Lectures

Class 1 – Definitions and Motivations for Social Entrepreneurship

This introductory class provides an overview of social enterprise and social entrepreneurship, the motivations for wanting to be a social entrepreneur, and some of the key tensions that social entrepreneurs encounter.

Class 2: Identifying Key Issues in Social Entrepreneurship

This class focuses on providing an overview of some of the most pressing social and environmental issues of our time, and explores a few innovative approaches that entrepreneurs have taken to respond to these issues.

Students will use this class as inspiration for starting on their major group assignment.

Class 3 – Design Thinking Part 1

This lecture focuses on providing an overview of the design thinking process. Students will apply this concept to building a business model around their entrepreneurial idea.

Class 5 – Business Modelling and Assessing Business Potential for Social Enterprise

This lecture focuses on providing an overview of the business modeling process. Students will apply this concept to building a business model around their entrepreneurial idea.

Students will be exposed to methods for evaluating the “business potential” of their entrepreneurial idea, and evaluate some of the challenges associated with synthesizing market data and applying this data to business decisions.

Class 6: Financial Modelling

The class will use data from a real social enterprise and using Microsoft Excel to develop a basic costing analysis, and will also focus on identifying key financial considerations unique to social enterprise.

Class 7: Operational Considerations

This class will cover some of the key considerations social entrepreneurs face when launching and growing their social enterprise.

Emphasis will be placed on operational, human, legal and marketing considerations.

Class 8: Managing for Social Impact

Students will learn about some of the key management challenges involved in running a social enterprise. Concepts to be covered include goal-setting and target-setting, identifying and measuring key metrics (both financial and social) and leading and inspiring a team

Class 10: Design Thinking – Part 2

Students will focus on the remaining two stages of Design Thinking, refining their social enterprise idea based on lecture content and research acquired to date.