Social Ventures and Technology Disruptions

Frameworks and tools for understanding pressing societal problems and challenges anchor this course, along with how these challenges can be addressed through entrepreneurial ventures that often leverage technology to create impact at scale. Causes that affect society at large, such as education, health, agriculture, and climate, are unique in their complexity and need to be approached, analyzed, and tackled differently than conventional venture-building spaces. Students examine how social ventures are built, and why they succeed in creating impact at scale or not.

Through examples and case studies, students learn to deeply understand a social problem, identify the broader systemic drivers behind it, incorporate field and market research and stakeholder mapping into potential solutions, and develop and test pilots and methods for assessing both quantifiable and non-quantifiable outcomes.

This course introduces students to the principles of social entrepreneurship and technology-driven innovation for addressing complex societal challenges. Through frameworks, case studies, guest lectures, and a live team project, students explore how social ventures are designed, funded, scaled, and evaluated across sectors such as education, healthcare, financial inclusion, and climate. The course examines entrepreneurial models spanning for-profit enterprises, non-profit organisations, public-private partnerships, digital public goods, and government-led initiatives.

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

• Understand social entrepreneurship and distinguish it from conventional venture creation.
• Compare different models of social entrepreneurship, including for-profit, non-profit, government-led, public-private partnerships, and digital public goods.
• Apply frameworks and tools to design, fund, and scale technology-enabled social ventures.
• Develop an understanding of major social sectors such as education, healthcare, climate, and financial inclusion.
• Develop a viable business plan for a social venture addressing a significant societal challenge.

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Analyse societal challenges using structured frameworks.
• Evaluate existing solutions and develop technology-enabled approaches to address complex social problems.
• Apply stakeholder mapping, field research, and systems thinking to social venture design.
• Develop a refined solution concept and a preliminary business plan for a social enterprise.

• Social Entrepreneurship: What Everyone Needs to Know – David Bornstein and Susan Davis.
• Venture Meets Mission: Aligning People, Purpose, and Profit to Innovate and Transform Society – Arun Gupta, Gerard George, and Thomas J. Fewer.
• Building Social Business – Muhammad Yunus.
• Lofty Missions, Down-to-Earth Plans – V. Kasturi Rangan.
• Are You Solving the Right Problem? – Dwayne Spradlin.
• Reaching the World's Poorest Consumers – Muhammad Yunus, Frédéric Dalsace, David Menascé, and Bénédicte Faivre-Tavignot.
• Audacious Philanthropy: Lessons from 15 World-Changing Initiatives – Susan Wolf Ditkoff and Abe Grindle.

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Weekly Plan