Center for Social Innovation

Samasource connects people in poverty to work via the internet.  (See my previous post for more details!)  They partner with computer ICT delivery centers that are already in operation, which provide the day-to-day management of Samasource workers.  During this summer, I have been working on updating the terms under which Samasource establishes these partnerships.  And this week I flew to Nairobi to wrap up my project with conversations with each delivery center in Kenya.

Summer flies incredibly fast, especially when you are really enjoying it. My summer internship at Ignia (Impact Investing Venture Capital in Mexico) proved to be a great experience both personally and professionally.

First, I would like to share a few personal and general takeaways from working in both Impact Investing and Venture Capital in Mexico.

For those of you who did not read my previous blog post, I recommend it because of the context it provides. Read it here: http://csi.gsb.stanford.edu/promoting-citizenship-in-monterrey-mexico

I cannot imagine a more exciting time to be in healthcare.  With the Supreme Court upholding the Affordable Care Act this past June, the healthcare world has been fundamentally transformed – and hopefully for the better.  

This is my second blog entry as I near the end of my ten weeks at Lighthouse Community Charter School in Oakland. I am musing on the two topics of how schools are funded in California and what role one can play in education reform without a teaching background.

This will be the first of two blog posts about my summer at the Treasury.  This first entry will give you a flavor about the office in which I spent my summer.  In the next post, I will provide you with more salient details about my life working in this institution. 

Impact investing offers an alluring vision of an industry in which intelligent investment decisions will yield not only profits, but also significant social and environmental benefits. Although I love the attention that impact investing has drawn to the social sector, I have often wondered to what extent it can deliver on this promise. After all, who doesn't want to make the world a better place and earn a decent salary doing it? If it were so easy, wouldn't someone have figured it out before now? What sorts of trade-offs are inevitable in such work?

Social Innovation Financing represents a major shift in the way the government seeks to fund certain social services. This summer, I am working with Third Sector Capital Partners to advance the first handful of these initiatives in the United States.  

"I didn’t start out trying to create a company.  It was a means to an end.  The goal was to reduce energy consumption in the U.S."

This paraphrase of Opower’s senior leadership underscores how mission-driven Opower, a four-year-old start-up is. 

Everywhere you turn in its expansive Arlington, Virginia, headquarters, among scooter-riding engineers, ping-pong tables and “work couches,” the mission is reinforced: “Be double bottom line.”…“Give everyone, everywhere, the information … to save energy.”  This young company’s mission is to reduce the carbon intensity of the U.S. and in the process save the environment, and Opower accomplishes this in a market driven, results-oriented manner.

I have only been in Kampala, Uganda for one week now, but I have already been impressed with how amazing this city is. My first day in Kampala I went to Lake Victoria and took a boat ride around the lake where I saw a sampling of Uganda's more than 1,000 bird species. The people here are also so friendly ... more friendly than any other country I have ever been to. My taxi driver from the airport couldn't stop smiling and laughing during our 30-minute drive to my hotel and the host at the house party that I went to my first night in Kampala was very generous and kind.