2013 ESI Award: Riders for Health

Posted on March 19, 2013 by Erin Worsham

CASE is proud to announce the winner of our 2012 Enterprising Social Innovation Award: Riders for Health!

Riders for Health is an international social enterprise that manages and maintains vehicles for health-focused partners in sub-Saharan Africa which enables health workers to deliver vital health care to rural communities on a reliable and cost-effective basis.

Riders for Health manages over 1,400 motorcycles, ambulances and other four-wheel vehicles used in the delivery of health care in seven countries across Africa. Furthermore, Riders works with ministries of health, international and African non-governmental organisations (NGOs), private-sector organisations, local community-based organisations and religious groups, to improve access to health care for 12 million people.

Barry and Andrea Coleman, cofounders of Riders for Health, will receive the ESI award and talk about their organization and experience from 6:30-7:45 p.m. on Thursday, April 4th in Fuqua’s Geneen Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public. Come join us!

If you are interested in attending, please register in advance at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ESIRiders.

About the CASE ESI Award:
The CASE Award for Enterprising Social Innovation recognizes outstanding individuals, organizations or companies whose innovations blend methods from the worlds of business and philanthropy to create sustainable social value that has the potential for large-scale impact. The award is granted by a committee of CASE faculty, staff and students. Learn more at http://www.caseatduke.org/events/ESIaward/index.html.

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10 Years of Impact and Counting

Posted on March 15, 2013 by Erin Worsham

After 10 years, our team at CASE is incredibly proud of our accomplishments and even more excited to look to the future.  Of course, none of this is possible without the support and partnership of so many in the field. We celebrated our anniversary with friends and partners, many in person and some sent in brief video messages to share their congratulations! Click on some of the links below:

  • Laura Callanan of McKinsey & Co and Jim Fruchterman of Benetech (here)
  • Ben Powell of Agora Partnerships  (here)
  • Darrel Hammond of KaBOOM! (here)

And we held a great event to celebrate and reflect on some of trends in the field of social entrepreneurship.  Thanks to our inspiring speakers (click on the links to read blogs summarizing their talks):

Thanks to each of YOU  for being a part of the past 10 years. We hope you continue to join us – start now by watching our 2 minute anniversary video and sharing with friends (link: http://youtu.be/ex-1Zw-FU5M):

Special thanks to Left Brain/Right Brain Productions for their work on this video!

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Increasing my Impact with the Duke MBA

Posted on March 12, 2013 by Erin Worsham

This post was written by second year Duke MBA, Julia Houlihan.  Julia’s post originally appeared on Fuqua’s “Daytime MBA Student Blog” which has lots of great posts about the Daytime MBA experience from the student perspective.

Picture of Guest Blogger Julia Houlihan, second-year studentIn the past few weeks, we’ve received email reminders about graduation requirements to make sure everyone’s on track to walk across that stage and shake Dean Boulding’s hand in May. These emails have caused me to reflect a bit on the requirements I had when choosing an MBA program. Principle among these: I wanted to attend a business school that was serious about preparing leaders to make an impact in the social sector, and I wanted to find peers who were similarly striving to use their MBAs to find solutions to some of the world’s most pressing problems.

I was drawn to Fuqua because it houses the well-recognized Center for Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship (CASE). To me, the presence of CASE promised that I would learn about the intersection of social impact and business from scholars and practitioners, and find other students searching for the same experience. I am happy to report that my expectations were exceeded.

For me, much of business school has consisted of: courses, practicums, clubs, and the search for a fulfilling career. I have incorporated my interest in social impact into each one of these areas. Continue reading →

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Advice for Social Entrepreneurs

Posted on March 6, 2013 by Erin Worsham

As part of Stanford’s “Social Entrepreneur Building Block Series,” Professor Dees recently gave advice to budding student social entrepreneurs.  He discussed the variety of ways to define social entrepreneurship, the core of which is finding innovative solutions to social problems, regardless of the business model used.

He also talked about lessons that the field has learned about being a social entrepreneur:

  • Complexity … Finding innovative solutions to social problems involves incredibly complex work, not quick fixes. Entrepreneurs need to take the time to learn and truly understand the complexity of the challenges that they are tackling.
  • Ecosystem Thinking … Social entrepreneurs must collaborate to solve problems because these problems are embedded in complex social networks and ecosystems.
  • Business Models … Social entrepreneurs need to be savvy about linking their solution to the correct underlying business model (nonprofit, for-profit, etc) that allows them to be sustainable and prepare for scale.
  • Listen and Learn … Social entrepreneurs need to listen and truly understand the communities that they are working with in order to find solutions that meet their needs.
  • Rigorous Measurement … There shouldn’t be any “free passes for people that have good intentions or tell a good story.”  If we are going to be effective and move society forward, we need to be rigorous in evaluation and resource allocation.
  • Failures … Social entrepreneurs must be willing to admit and discuss failure so that we can learn from these experiences as well as the successes.

Continue reading →

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Capital + Ideas + People + Timing = Social Change

Posted on February 26, 2013 by Erin Worsham

Professor Cathy Clark gave this TED-style talk as part of CASE’s 10th anniversary celebration in December 2012.  To read more posts on CASE’s anniversary celebration, click here!

How do social entrepreneurship and impact investing interrelate?  And what does that have to do with Sesame Street?

At CASE’s 10 Year Anniversary Celebration, Professor Cathy Clark used the example of Sesame Street to articulate a formula for social change and show the trends in each area:

Capital + Ideas + People + Timing = Social Change

Continue reading →

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Seeding Student Social Entrepreneurs

Posted on February 22, 2013 by Erin Worsham

What would happen if we put the energy, creativity, and intelligence of Duke MBA students towards solving some of the world’s most pressing problems? What ideas would they come up with and what impact could they have?

In order to help our students explore their ideas, CASE launched the CASE Seed Prize – a combination of money and coaching that is intended to help Duke MBA social entrepreneurs vault their ideas forward. Specifically, the Prize comes with a $10,000 grant, plus one-on-one coaching from CASE Senior Fellow and author Dan Heath (author of Made to Stick, Switch, and the soon to be released, Decisive).

When we opened the application this year, we received ideas ranging from innovative for-profit and nonprofit business models to “ideas on a napkin.” They tackled issues from global health, to poverty alleviation, to energy efficiency and much more. The students’ ideas were diverse, but what they all had in common was their passion and drive to make the world a better place.

From the many applications submitted, three finalists were interviewed and then the judges were faced with the daunting challenge of selecting amongst these great entrants.  And now, drumroll please …   Continue reading →

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The Challenges of Global Health

Posted on February 18, 2013 by Erin Worsham

Dr. Krishna Udayakumar gave this TED-style talk as part of CASE’s 10th anniversary celebration in December 2012.  To read more posts on CASE’s anniversary celebration, click here!

“If you are born in some places in sub-saharan Africa, you can expect to live less than half as long as someone who is born in Western Europe.”

That is how Dr. Krishna Udayakumar – a Fuqua alum and current head of Global Innovation at Duke Medicine – began his talk at the CASE 10 Year Anniversary Celebration. He went on to describe the “iron triangle” in global health – the 3 pronged challenges of:

  1. access to care,
  2. quality, and
  3. affordability.

Continue reading →

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Toward an Open-Solution Society

Posted on February 14, 2013 by Erin Worsham

Professor Greg Dees gave this TED-style talk as part of CASE’s 10th anniversary celebration in December 2012.  To read more posts on CASE’s anniversary celebration, click here!

Why should we care about social entrepreneurship? Why does it matter?

According to CASE Founder Greg Dees, it is not just about making money while doing good. Nor is it just about helping nonprofits be more business-like.  “It’s a matter of survival” and we must create an open-solution society that uses all of its talents and assets to solve social problems in creative ways.

Dees’s premise is that we live in an adaptive society – one in which we must adjust and change over time in order to be successful.  And he believes that social entrepreneurs are critical to this concept.  They represent the many people on the ground finding creative, alternative ways to solve problems, creating new ventures, experimenting with new solutions and adapting to what works and what doesn’t.

But here’s the rub …  Continue reading →

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Seeking Clarity

Posted on February 11, 2013 by Erin Worsham

Rachel Lichte is a current student at Duke, pursuing her joint MBA/MEM (Master of Environmental Management) degree.  She gave this TED-style talk as part of CASE’s 10th anniversary celebration in December 2012.  To read more posts on CASE’s anniversary celebration, click here!

Next time I’m having one of those days where I need a little inspiration, this is the moment that I need to remember.

I’m sitting in Fuqua’s auditorium amongst a large crowd of socially minded MBA students and professionals, looking at a picture of MBA student Rachel Lichte dancing with elementary school students in Sierra Leone, and listening to her story about launching a social venture. She says:

“I came to Duke because of places like CASE. I wanted to learn about the environmental foundations upon which sustainable business can be built. I wanted to better understand how to bring social enterprise to scale.”

Continue reading →

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The CASE Top 10, a la David Letterman!

Posted on February 8, 2013 by Erin Worsham

10 years. Time sure does fly!

Our CASE team still cannot believe that it has been 10 years of social impact and innovation here at Duke! So many great memories and we really enjoyed celebrating them all at our 10 Year Anniversary Celebration this past December.

Over the next few days, we’ll be posting the videos from the TED-style talks here on the blog.  First up, we wanted to celebrate a few of the accomplishments of CASE and what better way than to hear Matt Nash run through his “Top 10″ David Letterman style (including embarrassing pictures of the CASE team!).

See video below for the full list including such accomplishments as…  Continue reading →

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