Check out the pictures from ISEP Singapore 2012!

Here is the group from ISEP Singapore 2012!

Check out the Pictures from ISEP Fontainebleau 2012

Check out these wonderful pictures from our ISEP Fontainebleau 2012 promotion!

INSEAD Social Entrepreneurship Bootcamps - Building viable ventures in only 48 hours!

To the left - Getting the ball rolling, defining problems and ideas on Friday night.

To the right - The winning team for the SE bootcamp in Singapore Dec 2012, designing an anti-corruption reporting platform.


The Rudolf and Valeria Maag INSEAD Centre for Entrepreneurship (ICE) has developed a wonderful series of limited enrollment 48 hour intensive hands-on workshops designed to build entrepreneurial muscle. Our menu of bootcamps includes: The Start up, Sci-Tech, Applications Development, Acquisitions, and of course, Social Entrepreneurship. The bootcamps are offered over the weekend (beginning on Friday evening and ending on Sunday evening) to INSEAD MBAs and alumni, and often to MBA partners and external people as well.

The Social Entrepreneurship Bootcamps are part of the award winning Social Impact Catalyst programme (Finalist for the AMBA's MBA Innovation Award 2011) have been receiving great reviews (the last bootcamp offered in Singapore received an overall evaluation of 4.75/5).  The format is as follows: During the bootcamp, individuals form teams around social venture ideas and/or societal problems they are looking to solve. After teams are finalized on the Friday evening, the participants are walked through frameworks and methodologies to develop their venture throughout the course of the weekend. Some of these frameworks include: defining your value proposition, mapping your activity system, analyzing stakeholders and partnership opportunities, piloting your venture, growing your venture through scaling/replication, assessing your impact, and finding the best means of financing. The bootcamp finishes with pitch presentations in front of external judges - either impact investors, social entrepreneurs themselves, or other experts in the social impact ecosystem.

It is an intensive and thrilling process to experience.  Participants have been amazed at how much they can achieve in just one weekend. Some quotes from our participants:

"Best experience I had at INSEAD so far (learning wise). Thank you so much. While before I only thought that this could be an option for the future, I am really inspired to do something asap."

"Very inspiring, motivating and well structured. The bootcamp has now taught me how to start up my own social enterprise and I am thankful for that!"

"I went into the weekend completely blank, but got so enthusiastic about most of the ideas that I lost track of time every time we were working on our project. How cool is that! :) I liked all the examples of actual initiatives that were given to clarify a task or to just show us what is out there... The atmosphere in the group is set to be very stimulating and open so that everyone feels comfortable to share their more personal thoughts and ideas  - this is great! - A perfect balance between entrepreneurship & social impact in one weekend."

Moreover, many of the venture ideas formed during the bootcamps have gone on to become real viable organizations. It is an inspiring process of which to be part.

The next Social Entrepreneurship Bootcamps are set to run from February 1-3 in Singapore and February 15-17 in Fontainebleau. For more information on registration, etc., please contact Christine Driscoll Goulay, Associate Director of the INSEAD Social Entrepreneurship Initiative. 

Partnering for Impact: Kellogg School of Management and INSEAD to Partner for 2013 International Impact Investing Challenge

The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and INSEAD have announced a new partnership as they join together to co-host the 2013 International Impact Investing Challenge. Now in its third year, the challenge provides graduate students from around the world the opportunity to create high-performance, high-reward investment strategies that deliver social and environmental impact.

“The International Impact Investing Challenge invites students to think creatively about how to design investment vehicles that appeal to institutional investors, while simultaneously creating solutions for global social issues,” said Jamie Jones, director of social entrepreneurship at the Kellogg School. “While we’ve been very impressed with the caliber of financial creativity among the student teams who participated in the previous two years, we’re thrilled to have INSEAD as a European academic partner this year to attract a more global audience than ever before.”

We at INSEAD are very excited to be partnering with the Kellogg School for this year’s International Impact Investing Challenge. We have seen the field of impact investing grow over the years and become of rising importance to our students and the INSEAD finance community. We hope to contribute to Kellogg’s great work in creating and building this competition by increasing awareness and drawing in submissions from our European base, said Christine Driscoll Goulay, Associate Director of the INSEAD Social Entrepreneurship Initiative.

Teams are invited to submit a two-page prospectus by March 14, 2013. Ten finalist teams will present their proposals at a final event at the World Bank in Washington, D.C on April 26, 2013. The judging panel will be comprised of experienced officers and investors who currently manage family foundations, pension funds and university endowments. Top teams will receive financial support to implement their vision.

The International Impact Investing Challenge is sponsored by Equilibrium Capital Group; the McCall Foundation; Impact Assets; the Carol & Larry Levy Social Entrepreneurship Lab; World Bank Institute and the Calvert Foundation.

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For more information:

To learn more about the International Impact Investing Challenge, visit www.impactinvestingchallenge.org. For more information about the Kellogg School of Management, visit www.kellogg.northwestern.edu. For more information about INSEAD, visit www.insead.edu.

Masisa - Socially Inclusive Business Programs in Brazil

 

The most recent ISEP session in Fontainebleau made a lasting impression on Fernando Draier. Based in Buenos Aires, Fernando has been working for Masisa helping to design and manage socially inclusive business programs.

“Originally I began focusing on social entrepreneurship through my work at Masisa, a wood board business for furniture and interior architecture,” explains Fernando. “In 2008 I began helping to design and mange socially inclusive business programs that work with low-income communities and prison inmates and ex-offenders in Argentina.”

Masisa offers three courses at various levels to some of the more marginalized communities in Argentina. A beginner’s course for those that have no carpentry experience; a more advanced course for those that have begun carpentry work and need to develop additional skills; and a professional course that focuses on project management, budget and marketing. To date, over 5000 individuals across Argentina have participated in the program and the numbers continue to grow.

“In addition to this, I have helped to develop a program with prisoners whereby they build wood based products that can be sold by retailers in Argentina,” says Fernando. “This enables prisoners to develop a skill set while earning an income for their families, which will help them once they reenter society,”

Fernando began spending over eighty per cent of his time on these and other programs as they began to gain momentum. Recognizing that companies don’t always have the patience and time to grow these enterprises, Fernando wanted to gain additional knowledge on how to make these initiatives a long-term success.

Wanting to learn more about how to build successful social enterprises, Fernando began exploring different educational programs and found that the learning social entrepreneurial tools on MBA programs will take a lot of time. When he came across INSEAD’s Social Entrepreneurship Program, he knew he had found the perfect course.

“There are a lot of great things going on in Latin America right now and I wanted to learn more about how we can get funding and measure the impact of these social enterprises” explains Fernando.  “What appealed most to me about ISEP was the fact that I would be learning with a group of experienced social entrepreneurs and have the opportunity to work on real cases and gain valuable knowledge.”

“The program was extremely inspiring,” Fernando adds. “Social enterprise is about solving problems that no one else wants to solve, and ISEP offered a lot of ways in which this can be possible. It helped me organize my thoughts, establish a usable framework and develop a practical set of tools that can be used in every day work.”

During the program, participants had the opportunity to pitch their ideas to social investors. “This was a wonderful exercise, “ says Fernando. ”Although I didn’t participate in the pitch, I was able to gain a better understanding of the process, what investors are looking for and what you need to provide them in order to get financing.”

Fernando is keen to apply what he learned at ISEP back in Argentina. “Although Latin America continues to grow economically, there are still a lot of social problems. Everything from providing clean water and housing to dealing with education, violence and crime,” said Fernando. “As a result there is a lot of opportunity for social enterprises to grow, and now having attended ISEP I feel like I have the tools and framework necessary to help others connect and begin working on some of these issues.”

“I have been working for corporations for over 20 years and this move to social entrepreneurship is a huge change for me,” said Fernando. “But I am excited for the adventure ahead and am optimistic that I can make a difference. ISEP provided me with the tools and now it’s time to get to work!”

Fernando Draier

Fernando has more than 20 years experience working for global corporations in business development areas. He is looking forward to increase social impact and tackle poverty in Latin America by addressing new challenges and partnerships.

He is also an entrepreneur business coach, working as a mentor/tutor in business incubators/accelerators.

My next challenges are creating or replicating new innovative social enterprises in Argentina/Latin America, mentoring social enrepreneurs and incorporate social entrepreneurship in Argentinian Business Schools.