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Priorities:Swarthmore College Student Priorities

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*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.

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 #3.1 (Mariam 2017): 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.

*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.

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'''Strategic Priority #3.2 (Lamia 2018):'''Develop spin-off opp'''ortunities to support more mature entrepreneurs at Swarthmore College by''''''connecting these entrepreneurs to the resources needed for them to accelerate in the ‘real world’.'''

Though certain spin off opportunities do currently exist, they are not sufficient, and it is difficult for developing entrepreneurs to really grow and scale both through the resources offered as Swarthmore and beyond the school campus. The need for spin-off opportunities could most easily take the form of a program that connects certain budding entrepreneurs who have gone through earlier resources from the College to existing opportunities beyond the school.

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-east-asian: 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="background-color: transparent; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: 700; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">mentor<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-east-asian: 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; 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 #4.2 (Cassandra 2018): 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 existing beauricraticlandscape of entrepreneurship and innovation that exists at Swarthmore College.</div></div>

<span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.66670036315918px; font-weight: bold; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 224);">Strategic Priority #5.1 (Gaeta 2019): Initiate, Collaborate, Educate

In order to bring in these students, we will host TEDx talks on the theme of innovation. It would include speakers who have demonstrated significant innovation within their respective fields to talk about what innovation means to them, what kind of process it involves, why it matters, etc.  We would like to display different applications of innovation principles so students can see where these principles are relevant to their own interests. Since Swarthmore students tend to be passionate about social issues, we chose the following speaker types that would appeal to that demographic: social entrepreneurs, activists, musicians/artists, and sustainability technologists. With this project we hope to engage a wide variety of students - especially students who are not already involved with I&E at Swarthmore.

<div><div>'''Strategic Priority #5.4 (Nancy 2019)'''</div><div> </div><div>From its endowment of over $2 billion (one of the highest endowments per student), Swarthmore College provides many funding opportunities.  Students can apply for seed funding to design and implement their own social impact projects, as well as stipends to engage in internships and other entrepreneurial pursuits. However, we noticed that many students had never applied for any grants on campus due to factors such as being daunted by the application process, or not knowing which opportunities were available. </div><div> </div><div>We intend to organize grant-writing workshops to enable more students to access on-campus funding opportunities. There will be information sessions to consolidate and highlight various funding opportunities. Further hands-on grant-writing workshops will demystify the application process and assist students in actually writing a grant application. Grant writing is a transferable skill that will also benefit students applying for off-campus grants, or future scholarship applications for graduate school and beyond. We want more students to have the opportunity to access seed funding to add to the diversity of Swarthmore’s innovation and entrepreneurship landscape.

Strategic Priority #6.1 (Edward 2020): Start Innovating Earlier

This year has been an important year for reflection and looking at trends. Although the term “social entrepreneurship” has become less vague for Swarthmore students idea since I was a Freshman, there is still work to be done. One of the problems we see is as follows: 1)It is difficult for Swarthmore students to focus on innovation in their earlier years due to their liberal arts requirements; and 2)Liberal arts students are facing a tougher job market that requires more experience of design thinking than ever before. 1) and 2), when together, present a growing problem that we intend to focus on. During this Stanford course, we have upgraded our design thinking skills, and by learning to prototype effectively we feel ready to take this problem on.<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;">plan

<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: Bringing the Liberal Arts ethic into Career Services 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, new student-run set of resources as part of Swarthmore's Career Services department. We plan to employ students to find short, part-time job opportunities for every subject matter and to publish a weekly email blast. We also plan to work with Swarthmore alumni to produce a private selection of shorter internships. This will allow Swarthmore students, particular newer Swarthmore students, to gain valuable skills and work experience whilst taking classes. When we talked to students about our idea, there was a lot of excitement - the career services department focuses on Juniors and Seniors, students told us, and they are really excited to learn critical skills (such as design thinking) and to lessen their anxiety about finding an internship/job after graduation.

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<div><div>'''Strategic Priority #6.2 (Fiorenza 2020)'''</div><div> </div><div> A remote semester has students feeling detached from the innovation ecosystem at Swarthmore. Additionally, students are burnt out from zoom meetings and have little motivation to pursue virtual extracurricular activities. Therefore, we thought of creating a one-day virtual design thinking challenge in partnership with the Trico schools. Students would come together to address a challenge presented by the City of Philadelphia. The challenge would incentivize students to attend because it gives them an opportunity to connect with the innovation ecosystem in the Swarthmore area and upon completion, they will obtain tangible outcomes for their skill development. Successful participants would obtain a certificate of completion that demonstrates their understanding of the design thinking model and they would enter to win a gift card. Their experience would motivate them to apply design thinking to other challenges they face and would establish a connection to the innovation resources available at Swarthmore.</div></div>

~~</div></div>~~ <div><div>'''Strategic Priority #6.3 (Haron 2020)'''</div><div> </div><div>Swarthmore College prides itself on many departments that offer funding geared towards innovation and entrepreneurship. However, there is not much guidance for how new student innovators can get to move their ideas from an idea to an actual implementable project. This is the gap that my UIF project intends to fill. I am designing a 10 week Systems Thinking course that will guide new student innovators through the project design process. By so doing, this gives the students a good grasp of the issue area they want to address as well as what leverage points exist.

These new student innovators will also have access to seasoned Social Innovation Lab Associates who have successfully undergone this process and worked on projects. By setting up a feedback channel between new innovators and the experienced ones, the new student innovators will have a lot to gain.</div></div>

Strategic Priority #7.1 (Sofia 2021): OurSwat Game

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The COVID-19 pandemic has widened the gap between older students who were on campus before and new, younger students who have not experienced what full campus life feels like. This has led to issues in communication, knowledge, and isolation, as newer students struggle to fully adapt to campus culture. Therefore, I propose that a virtual (video) game that encompasses campus life would help to bridge the knowledge gap and facilitate participation between students. This would include mini challenges for different areas of campus that teach players about different spaces and where they can go, chat rooms, and also instructional videos that can help teach students how to adjust to campus. This would also include a challenge on design thinking, facilitated by the space in the game that occurs in the Center for Innovation and Leadership, in order to help prepare students for important design skills. By including this in a game format, it will be more engaging to students that are burnt out from the past year and a half of online classes than a zoom or other format.

Strategic Priority #7.2 (Ipeknaz 2021): Industry Courses

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Since I have come to Swarthmore, something I have heard students complain about again and again is that courses we take in the college are too theoretical and they do not prepare us for internships/jobs within the industry itself. Implementing a hybrid course that aims to teach students concepts actually in-use within the industry of interest and matching them with shadowing/mentoring opportunities could help students feel more prepared in applying for jobs and long term internship opportunities. One department that this idea could be especially useful for is the computer science department. We could create a course where students could learn about current tools and software used to develop apps currently, they can develop their own ideas for apps using the design thinking process, they can be matched with industry professionals to shadow for a few weeks and then they can start implementing their own ideas with mentors who can help them think about technical skills or more conceptual ideas.

Strategic Priority #7.3 (Jackie Le 2021): Liberal Arts Consortium

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Swarthmore College is known for its academic rigor, which places a lot of stress on students as they struggle to find a balance between their social life and classes. This balance has been exacerbated by the virtual learning setting and the transition from virtual to in-person. Despite the few resources available to students, they are either too busy with their work to utilize them or do not notice them.

Strategic Priority #7.4 (Shirley Liu 2021): Swarthmore Alumni Webpage Improvement

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One of the most common impressions people have about liberal art college is what students learn in school could not be applied well in industry or life post-graduation in general. Although it's not at all the case, there is indeed a gap between academia and industry faculty and students are concerned about. Alumni resource is very helpful in bridging student's academic work and interest and the industry since they are people who have gone through similar experiences and could provide the most updated insight of a specific industry. There is already an alumni network database students can access via a webpage, which stores alumni's name, occupation, major at Swarthmore, internship/externship opportunities they can provide, interest, etc. However, students at Swarthmore were not the most familiar with this webpage because it is 1) not the most advertised and 2) relatively hard to process and organize the search results. To improve the user experience of the webpage, I'm envisioning a map that utilizes the current alumni information in the database and represents it in the format of a map that shows where the alumni are, what company they're working for, what kind of opportunity they can provide, etc. This idea is inspired by the off-campus studies website, which employs a map to represent all the study-abroad programs and exchange programs while providing information on past participants of the programs.

=Related Links=

[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Q1P9pZCbRlv8-eIaHho2ko6pGe65m2PPV9VVw6Z9znQ/edit?usp=sharing 2021 Swarthmore College Fall Landscape Canvas]

~~= Related Links =~~ = Related Links =

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

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