Center for Social Innovation

Water is used in the production of nearly every product in the global economy. It is a primary ingredient in the food and beverage industry. It is used for cleaning, rinsing, and cooling in industrial processes and power generation. It serves as a conduit for waste and the transport of goods. In its natural form, it impacts real estate prices, commercial fishing operations, and the recreational sector. In so many ways, water impacts and is impacted upon by business.

It is hard to believe that my time with BBOXX is already drawing to a close.

Now that I am feeling knowledgeable enough about special education to hold a decent conversation with special educators and comfortable enough to cold-call a school district assistant superintendent and persuade her to let me show her our product via a webinar, the summer is over.  It has been truly amazing!

As part of my ongoing assignment to help Opower take its energy efficiency model abroad, I am researching the habits of energy consumption in foreign countries to determine how Opower can best use its energy conservation advice. It is fascinating to learn cultural distinctions.  For instance, in Norway, citizens associate lights with more than luminescence...

A blog post by Katie Plichta, JD/MBA, Class of 2013

When I first heard David Sowerwine (Stanford MBA '72) describe a new education technology his organization, VillageTech Solutions, is developing for rural Nepal, hundreds of critical questions ran through my mind. Why introduce a computer-based technology in a country where electricity and internet access are so scarce? And don't these schools need textbooks before they can introduce technology into the classroom? Given David's twenty years of experience in Nepal, however, I gave the idea the benefit of the doubt. I'm glad I did, because I quickly came to see the elegance in the new VillageTech Solutions (VTS) project. Read More

A conversation with Ashley Boren, MBA '89 and executive director of the nonprofit organization Sustainable Conservation. Having been in the trenches since 1997, she knows what it takes to create “shared value” in the form of cross-sector partnerships to solve environmental problems and reveals the lessons she has learned.

The mission of college athletics is simple: to educate student-athletes (varsity and rec) and to create a supportive community around the university. Schools often approach this mission in differing ways and critics often claim that this mission is far from met. The truth is that athletics departments can and should do a better job of ensuring that athletes are getting the education they deserve and that the community built around the university is founded on transparent, ethical actions.

This is the first of two blog posts about my experience working in Acumen Fund's East Africa office. ~Nena Sanderson

I have admired Acumen Fund for years, since I first readThe Blue Sweater by Jacqueline Novogratz, GSB '91 and Acumen's founder and CEO.   I have also been dying to return to East Africa after working in Rwanda before  business school. When I got the chance to join Acumen as an intern in Nairobi, I couldn't have been more excited.