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Priorities:Swarthmore College Student Priorities

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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.

Strategic Priority #1 (Omri 2017): Incentivise Swarthmore students to engage in social entrepreneurship and innovation

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.

Project: Social Innovation Fellowship. The Social Innovation Fellowship is broken down as follows:

Facilitation

Strategic Priority #2.1 (Natasha 2017): Make Entrepreneurship Tangible

</span>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.

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><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.

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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’.'''

Potential Components

*Business network - connection to established UX designers, marketing freelance, other entrepreneurs in the industry etc. *Connection to real investors - alum network, potential opportunity to pitch in front of them *Connection to other pitch competitions (including some that other students have already pitched at and have connections to) ex. Global Startup Ecosystem, University Startup World Cup, *Scholarship opportunities to real business accelerators like Draper University, Y Combinator, 500 Startups etc. in San Francisco and elsewhere *~~Funding~~ Funding for summer cohort in these accelerators as an additional option for "summer impact funding" *</span~~>Accepting credit for programs like Draper University towards an entrepreneurship course (Under Economics? Peace & Conflict ~~studiesStudies?) -- [longer term goal] *Office space on campus for established student-run business - business address and temporary space for team establishment Some of these resources may exist independently under different programs or as autonomous activities, but there is no formalised means of connecting them and centralising the steps for a mature entrepreneur to scale beyond Swarthmore.

Some of these resources may exist independently under different programs or as autonomous activities, but there is no formalised means of connecting them and centralising the steps for a mature entrepreneur to scale beyond Swarthmore.

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Lamiamakkar

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Priorities:Swarthmore College Student Priorities

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