthmore College Student Priorities]

2018 Swarthmore University Innovation Fellows

'''Hanan Ahmed'''

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Cassandra_Stone Cassandra Stone] 

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Lamia_Makkar Lamia Makkar]

2017 Swarthmore University Innovation Fellows

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Michelle_Ma#Related_Links Michelle Ma]

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Omri_Gal Omri Gal]

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Natasha_Markov-Riss Natasha Markov-Riss]

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Mariam_Bahmane Mariam Bahmane]

[[Category:Universities]]

Fellow:Hanan Ahmed

2018-10-24T07:08:20Z

Hahmed1:

'''Hanan Ahmed '''

This past summer, Hanan interned at Black Women's Health Alliance (BWHA) in North Philadelphia and co-facilitated Safe Dates Teen Dating Violence workshops, researched and assessed community needs, and helped organize the National Coalition of Black Women's Domestic Violence Summit in conjunction with BWHA.  

= Related Links =

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Swarthmore_College Swarthmore College Overview]

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Swarthmore_College_Student_Priorities Swarthmore College Student Priorities]

2018 Swarthmore University Innovation Fellows

'''Hanan Ahmed'''

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Cassandra_Stone Cassandra Stone] 

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Lamia_Makkar Lamia Makkar]

2017 Swarthmore University Innovation Fellows

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Michelle_Ma#Related_Links Michelle Ma]

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Omri_Gal Omri Gal]

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Natasha_Markov-Riss Natasha Markov-Riss]

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Mariam_Bahmane Mariam Bahmane]

[[Category:Universities]]

School:Swarthmore College

2018-10-24T06:05:11Z

Hahmed1:

= [[File:Lang-center.jpg|frame]]Introduction =

Since its founding in 1864, Swarthmore College has given students the knowledge, insight, skills, and experience to become leaders for the common good. Offering a liberal arts and engineering curriculum, the College is private, yet open to all regardless of financial need. It is also decidedly global in outlook, drawing students from around the world and all 50 states. The diversity of perspectives represented by Swarthmore students, faculty, and staff - including different viewpoints, identities, and histories - contributes to the community's strong sense of open dialogue and engagement with ideas and issues.”

= Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship on Campus =

''Center for Innovation & Leadership (CIL)''
The CIL's mission is to engage innovative thinking to foster student leadership practice. According to their website, the CIL "provides opportunities for Swarthmore students to develop the abilities to lead and inspire, to listen and learn in ways that meet the challenges of our time, and to reflect the values of our community. ... The CIL strives to give all Swarthmore students the individualized support they need to become strong imaginative leaders of tomorrow. We support students by creating opportunities to hone their leadership skills in capacities like team-based collaboration, the development of social and cultural capital, and inventive thinking processes." This is done through resources available to students developing projects as well as event series that promote innovation and leadership.

''Social Innovation Lab''
The Social Innovation Lab is housed at the Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility, and is an on-site “makerspace” that provides students, faculty, staff, and community partners with room to grow. The space promotes design thinking and tools for prototyping ideas. This center works closely with the Center for Innovation and Leadership (above) and resources that come out of the Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility, like the Lang Opportunity Scholarship (below).

''Swat Tank''

Swat Tank, an idea competition, focuses on an inclusive model, one that provides students with the opportunity to take a rough idea, product, or concept and develop it towards its next incarnation, ideation, or realization. However, SwatTank is more than just a competition; it is a chance to transform the ideas you think and dream about into a business or social enterprise.

''Lang Opportunity Scholarship''

The Lang Opportunity Scholarship (LOS) Program each year selects members of Swarthmore’s sophomore class as Lang Scholars. Selection criteria include distinguished academic and co-curricular achievement, leadership qualities, and demonstrated commitment to civic and social responsibility. This program offers a diverse range of benefits including a $10,000 grant, a designated adviser, and networking opportunities to support the development of a project that creates a needed social resource in the U.S. or abroad. The program was conceived and endowed by Eugene M. Lang ’38.

= Faculty Entrepreneurship on Campus =

Because Swarthmore is a teaching rather than research based university, professors are encouraged to focus on students and classes rather than their own projects. Nevertheless, the Lang Visiting Professor, Denise Crossan, is a prime example of faculty entrepreneurship on campus. She is working on a social innovation map, which charts all kinds of entrepreneurial activities going on at Swarthmore. She has also created a Swarthmore Social Innovation Lab and has helped to spearhead the Presidential Sustainability Research Fellowship Program, which connects faculty and students over sustainability initiatives on campus. Denise is also the faculty advisor for the University Innovation Fellows chapter at Swarthmore. We hope that she will encourage entrepreneurial activity in other faculty and staff!

= Facilitating University-Industry Collaboration =

''Center for Innovation and Leadership trip to San Francisco''

The Center for Innovation and Leadership (CIL) at Swarthmore seeks to build capacity for entrepreneurship and leadership, by fostering collaboration and innovation while promoting experimentation, collaboration, and reflection. One of the ways the CIL implements its mission, is a fully funded 6-day intensive trip to San Francisco. During this trip, a group of ten students visit Swarthmore alumni at major companies in San Francisco and Silicon Valley. The tech-oriented nature of the trip, allows students to engage with a variety of entrepreneurs in start-up, venture capital, and tech communities.

''Externship Program''

Swarthmore’s externship program allows students to participate in a one-week shadowing experience with alumni, which in turn gives a glimpse into specific careers. The externships offered encompass a variety of different sectors, and provide students with the ability to learn from, and connect with alumni that are experts in their respective fields.

= Regional and Local Economic Development Efforts =

Firstly, '''180 Degrees Consulting''' is a national student consulting group that offers free consulting services to nonprofits. A selected few students at Swarthmore are trained to support startups and nonprofits in various fields from education to healthcare with consulting services. These startups and nonprofits can be located all over the US and students carry weekly meetings with their management teams to provide their services.

Secondly, the '''Lang Center for Social and Civic Responsibility''' is heading Swarthmore’s Regional and Local Economic Development. The mission of the Lang Center for Social and Civic Responsibility is to connect “curriculum, campus and community through engaged scholarship and collaborative action.” Not only does it provide students with engagement, counseling, and networking opportunities for action outside of Swarthmore College, but it also provides students with funding opportunities that can last beyond a summer project. The most prominent example is Project Pericles.

'''Project Pericles''' empowers students to take on “social and civic action projects whose scope and sustainability will advance solutions for the issues in question and also promote recognition of students' motivation and capability to address such major issues effectively.” It offers grants of up to $25, 000 for regional, national, or international projects. Some of the Project Pericles awardees went on to develop sustainable eyewear in Iran or implement geospatial analysis tools to increase wider scope food security in the Philadelphia area.

However, outside of the Lang Center for Social and Civic Responsibility and 180 Degrees Consulting, there are no concrete technology/industrial/wet lab spaces nor outside Lang Center financing opportunities (i.e. VC, angels) that encourage and support grassroot student commercialized enterprises/projects to continue and pivot over a 3 to 10 year span.

= Related Links =

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Swarthmore_College Swarthmore College Overview]

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Swarthmore_College_Student_Priorities Swarthmore College Student Priorities]

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-gsq3uYdZY&feature=youtu.be Entrepreneur in Residence Program at Swarthmore College]

2018 Swarthmore University Innovation Fellows 

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Hanan_Ahmed Hanan Ahmed]

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Cassandra_Stone Cassandra Stone] 

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Lamia_Makkar Lamia Makkar]

2017 Swarthmore University Innovation Fellows

[[Michelle Ma]]

[[Omri Gal|Omri_Gal]]

[[Natasha Markov-Riss|Natasha_Markov-Riss]]

[[Mariam Bahmane|Mariam_Bahmane]]

[[Category:Universities]]

Priorities:Swarthmore College Student Priorities

2018-10-06T19:16:52Z

Hahmed1:

At Swarthmore College, we have experienced an apparent lack of opportunity for socially minded entrepreneurs. As such, we will be working with faculty, students, and other institutional partners to develop Swarthmore’s new Social Innovation Lab. The following individual projects will all be operated within the Social Innovation Lab. Note: We believe we have failed if only Swarthmore students and faculty are using the Innovation Lab. Therefore, community engagement is essential to our mission.

<span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Strategic Priority #1 (Omri): Incentivise Swarthmore students to engage in social entrepreneurship and innovation
<div>
Given Swarthmore student’s passion for social change, there is immense potential to harness this energy and channel it towards social innovation.<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Currentlyhowever, the entrepreneurial ecosystem at Swarthmore does not provide enough opportunity (or incentive) for students to engage in social entrepreneurship/innovation.  

 

<span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Project: Social Innovation Fellowship. The Social Innovation Fellowship is broken down as follows:

'''''Facilitation'''''

*''''Internal stakeholders - I will be facilitating design-thinking workshops for student groups and faculty committees on campus. I have already facilitated a design-thinking session for the faculty/student committee on Student Health and Wellbeing, and there is increasing institutional interest in participating in these workshops.
*External stakeholders - entrepreneurially minded non-profits/other organizations in surrounding Swarthmore area (mainly Philadelphia and Chester). I have already established numerous relationships with these external partners (most of which work with youth), all of whom are excited at the prospect of engaging with Swarthmore’s Innovation Lab. I will be working with these organizations to host either workshops or events focused on design-thinking, presentation/pitching techniques, etc.

 

'''''Short term student engagement'''''

*Students will enroll in ‘Entrepreneurship Fieldwork and Internship’ (half-credit), which will last for 6-8 weeks. They will be paired with an internal or external stakeholder, and work with them on a specific project.
**Ex: For students interested in film and media studies, they could be paired with a non-profit partner in Philadelphia that provides youth with equipment and skills to make their own films. The student could potentially serve as a mentor for 6-8 weeks, while also providing additional resources/information to help the organization.  

''''

'''''Social Innovation Fellowship'''''

*Students will enroll in Professor Denise Crossan’s Social Entrepreneurship in Principle and Practice course (1 credit). The course will cover the fundamentals ofdesign-thinking, and other innovative tools/techniques. Students in this course will then have the option to be paired with regional or international stakeholders. Professor Crossan and I (faculty head of the Social Innovation Lab), have already established partners in:
**Northern Ireland
**Columbia
**Japan
**England
**Spain
**Iraq
*A potential future spinoff would be that these students would then receive funding to travel to their respectivepartners,and engage in a summer internship in which they would be able to continue their project

 Ultimately, I believe that attracting more students to participate in the growing social innovation initiative on campus revolves heavily around credit. Being able to receive credit, while engaging in an applied learning project, is something that entices many students.

 

Strategic Priority #2 (Natasha): Make Entrepreneurship Tangible It is really important to us that “social entrepreneurship” is more than just a nebulous idea at Swarthmore. We want to go beyond the buzzwords, and give students an opportunity to actually apply all that they learn about design thinking. During the Stanford course, we have really appreciated the focus on prototyping - we<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">plangive Swarthmore a workable “prototype” of a successful social enterprise on campus.

<span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Project: Student Run Social Enterprise - Environmentally Sustainable Cafe We plan to launch a<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">student run, environmentally sustainable café inside the social innovation lab. We plan to serve coffee, tea, espresso, and baked goods out of a small part of our makerspace. The café will be fully managed by students, with a focus on environmental stewardship--we will use all compostable materials and source our food locally and sustainably. Many new buildings are being constructed in the northern part of campus with no food nearby, so we hope that the café will serve an emerging need. When we talked to students about our idea, there was a lot of excitement around the café - there is no good coffee on campus, students told us, and they are really excited that the café is going to have an environmental focus.

We already are in communication with Therese Ton, a student baker selling her products at local stores, and Ben Stern, a coffee aficionado on campus.

 

Strategic Priority #2.1 (Hanan): Supporting<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Student LedInitiatives 

A student-led cafe, previously known to students as Paces Cafe, was an occasional late night food option to students on campus. After years of growing, the cafe has taken on a new location, a bigger menu, and extended hours. Newly named as The Crumb Cafe, this late night eatery is open seven nights a week, offering a larger range of sandwiches, snacks, drinks, and meal items due to student access to and new use of the Sharples dining hall kitchen facility. The move has opened up additional opportunities for interested students to work at the cafe. The Crumb Cafe is also more accessible to all types of students on campus. Whereas the old cafe only accepted campus points, the renovated Crumb Cafe accepts a wide variety of meal plan options, such as Swat Points, Garnet Cash, Dining Dollars, and the late night meal swipe that every student has. Additionally, the Crumb Cafe is an environmentally sustainable cafe by using all compostable materials.

<span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Issue & demonstrated need for support:

With the expansion of the cafe and the early closing of other late night food options, the Crumb Cafe has been experiencing an influx of student customers causing long lines, extended wait times for food, running out of menu items within an hour of opening, and an unorganized ordering/delivering food system. There is a lot of excitement around the expansion of the cafe and the cafe has hired many new students but has been struggling to serve a large student body.

<span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Project:
<ul style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;">
<li>Design and Implement a “Crumb Cafe” App<ul style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;">
<li>Streamline ordering process. Students can pre-order off the online menu and the app will give an estimated time that the food will be ready effectively decreasing the long wait times.</li>
<li>Streamline the delivery process. The app can notify students when their food is ready (ie. at the burger shop, Shakeshack, customers are notified via a vibrating remote when their orders are ready).</li>
<li>Streamline cafe-customer communications. The cafe quickly runs out of menu items that student most often order. Many students have expressed how disappointed they have been to enter the cafe, wait in line, and only find out about certain items running out when they are about to order. The app can notify students of what is currently available to order and what has run out.</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Secure funding for an increase in student staff<ul style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;">
<li>With the option to order via the app and avoid the long wait lines, many more students may interact with The Crumb Cafe. This means that there will be a need for increased staffing - perhaps staff solely dedicated to online orders, and staff dedicated to in-person cafe orders.</li>
<li>This will support many low-income students on campus looking for employment as well as to increase their skills. Working in a group setting develops one’s communication, ability to work in a team, and encourages initiative and motivation - skills that are transferable to any other job on or off campus.</li>
<li>As more staff requires more funding so students can be paid, a grant can be proposed to the student government organization (SGO) and student budget committee (SBC) detailing the needs of the community and how additional staffing will address the needs.</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>

 

Strategic Priority #3 (Mariam): Develop spin-off opportunities to support more mature entrepreneurs at Swarthmore College by nurturing student enterprises/groups/projects/student groups using Impact Investing <span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Need: As a result of the Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship project mapping at Swarthmore College, we identified a dire lack of spin-off opportunities (3-5 years support plans) that would spur and scale projects that have survived the test of time. The immediate need that we investigated is the scarcity of funding needed to scale the strategic and operational activities of a business/enterprise/organization/student groups that are past the initial forming stages of their venture.

<span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Solution: Impact Investing Group The goal of the Impact Investing project is to invest a fund (that will initially originate out of a grant/endowment from Swarthmore College). This fund will be initially invested by pro bono Swarthmore alumni investors while abiding by the social, governmental, environmental principles of Impact Investing. Over the course of a couple of years, returns on investments will be allocated to the spin-off fund that Swarthmore entrepreneurs can apply for. The returns generated from the investments will financially support more mature Swarthmore entrepreneurs at their spinout/scaling stages. In parallel, students at the Swarthmore Investing club can gain educational and practical experience in investing by giving assistance to the pro bono Swarthmore alumni investors network. They will be the guardians of the Impact Investing fund. This educational partnership will secure a pipeline of socially minded-investors that are making returns for Swarthmore entrepreneurs.  

As a result, the Impact Investing project will not only educate future socially-minded investors, but it will also incentivize young entrepreneurs to prove themselves and gain access to spin-off funding opportunities. The Impact Investing project will<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">thereforebe a merit-based, socially-minded, and educational incentive for Entrepreneurship. <span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stakeholders:

*Swarthmore Finance and Investment Office: will be key in securing the initial grant and endowment for the Impact Investing project.
*Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility: will connect mature Swarthmore entrepreneurs and project leaders to the Impact Investing project.
*Center for Innovation and Leadership: will educate and nurture Swarthmore entrepreneurs and project leaders in their initial entrepreneurial stages.
*Swat Careers: can be helpful in finding Swarthmore alumni who are willing to work pro-bono or train students on how to invest money.
*Swarthmore Alumni Office: can be helpful in their outreach to investors who are in the Swarthmore alumni network.
*Swarthmore Investment Club: will be exposed to best practices in Impact Investing. They will support and assist pro bono investors of the Impact Investing project. This educational experience will ensure the sustainability of the pro bono investor pipeline.
<div>
 <span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Strategic Priority #4 (Michelle): Make Entrepreneurship Collaborative rather than Competitive As college students, we are often told that we have to do a million things, from balancing classes to athletics to clubs. On top of our immense workload, we are often fed the notion that we have to "find our calling" in the next 4 years. In the midst of all of these insane expectations leveraged against us, we often forget is that what we truly need is a <span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">mentor-- someone who is there to support us and cheer us on, no matter what we do.

<span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Project: TriConnect - Peer-to-peer mentoring website TriConnect is a mentoring website that helps students in the Tri-College Consortium (Swarthmore, Haverford, and Bryn Mawr) tap into the untapped network of mentors, aka the amazing students that attend these three esteemed colleges. Students start by creating a profile, listing all of their affiliations (majors, clubs, interests etc.) and what they can offer mentorship in and what they are seeking to be mentored in (i.e. a CS student looking for someone more involved in the Tri-Co entrepreneurship environment). Once a profile is created, they can reach out to other students on the network to set up meals, attend events together etc.

The Impact of “TriConnect”: By creating a platform that directly fosters peer-to-peer mentorship, TriConnect hopes to not only empower<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">individuals,but also shift school culture from one that is hyper-competitive and often cutthroat to one that is more collaborative and supportive. We hope that this will lead to benefits in student mental health and physical well-being, all the while cultivating student entrepreneurship and innovation.
<div> </div></div><div>Strategic Priority #4.1 (Cassandra): Landscape Update and Further Collaboration Opportunities</div> <div>There are many different opportunities to get involved with various facets of entrepreneurship on campus. These include organizations such as SWIFT, LaunchDeck, 180 Consulting, and WiCS+. While it is great to have all these existing programs, itis also meansthat entrepreneurship efforts are divided among all these clubs. This, in a sense, heightens the sense of "competition" Michelle addressed last year. As entrepreneurial resources grow on campus, it is critical that we create initiatives to get these groups to work together. </div><div> Student Government Organization Committees Swarthmore's SGO has many committees that handle bringing various student groups together in other to help move the campus community forward as a whole. As entrepreneurship opportunities become a high priority for students on campus, it would be beneficial for SGO to create a Standing Committee on Entrepreneurship, which would involve weekly meetings with the leaders of the entrepreneurial groups of campus. </div><div> Cross-Group Peer to Peer Mentorship While Michelle's Peer-to-Peer program focused on resources available to the greater TriCo community, I am interested in fostering collaboration within the institution by establishing a similar mentoring program to connect members across the aforementioned entrepreneurial groups. By doing so, we would be able to encourage the sharing of ideas and resources across these organizations and reduce the existingbeauricraticlandscape of entrepreneurship and innovation that exists at Swarthmore College.</div></div>
 

= Related Links =

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Swarthmore_College Swarthmore College Overview]

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Swarthmore_College_Student_Priorities Swarthmore College Student Priorities]

2017 Swarthmore University Innovation Fellows

[[Michelle Ma]]

[[Omri Gal|Omri_Gal]]

[[Natasha Markov-Riss|Natasha_Markov-Riss]]

[[Mariam Bahmane|Mariam_Bahmane]]

[[Category:Student Priorities|s]]

Priorities:Swarthmore College Student Priorities

2018-10-06T19:13:36Z

Hahmed1:

At Swarthmore College, we have experienced an apparent lack of opportunity for socially minded entrepreneurs. As such, we will be working with faculty, students, and other institutional partners to develop Swarthmore’s new Social Innovation Lab. The following individual projects will all be operated within the Social Innovation Lab. <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Note: We believe we have failed if only Swarthmore students and faculty are using the Innovation Lab. Therefore, community engagement is essential to our mission.

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Strategic Priority #1 (Omri): Incentivise Swarthmore students to engage in social entrepreneurship and innovation
<div>
<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Given Swarthmore student’s passion for social change, there is immense potential to harness this energy and channel it towards social innovation. Currently however, the entrepreneurial ecosystem at Swarthmore does not provide enough opportunity (or incentive) for students to engage in social entrepreneurship/innovation.  

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Project: Social Innovation Fellowship. <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Social Innovation Fellowship is broken down as follows:

'''''Facilitation'''''

*''''Internal stakeholders - I will be facilitating design-thinking workshops for student groups and faculty committees on campus. I have already facilitated a design-thinking session for the faculty/student committee on Student Health and Wellbeing, and there is increasing institutional interest in participating in these workshops.
*External stakeholders - entrepreneurially minded non-profits/other organizations in surrounding Swarthmore area (mainly Philadelphia and Chester). I have already established numerous relationships with these external partners (most of which work with youth), all of whom are excited at the prospect of engaging with Swarthmore’s Innovation Lab. I will be working with these organizations to host either workshops or events focused on design-thinking, presentation/pitching techniques, etc.

'''''Short term student engagement'''''

*Students will enroll in ‘Entrepreneurship Fieldwork and Internship’ (half-credit), which will last for 6-8 weeks. They will be paired with an internal or external stakeholder, and work with them on a specific project. 
**Ex: For students interested in film and media studies, they could be paired with a non-profit partner in Philadelphia that provides youth with equipment and skills to make their own films. The student could potentially serve as a mentor for 6-8 weeks, while also providing additional resources/information to help the organization.  

''''

'''''Social Innovation Fellowship'''''

*Students will enroll in Professor Denise Crossan’s Social Entrepreneurship in Principle and Practice course (1 credit). The course will cover the fundamentals of design-thinking, and other innovative tools/techniques. Students in this course will then have the option to be paired with regional or international stakeholders. Professor Crossan and I (faculty head of the Social Innovation Lab), have already established partners in:
**Northern Ireland
**Columbia
**Japan
**England
**Spain
**Iraq
*A potential future spinoff would be that these students would then receive funding to travel to their respective partners, and engage in a summer internship in which they would be able to continue their project

 <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ultimately, I believe that attracting more students to participate in the growing social innovation initiative on campus revolves heavily around credit. Being able to receive credit, while engaging in an applied learning project, is something that entices many students.

Strategic Priority #2 (Natasha): Make Entrepreneurship Tangible <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is really important to us that “social entrepreneurship” is more than just a nebulous idea at Swarthmore. We want to go beyond the buzzwords, and give students an opportunity to actually apply all that they learn about design thinking. During the Stanford course, we have really appreciated the focus on prototyping - we plan give Swarthmore a workable “prototype” of a successful social enterprise on campus.

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Project: Student Run Social Enterprise - Environmentally Sustainable Cafe <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We plan to launch a student run, environmentally sustainable café inside the social innovation lab. We plan to serve coffee, tea, espresso, and baked goods out of a small part of our makerspace. The café will be fully managed by students, with a focus on environmental stewardship--we will use all compostable materials and source our food locally and sustainably. Many new buildings are being constructed in the northern part of campus with no food nearby, so we hope that the café will serve an emerging need. When we talked to students about our idea, there was a lot of excitement around the café - there is no good coffee on campus, students told us, and they are really excited that the café is going to have an environmental focus.

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We already are in communication with Therese Ton, a student baker selling her products at local stores, and Ben Stern, a coffee aficionado on campus.

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Strategic Priority #2.1 (Hanan): Supporting Student Led Initiatives 

A student-led cafe, previously known to students as Paces Cafe, was an occasional late night food option to students on campus. After years of growing, the cafe has taken on a new location, a bigger menu, and extended hours. Newly named as The Crumb Cafe, this late night eatery is open seven nights a week, offering a larger range of sandwiches, snacks, drinks, and meal items due to student access to and new use of the Sharples dining hall kitchen facility. The move has opened up additional opportunities for interested students to work at the cafe. The Crumb Cafe is also more accessible to all types of students on campus. Whereas the old cafe only accepted campus points, the renovated Crumb Cafe accepts a wide variety of meal plan options, such as Swat Points, Garnet Cash, Dining Dollars, and the late night meal swipe that every student has. Additionally, the Crumb Cafe is an environmentally sustainable cafe by using all compostable materials.

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Issue & demonstrated need for support:

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">With the expansion of the cafe and the early closing of other late night food options, the Crumb Cafe has been experiencing an influx of student customers causing long lines, extended wait times for food, running out of menu items within an hour of opening, and an unorganized ordering/delivering food system. There is a lot of excitement around the expansion of the cafe and the cafe has hired many new students but has been struggling to serve a large student body.

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Project:
<ul style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;">
<li>
Design and Implement a “Crumb Cafe” App
<ul style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;">
<li>
Streamline ordering process. Students can pre-order off the online menu and the app will give an estimated time that the food will be ready effectively decreasing the long wait times.
</li>
<li>
Streamline the delivery process. The app can notify students when their food is ready (ie. at the burger shop, Shakeshack, customers are notified via a vibrating remote when their orders are ready).
</li>
<li>
Streamline cafe-customer communications. The cafe quickly runs out of menu items that student most often order. Many students have expressed how disappointed they have been to enter the cafe, wait in line, and only find out about certain items running out when they are about to order. The app can notify students of what is currently available to order and what has run out.
</li>
</ul></li>
<li>
Secure funding for an increase in student staff
<ul style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;">
<li>
With the option to order via the app and avoid the long wait lines, many more students may interact with The Crumb Cafe. This means that there will be a need for increased staffing - perhaps staff solely dedicated to online orders, and staff dedicated to in-person cafe orders.
</li>
<li>
This will support many low-income students on campus looking for employment as well as to increase their skills. Working in a group setting develops one’s communication, ability to work in a team, and encourages initiative and motivation - skills that are transferable to any other job on or off campus.
</li>
<li>
As more staff requires more funding so students can be paid, a grant can be proposed to the student government organization (SGO) and student budget committee (SBC) detailing the needs of the community and how additional staffing will address the needs.
</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>

Strategic Priority #3 (Mariam): Develop spin-off opportunities to support more mature entrepreneurs at Swarthmore College by nurturing student enterprises/groups/projects/student groups using Impact Investing <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Need: <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As a result of the Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship project mapping at Swarthmore College, we identified a dire lack of spin-off opportunities (3-5 years support plans) that would spur and scale projects that have survived the test of time. <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The immediate need that we investigated is the scarcity of funding needed to scale the strategic and operational activities of a business/enterprise/organization/student groups that are past the initial forming stages of their venture.

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Solution: Impact Investing Group <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The goal of the Impact Investing project is to invest a fund (that will initially originate out of a grant/endowment from Swarthmore College). This fund will be initially invested by pro bono Swarthmore alumni investors while abiding by the social, governmental, environmental principles of Impact Investing. Over the course of a couple of years, returns on investments will be allocated to the spin-off fund that Swarthmore entrepreneurs can apply for. The returns generated from the investments will financially support more mature Swarthmore entrepreneurs at their spinout/scaling stages. <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In parallel, students at the Swarthmore Investing club can gain educational and practical experience in investing by giving assistance to the pro bono Swarthmore alumni investors network. They will be the guardians of the Impact Investing fund. This educational partnership will secure a pipeline of socially minded-investors that are making returns for Swarthmore entrepreneurs.  

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As a result, the Impact Investing project will not only educate future socially-minded investors, but it will also incentivize young entrepreneurs to prove themselves and gain access to spin-off funding opportunities. The Impact Investing project will therefore be a merit-based, socially-minded, and educational incentive for Entrepreneurship. <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stakeholders:

*Swarthmore Finance and Investment Office: will be key in securing the initial grant and endowment for the Impact Investing project.
*Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility: will connect mature Swarthmore entrepreneurs and project leaders to the Impact Investing project.
*Center for Innovation and Leadership: will educate and nurture Swarthmore entrepreneurs and project leaders in their initial entrepreneurial stages.
*Swat Careers: can be helpful in finding Swarthmore alumni who are willing to work pro-bono or train students on how to invest money.
*Swarthmore Alumni Office: can be helpful in their outreach to investors who are in the Swarthmore alumni network.
*Swarthmore Investment Club: will be exposed to best practices in Impact Investing. They will support and assist pro bono investors of the Impact Investing project. This educational experience will ensure the sustainability of the pro bono investor pipeline.
<div>
 <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Strategic Priority #4 (Michelle): Make Entrepreneurship Collaborative rather than Competitive <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As college students, we are often told that we have to do a million things, from balancing classes to athletics to clubs. On top of our immense workload, we are often fed the notion that we have to "find our calling" in the next 4 years. In the midst of all of these insane expectations leveraged against us, we often forget is that what we truly need is a <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">mentor<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">-- someone who is there to support us and cheer us on, no matter what we do.

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Project: TriConnect - Peer-to-peer mentoring website <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">TriConnect is a mentoring website that helps students in the Tri-College Consortium (Swarthmore, Haverford, and Bryn Mawr) tap into the untapped network of mentors, aka the amazing students that attend these three esteemed colleges. Students start by creating a profile, listing all of their affiliations (majors, clubs, interests etc.) and what they can offer mentorship in and what they are seeking to be mentored in (i.e. a CS student looking for someone more involved in the Tri-Co entrepreneurship environment). Once a profile is created, they can reach out to other students on the network to set up meals, attend events together etc.

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Impact of “TriConnect”: By creating a platform that directly fosters peer-to-peer mentorship, TriConnect hopes to not only empower individuals, but also shift school culture from one that is hyper-competitive and often cutthroat to one that is more collaborative and supportive. We hope that this will lead to benefits in student mental health and physical well-being, all the while cultivating student entrepreneurship and innovation.
<div> </div></div><div>Strategic Priority #4.1 (Cassandra): Landscape Update and Further Collaboration Opportunities</div> <div>There are many different opportunities to get involved with various facets of entrepreneurship on campus. These include organizations such as SWIFT, LaunchDeck, 180 Consulting, and WiCS+. While it is great to have all these existing programs, it is also means that entrepreneurship efforts are divided among all these clubs. This, in a sense, heightens the sense of "competition" Michelle addressed last year. As entrepreneurial resources grow on campus, it is critical that we create initiatives to get these groups to work together. </div><div> Student Government Organization Committees Swarthmore's SGO has many committees that handle bringing various student groups together in other to help move the campus community forward as a whole. As entrepreneurship opportunities become a high priority for students on campus, it would be beneficial for SGO to create a Standing Committee on Entrepreneurship, which would involve weekly meetings with the leaders of the entrepreneurial groups of campus. </div><div> Cross-Group Peer to Peer Mentorship While Michelle's Peer-to-Peer program focused on resources available to the greater TriCo community, I am interested in fostering collaboration within the institution by establishing a similar mentoring program to connect members across the aforementioned entrepreneurial groups. By doing so, we would be able to encourage the sharing of ideas and resources across these organizations and reduce the existing beauricratic landscape of entrepreneurship and innovation that exists at Swarthmore College.</div></div>

= Related Links =

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Swarthmore_College Swarthmore College Overview]

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Swarthmore_College_Student_Priorities Swarthmore College Student Priorities]

2017 Swarthmore University Innovation Fellows

[[Michelle Ma]]

[[Omri Gal|Omri_Gal]]

[[Natasha Markov-Riss|Natasha_Markov-Riss]]

[[Mariam Bahmane|Mariam_Bahmane]]

[[Category:Student Priorities|s]]

Priorities:Swarthmore College Student Priorities

2018-10-06T19:09:28Z

Hahmed1:

At Swarthmore College, we have experienced an apparent lack of opportunity for socially minded entrepreneurs. As such, we will be working with faculty, students, and other institutional partners to develop Swarthmore’s new Social Innovation Lab. The following individual projects will all be operated within the Social Innovation Lab. <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Note: We believe we have failed if only Swarthmore students and faculty are using the Innovation Lab. Therefore, community engagement is essential to our mission.

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Strategic Priority #1 (Omri): Incentivise Swarthmore students to engage in social entrepreneurship and innovation
<div>
<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Given Swarthmore student’s passion for social change, there is immense potential to harness this energy and channel it towards social innovation. Currently however, the entrepreneurial ecosystem at Swarthmore does not provide enough opportunity (or incentive) for students to engage in social entrepreneurship/innovation.  

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Project: Social Innovation Fellowship. <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Social Innovation Fellowship is broken down as follows:

'''''Facilitation'''''

*''''Internal stakeholders - I will be facilitating design-thinking workshops for student groups and faculty committees on campus. I have already facilitated a design-thinking session for the faculty/student committee on Student Health and Wellbeing, and there is increasing institutional interest in participating in these workshops.
*External stakeholders - entrepreneurially minded non-profits/other organizations in surrounding Swarthmore area (mainly Philadelphia and Chester). I have already established numerous relationships with these external partners (most of which work with youth), all of whom are excited at the prospect of engaging with Swarthmore’s Innovation Lab. I will be working with these organizations to host either workshops or events focused on design-thinking, presentation/pitching techniques, etc.

'''''Short term student engagement'''''

*Students will enroll in ‘Entrepreneurship Fieldwork and Internship’ (half-credit), which will last for 6-8 weeks. They will be paired with an internal or external stakeholder, and work with them on a specific project. 
**Ex: For students interested in film and media studies, they could be paired with a non-profit partner in Philadelphia that provides youth with equipment and skills to make their own films. The student could potentially serve as a mentor for 6-8 weeks, while also providing additional resources/information to help the organization.  

''''

'''''Social Innovation Fellowship'''''

*Students will enroll in Professor Denise Crossan’s Social Entrepreneurship in Principle and Practice course (1 credit). The course will cover the fundamentals of design-thinking, and other innovative tools/techniques. Students in this course will then have the option to be paired with regional or international stakeholders. Professor Crossan and I (faculty head of the Social Innovation Lab), have already established partners in:
**Northern Ireland
**Columbia
**Japan
**England
**Spain
**Iraq
*A potential future spinoff would be that these students would then receive funding to travel to their respective partners, and engage in a summer internship in which they would be able to continue their project

 <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ultimately, I believe that attracting more students to participate in the growing social innovation initiative on campus revolves heavily around credit. Being able to receive credit, while engaging in an applied learning project, is something that entices many students.

Strategic Priority #2 (Natasha): Make Entrepreneurship Tangible <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is really important to us that “social entrepreneurship” is more than just a nebulous idea at Swarthmore. We want to go beyond the buzzwords, and give students an opportunity to actually apply all that they learn about design thinking. During the Stanford course, we have really appreciated the focus on prototyping - we plan give Swarthmore a workable “prototype” of a successful social enterprise on campus.

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Project: Student Run Social Enterprise - Environmentally Sustainable Cafe <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We plan to launch a student run, environmentally sustainable café inside the social innovation lab. We plan to serve coffee, tea, espresso, and baked goods out of a small part of our makerspace. The café will be fully managed by students, with a focus on environmental stewardship--we will use all compostable materials and source our food locally and sustainably. Many new buildings are being constructed in the northern part of campus with no food nearby, so we hope that the café will serve an emerging need. When we talked to students about our idea, there was a lot of excitement around the café - there is no good coffee on campus, students told us, and they are really excited that the café is going to have an environmental focus.

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We already are in communication with Therese Ton, a student baker selling her products at local stores, and Ben Stern, a coffee aficionado on campus.

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Strategic Priority #2.1 (Hanan): Supporting Student Led Intiatives 

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"A student-led cafe, previously known to students as Paces Cafe, was an occasional late night food option to students on campus. After years of growing, the cafe has taken on a new location, a bigger menu, and extended hours. Newly named as The Crumb Cafe, this late night eatery is open seven nights a week, offering a larger range of sandwiches, snacks, drinks, and meal items due to student access to and new use of the Sharples dining hall kitchen facility. The move has opened up additional opportunities for interested students to work at the cafe. The Crumb Cafe is also more accessible to all types of students on campus. Whereas the old cafe only accepted campus points, the renovated Crumb Cafe accepts a wide variety of meal plan options, such as Swat Points, Garnet Cash, Dining Dollars, and the late night meal swipe that every student has. Additionally, the Crumb Cafe is an environmentally sustainable cafe by using all compostable materials.

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Issue & demonstrated need for support:

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">With the expansion of the cafe and the early closing of other late night food options, the Crumb Cafe has been experiencing an influx of student customers causing long lines, extended wait times for food, running out of menu items within an hour of opening, and an unorganized ordering/delivering food system. There is a lot of excitement around the expansion of the cafe and the cafe has hired many new students but has been struggling to serve a large student body.

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Project:
<ul style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;">
<li>
Design and Implement a “Crumb Cafe” App
<ul style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;">
<li>
Streamline ordering process. Students can pre-order off the online menu and the app will give an estimated time that the food will be ready effectively decreasing the long wait times.
</li>
<li>
Streamline the delivery process. The app can notify students when their food is ready (ie. at the burger shop, Shakeshack, customers are notified via a vibrating remote when their orders are ready).
</li>
<li>
Streamline cafe-customer communications. The cafe quickly runs out of menu items that student most often order. Many students have expressed how disappointed they have been to enter the cafe, wait in line, and only find out about certain items running out when they are about to order. The app can notify students of what is currently available to order and what has run out.
</li>
</ul></li>
<li>
Secure funding for an increase in student staff
<ul style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;">
<li>
With the option to order via the app and avoid the long wait lines, many more students may interact with The Crumb Cafe. This means that there will be a need for increased staffing - perhaps staff solely dedicated to online orders, and staff dedicated to in-person cafe orders.
</li>
<li>
This will support many low-income students on campus looking for employment as well as to increase their skills. Working in a group setting develops one’s communication, ability to work in a team, and encourages initiative and motivation - skills that are transferable to any other job on or off campus.
</li>
<li>
As more staff requires more funding so students can be paid, a grant can be proposed to the student government organization (SGO) and student budget committee (SBC) detailing the needs of the community and how additional staffing will address the needs.
</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>

Strategic Priority #3 (Mariam): Develop spin-off opportunities to support more mature entrepreneurs at Swarthmore College by nurturing student enterprises/groups/projects/student groups using Impact Investing <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Need: <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As a result of the Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship project mapping at Swarthmore College, we identified a dire lack of spin-off opportunities (3-5 years support plans) that would spur and scale projects that have survived the test of time. <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The immediate need that we investigated is the scarcity of funding needed to scale the strategic and operational activities of a business/enterprise/organization/student groups that are past the initial forming stages of their venture.

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Solution: Impact Investing Group <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The goal of the Impact Investing project is to invest a fund (that will initially originate out of a grant/endowment from Swarthmore College). This fund will be initially invested by pro bono Swarthmore alumni investors while abiding by the social, governmental, environmental principles of Impact Investing. Over the course of a couple of years, returns on investments will be allocated to the spin-off fund that Swarthmore entrepreneurs can apply for. The returns generated from the investments will financially support more mature Swarthmore entrepreneurs at their spinout/scaling stages. <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In parallel, students at the Swarthmore Investing club can gain educational and practical experience in investing by giving assistance to the pro bono Swarthmore alumni investors network. They will be the guardians of the Impact Investing fund. This educational partnership will secure a pipeline of socially minded-investors that are making returns for Swarthmore entrepreneurs.  

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As a result, the Impact Investing project will not only educate future socially-minded investors, but it will also incentivize young entrepreneurs to prove themselves and gain access to spin-off funding opportunities. The Impact Investing project will therefore be a merit-based, socially-minded, and educational incentive for Entrepreneurship. <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stakeholders:

*Swarthmore Finance and Investment Office: will be key in securing the initial grant and endowment for the Impact Investing project.
*Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility: will connect mature Swarthmore entrepreneurs and project leaders to the Impact Investing project.
*Center for Innovation and Leadership: will educate and nurture Swarthmore entrepreneurs and project leaders in their initial entrepreneurial stages.
*Swat Careers: can be helpful in finding Swarthmore alumni who are willing to work pro-bono or train students on how to invest money.
*Swarthmore Alumni Office: can be helpful in their outreach to investors who are in the Swarthmore alumni network.
*Swarthmore Investment Club: will be exposed to best practices in Impact Investing. They will support and assist pro bono investors of the Impact Investing project. This educational experience will ensure the sustainability of the pro bono investor pipeline.
<div>
 <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Strategic Priority #4 (Michelle): Make Entrepreneurship Collaborative rather than Competitive <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As college students, we are often told that we have to do a million things, from balancing classes to athletics to clubs. On top of our immense workload, we are often fed the notion that we have to "find our calling" in the next 4 years. In the midst of all of these insane expectations leveraged against us, we often forget is that what we truly need is a <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">mentor<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">-- someone who is there to support us and cheer us on, no matter what we do.

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Project: TriConnect - Peer-to-peer mentoring website <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">TriConnect is a mentoring website that helps students in the Tri-College Consortium (Swarthmore, Haverford, and Bryn Mawr) tap into the untapped network of mentors, aka the amazing students that attend these three esteemed colleges. Students start by creating a profile, listing all of their affiliations (majors, clubs, interests etc.) and what they can offer mentorship in and what they are seeking to be mentored in (i.e. a CS student looking for someone more involved in the Tri-Co entrepreneurship environment). Once a profile is created, they can reach out to other students on the network to set up meals, attend events together etc.

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Impact of “TriConnect”: By creating a platform that directly fosters peer-to-peer mentorship, TriConnect hopes to not only empower individuals, but also shift school culture from one that is hyper-competitive and often cutthroat to one that is more collaborative and supportive. We hope that this will lead to benefits in student mental health and physical well-being, all the while cultivating student entrepreneurship and innovation.
<div> </div></div><div>Strategic Priority #4.1 (Cassandra): Landscape Update and Further Collaboration Opportunities</div> <div>There are many different opportunities to get involved with various facets of entrepreneurship on campus. These include organizations such as SWIFT, LaunchDeck, 180 Consulting, and WiCS+. While it is great to have all these existing programs, it is also means that entrepreneurship efforts are divided among all these clubs. This, in a sense, heightens the sense of "competition" Michelle addressed last year. As entrepreneurial resources grow on campus, it is critical that we create initiatives to get these groups to work together. </div><div> Student Government Organization Committees Swarthmore's SGO has many committees that handle bringing various student groups together in other to help move the campus community forward as a whole. As entrepreneurship opportunities become a high priority for students on campus, it would be beneficial for SGO to create a Standing Committee on Entrepreneurship, which would involve weekly meetings with the leaders of the entrepreneurial groups of campus. </div><div> Cross-Group Peer to Peer Mentorship While Michelle's Peer-to-Peer program focused on resources available to the greater TriCo community, I am interested in fostering collaboration within the institution by establishing a similar mentoring program to connect members across the aforementioned entrepreneurial groups. By doing so, we would be able to encourage the sharing of ideas and resources across these organizations and reduce the existing beauricratic landscape of entrepreneurship and innovation that exists at Swarthmore College.</div></div>

= Related Links =

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Swarthmore_College Swarthmore College Overview]

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Swarthmore_College_Student_Priorities Swarthmore College Student Priorities]

2017 Swarthmore University Innovation Fellows

[[Michelle Ma]]

[[Omri Gal|Omri_Gal]]

[[Natasha Markov-Riss|Natasha_Markov-Riss]]

[[Mariam Bahmane|Mariam_Bahmane]]

[[Category:Student Priorities|s]]

Priorities:Swarthmore College Student Priorities

2018-10-06T19:07:45Z

Hahmed1:

At Swarthmore College, we have experienced an apparent lack of opportunity for socially minded entrepreneurs. As such, we will be working with faculty, students, and other institutional partners to develop Swarthmore’s new Social Innovation Lab. The following individual projects will all be operated within the Social Innovation Lab. <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Note: We believe we have failed if only Swarthmore students and faculty are using the Innovation Lab. Therefore, community engagement is essential to our mission.

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Strategic Priority #1 (Omri): Incentivise Swarthmore students to engage in social entrepreneurship and innovation
<div>
<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Given Swarthmore student’s passion for social change, there is immense potential to harness this energy and channel it towards social innovation. Currently however, the entrepreneurial ecosystem at Swarthmore does not provide enough opportunity (or incentive) for students to engage in social entrepreneurship/innovation.  

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Project: Social Innovation Fellowship. <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Social Innovation Fellowship is broken down as follows:

'''''Facilitation'''''

*''''Internal stakeholders - I will be facilitating design-thinking workshops for student groups and faculty committees on campus. I have already facilitated a design-thinking session for the faculty/student committee on Student Health and Wellbeing, and there is increasing institutional interest in participating in these workshops.
*External stakeholders - entrepreneurially minded non-profits/other organizations in surrounding Swarthmore area (mainly Philadelphia and Chester). I have already established numerous relationships with these external partners (most of which work with youth), all of whom are excited at the prospect of engaging with Swarthmore’s Innovation Lab. I will be working with these organizations to host either workshops or events focused on design-thinking, presentation/pitching techniques, etc.

'''''Short term student engagement'''''

*Students will enroll in ‘Entrepreneurship Fieldwork and Internship’ (half-credit), which will last for 6-8 weeks. They will be paired with an internal or external stakeholder, and work with them on a specific project. 
**Ex: For students interested in film and media studies, they could be paired with a non-profit partner in Philadelphia that provides youth with equipment and skills to make their own films. The student could potentially serve as a mentor for 6-8 weeks, while also providing additional resources/information to help the organization.  

''''

'''''Social Innovation Fellowship'''''

*Students will enroll in Professor Denise Crossan’s Social Entrepreneurship in Principle and Practice course (1 credit). The course will cover the fundamentals of design-thinking, and other innovative tools/techniques. Students in this course will then have the option to be paired with regional or international stakeholders. Professor Crossan and I (faculty head of the Social Innovation Lab), have already established partners in:
**Northern Ireland
**Columbia
**Japan
**England
**Spain
**Iraq
*A potential future spinoff would be that these students would then receive funding to travel to their respective partners, and engage in a summer internship in which they would be able to continue their project

 <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ultimately, I believe that attracting more students to participate in the growing social innovation initiative on campus revolves heavily around credit. Being able to receive credit, while engaging in an applied learning project, is something that entices many students.

Strategic Priority #2 (Natasha): Make Entrepreneurship Tangible <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is really important to us that “social entrepreneurship” is more than just a nebulous idea at Swarthmore. We want to go beyond the buzzwords, and give students an opportunity to actually apply all that they learn about design thinking. During the Stanford course, we have really appreciated the focus on prototyping - we plan give Swarthmore a workable “prototype” of a successful social enterprise on campus.

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Project: Student Run Social Enterprise - Environmentally Sustainable Cafe <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We plan to launch a student run, environmentally sustainable café inside the social innovation lab. We plan to serve coffee, tea, espresso, and baked goods out of a small part of our makerspace. The café will be fully managed by students, with a focus on environmental stewardship--we will use all compostable materials and source our food locally and sustainably. Many new buildings are being constructed in the northern part of campus with no food nearby, so we hope that the café will serve an emerging need. When we talked to students about our idea, there was a lot of excitement around the café - there is no good coffee on campus, students told us, and they are really excited that the café is going to have an environmental focus.

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We already are in communication with Therese Ton, a student baker selling her products at local stores, and Ben Stern, a coffee aficionado on campus.

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Strategic Priority #2.1 (Hanan): '''Supporting ''''''Student-Led''''''Initiatives'''

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A student-led cafe, previously known to students as Paces Cafe, was an occasional late night food option to students on campus. After years of growing, the cafe has taken on a new location, a bigger menu, and extended hours. Newly named as The Crumb Cafe, this late night eatery is open seven nights a week, offering a larger range of sandwiches, snacks, drinks, and meal items due to student access to and new use of the Sharples dining hall kitchen facility. The move has opened up additional opportunities for interested students to work at the cafe. The Crumb Cafe is also more accessible to all types of students on campus. Whereas the old cafe only accepted campus points, the renovated Crumb Cafe accepts a wide variety of meal plan options, such as Swat Points, Garnet Cash, Dining Dollars, and the late night meal swipe that every student has. Additionally, the Crumb Cafe is an environmentally sustainable cafe by using all compostable materials.

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Issue & demonstrated need for support:

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">With the expansion of the cafe and the early closing of other late night food options, the Crumb Cafe has been experiencing an influx of student customers causing long lines, extended wait times for food, running out of menu items within an hour of opening, and an unorganized ordering/delivering food system. There is a lot of excitement around the expansion of the cafe and the cafe has hired many new students but has been struggling to serve a large student body.

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Project:
<ul style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;">
<li>
Design and Implement a “Crumb Cafe” App
<ul style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;">
<li>
Streamline ordering process. Students can pre-order off the online menu and the app will give an estimated time that the food will be ready effectively decreasing the long wait times.
</li>
<li>
Streamline the delivery process. The app can notify students when their food is ready (ie. at the burger shop, Shakeshack, customers are notified via a vibrating remote when their orders are ready).
</li>
<li>
Streamline cafe-customer communications. The cafe quickly runs out of menu items that student most often order. Many students have expressed how disappointed they have been to enter the cafe, wait in line, and only find out about certain items running out when they are about to order. The app can notify students of what is currently available to order and what has run out.
</li>
</ul></li>
<li>
Secure funding for an increase in student staff
<ul style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;">
<li>
With the option to order via the app and avoid the long wait lines, many more students may interact with The Crumb Cafe. This means that there will be a need for increased staffing - perhaps staff solely dedicated to online orders, and staff dedicated to in-person cafe orders.
</li>
<li>
This will support many low-income students on campus looking for employment as well as to increase their skills. Working in a group setting develops one’s communication, ability to work in a team, and encourages initiative and motivation - skills that are transferable to any other job on or off campus.
</li>
<li>
As more staff requires more funding so students can be paid, a grant can be proposed to the student government organization (SGO) and student budget committee (SBC) detailing the needs of the community and how additional staffing will address the needs.
</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>

Strategic Priority #3 (Mariam): Develop spin-off opportunities to support more mature entrepreneurs at Swarthmore College by nurturing student enterprises/groups/projects/student groups using Impact Investing <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Need: <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As a result of the Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship project mapping at Swarthmore College, we identified a dire lack of spin-off opportunities (3-5 years support plans) that would spur and scale projects that have survived the test of time. <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The immediate need that we investigated is the scarcity of funding needed to scale the strategic and operational activities of a business/enterprise/organization/student groups that are past the initial forming stages of their venture.

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Solution: Impact Investing Group <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The goal of the Impact Investing project is to invest a fund (that will initially originate out of a grant/endowment from Swarthmore College). This fund will be initially invested by pro bono Swarthmore alumni investors while abiding by the social, governmental, environmental principles of Impact Investing. Over the course of a couple of years, returns on investments will be allocated to the spin-off fund that Swarthmore entrepreneurs can apply for. The returns generated from the investments will financially support more mature Swarthmore entrepreneurs at their spinout/scaling stages. <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In parallel, students at the Swarthmore Investing club can gain educational and practical experience in investing by giving assistance to the pro bono Swarthmore alumni investors network. They will be the guardians of the Impact Investing fund. This educational partnership will secure a pipeline of socially minded-investors that are making returns for Swarthmore entrepreneurs.  

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As a result, the Impact Investing project will not only educate future socially-minded investors, but it will also incentivize young entrepreneurs to prove themselves and gain access to spin-off funding opportunities. The Impact Investing project will therefore be a merit-based, socially-minded, and educational incentive for Entrepreneurship. <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stakeholders:

*Swarthmore Finance and Investment Office: will be key in securing the initial grant and endowment for the Impact Investing project.
*Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility: will connect mature Swarthmore entrepreneurs and project leaders to the Impact Investing project.
*Center for Innovation and Leadership: will educate and nurture Swarthmore entrepreneurs and project leaders in their initial entrepreneurial stages.
*Swat Careers: can be helpful in finding Swarthmore alumni who are willing to work pro-bono or train students on how to invest money.
*Swarthmore Alumni Office: can be helpful in their outreach to investors who are in the Swarthmore alumni network.
*Swarthmore Investment Club: will be exposed to best practices in Impact Investing. They will support and assist pro bono investors of the Impact Investing project. This educational experience will ensure the sustainability of the pro bono investor pipeline.
<div>
 <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Strategic Priority #4 (Michelle): Make Entrepreneurship Collaborative rather than Competitive <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As college students, we are often told that we have to do a million things, from balancing classes to athletics to clubs. On top of our immense workload, we are often fed the notion that we have to "find our calling" in the next 4 years. In the midst of all of these insane expectations leveraged against us, we often forget is that what we truly need is a <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">mentor<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">-- someone who is there to support us and cheer us on, no matter what we do.

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Project: TriConnect - Peer-to-peer mentoring website <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">TriConnect is a mentoring website that helps students in the Tri-College Consortium (Swarthmore, Haverford, and Bryn Mawr) tap into the untapped network of mentors, aka the amazing students that attend these three esteemed colleges. Students start by creating a profile, listing all of their affiliations (majors, clubs, interests etc.) and what they can offer mentorship in and what they are seeking to be mentored in (i.e. a CS student looking for someone more involved in the Tri-Co entrepreneurship environment). Once a profile is created, they can reach out to other students on the network to set up meals, attend events together etc.

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Impact of “TriConnect”: By creating a platform that directly fosters peer-to-peer mentorship, TriConnect hopes to not only empower individuals, but also shift school culture from one that is hyper-competitive and often cutthroat to one that is more collaborative and supportive. We hope that this will lead to benefits in student mental health and physical well-being, all the while cultivating student entrepreneurship and innovation.
<div> </div></div><div>Strategic Priority #4.1 (Cassandra): Landscape Update and Further Collaboration Opportunities</div> <div>There are many different opportunities to get involved with various facets of entrepreneurship on campus. These include organizations such as SWIFT, LaunchDeck, 180 Consulting, and WiCS+. While it is great to have all these existing programs, it is also means that entrepreneurship efforts are divided among all these clubs. This, in a sense, heightens the sense of "competition" Michelle addressed last year. As entrepreneurial resources grow on campus, it is critical that we create initiatives to get these groups to work together. </div><div> Student Government Organization Committees Swarthmore's SGO has many committees that handle bringing various student groups together in other to help move the campus community forward as a whole. As entrepreneurship opportunities become a high priority for students on campus, it would be beneficial for SGO to create a Standing Committee on Entrepreneurship, which would involve weekly meetings with the leaders of the entrepreneurial groups of campus. </div><div> Cross-Group Peer to Peer Mentorship While Michelle's Peer-to-Peer program focused on resources available to the greater TriCo community, I am interested in fostering collaboration within the institution by establishing a similar mentoring program to connect members across the aforementioned entrepreneurial groups. By doing so, we would be able to encourage the sharing of ideas and resources across these organizations and reduce the existing beauricratic landscape of entrepreneurship and innovation that exists at Swarthmore College.</div></div>

= Related Links =

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Swarthmore_College Swarthmore College Overview]

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Swarthmore_College_Student_Priorities Swarthmore College Student Priorities]

2017 Swarthmore University Innovation Fellows

[[Michelle Ma]]

[[Omri Gal|Omri_Gal]]

[[Natasha Markov-Riss|Natasha_Markov-Riss]]

[[Mariam Bahmane|Mariam_Bahmane]]

[[Category:Student Priorities|s]]