Course Overview
This course is designed for engineering students interested in starting a business venture that advances social and/or environmental good. The course provides students with as real a “social entrepreneurship” experience as is possible within a course setting – students will, independently or in groups, construct a Business Model for their entrepreneurial idea, and will pitch their model to a panel of Angel investors.
Most lectures will run workshop-style: industry experts (in social marketing, social finance, HR, law and other fields), along with real social entrepreneurs, will work one-on-one with students to help refine their business models in preparation for the investment pitch. Other lectures, along with course readings, will focus on understanding the field of social entrepreneurship, with a particular emphasis on topics relevant to engineering such as clean tech commercialization and the growing field of “impact investing”.
Course Objectives
Social entrepreneurship is attracting growing amounts of talent, money, and attention. But along with its increasing popularity has come wide diversity in understandings of what a social entrepreneur is and does. In this course, you will:
- Be exposed to the theory of social entrepreneurship: You will be introduced to best practices, successes and failures, opportunities and constraints in the field of social entrepreneurship
- Build a business model for your own social enterprise: Using tools and conceptual frameworks, you will have an opportunity to build an “investment quality” pitch deck and business plan for a new social venture
- Learn how to apply your engineering knowledge to advance social good: You will be given new perspectives on the opportunities for leveraging an engineering education to impact social and environmental change
Key Features:
- Diversity in Approaches – This course is designed to be an introduction to the varied models of social entrepreneurship that exist, and will give you an opportunity to apply these model(s) to the development of a social venture.
- Established Process, New Applications – While the course will acknowledge the challenges that all businesses must face, we will examine in detail the unique challenges and opportunities of applying a market-based, entrepreneurial approach to creating social value.
- Social & Financial Returns – We will explore the social capital markets and optimizing social and financial returns, and discuss issues related to measuring social impact.
- Many Perspectives – Integrated throughout the course will be examples from complementary perspectives, including the developed and developing world, for-profit and nonprofit sectors, and local and international.
- Guest Entrepreneurs – Where possible, we will bring in guest entrepreneurs who can speak to the course topics from their perspective.
- Focus on Start-up and Growth – Finally, while the course will touch on the entire life cycle of a social enterprise, there will be a particular focus on startup and early growth.
Pedagogy
We will use a variety of teaching methods to encourage intellectual understanding and a personal connection to the subject matter. Lecture sessions will be coupled with experiential techniques such as case studies, simulations, exercises, and group discussions. Guest speakers will also be a key component to student learning.
The “live case” method is one way that we make the lecture real. Instead of using a written case study, a real social entrepreneur will attend class, and will present a high level description of their business (mission, motivation, goals, etc). We then pose a series of questions to the students related to the entrepreneur’s venture. The guest speaker walks around to students (organized in groups), where the students ask probing questions to try to come up with a response.
Your active contribution in class is an important aspect of the course and will enhance our learning experience.
Course Texts
Required Course Texts
Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur. “Business Model Generation”, Self Published, 2009.
“The Canadian Social Enterprise Guide, Revised (Full PDF)” by Enterprising NonProfits. 2010: 2nd Edition. Full text available online as PDF.
Recommended Course Texts
Tom Rand, “Kick the Fossil Fuel Habit: 10 Clean Technologies to Save Our World”, Eco Ten Publishing, 2009.
David Bornstein and Susan Davis, “Social Entrepreneurship: What Everyone Needs to Know”, Oxford University Press, 2010.
IDEO, “Human Centered Design Toolkit”, http://www.ideo.com/work/human-centered-design-toolkit/
Course Instructors
Norm Tasevski
Email: norm@socialentrepreneurship.ca
Phone: 416.624.8349
Office Hours: By appointment (preferably via Skype or phone)
Karim Harji
Email: karim@socialentrepreneurship.ca
Phone: 647.302.4752
Office Hours: By appointment (preferably via Skype or phone)
Course Grading
Individual class participation (20%)
Participation grades will be based on the quality of participation during in-class discussions, in-class group exercises, and questions for guest speakers. Obviously, attendance in class is a prerequisite!
Evidence of participation outside of the classroom (e.g. posting on social entrepreneurship blogs, emailing the professors) may also be factored in.
Business Model and Investment Pitch (80%)
The focus of this assignment is for students to identify and design an engineering-focused solution to a pressing social/environmental problem. Students will develop an “investment quality” business model and investment pitch deck for a social venture, which will be presented to two panels – one with “social investors”, and the other with Angel investors.
The grading scheme for the assignment:
- Part 1: Discover, Interpret and Ideate on an engineering solution to a social problem (10%)
- Part 2: Model and assess the business potential of the idea (20%)
- Part 3: Identify and incorporate considerations (20%)
- Part 4: Complete business model and investment pitches (30%) (15% for social investor pitch, 15% for Angel investor pitch)
The details for the assignment (key deliverables, expectations and timelines for submission) will be provided in class 2.
Submitting Assignments
All assignments are due, in soft copy, at the start of the class (6:00pm) in which they are due. After 6:01pm, a late penalty will be assigned (10%/day). No hard copies will be accepted.
All assignments are to be submitted via email to aps1015h@socialentrepreneurship.ca
Group members and numbers will be assigned by the end of class 2. Please cc all group members when submitting an assignment.
For simplicity, please use the following format for the Subject line of the email: “APS1015H – Group (#) – Part (#)”