Applied Social Entrepreurship

Course Objectives
Introduce students to the principles and practices of social entrepreneurship. Expose students to challenges they will face when they create a start-up and provide them with the necessary tools and training required to help them to develop their start-ups.

Course Description
This course reviews key concepts in entrepreneurship and applies them to address societal needs. Students approach their business plans from a “Fail Fast” perspective. Through a combination of methods, students learn to design robust and sustainable start-ups. Social entrepreneurship draws on many subjects and requires a multi-disciplinary approach, and a number of possible topics could be covered in class, emphasis will be placed on practical tools that can help the creation and setup of social start-ups.

Learning Methods
Class sessions combine lectures, interactive exercises, group presentations and discussions. The diversity of approaches seek to enhance students’ technical, decision-making, problem-solving, and practical skills. To achieve these goals in an effective way, it is important to engage in and prepare for discussion; participate actively during class discussions; and review readings and assignments for their applicability of concepts covered in class

Attendance
This is a participatory course and only half of the classes will be in-presence. We recommend class attendance to be at least 75% of in-presence classes.

Examination Information
Assignments: 50%
Final exam: 50%

Required Materials
Book: The Lean Startup. Eric Ries (2011)
Business Model Generation. A. Osterwalder & Y. Pigneur (2009)
The Startup Owners Manual. Steve Blank & Bob Dorf (2012)