Center for Social Innovation

Upcoming

Responsible Supply Chains Conference

Featuring all new speakers and topics, this one-day event will bring together corporate and nonprofit leaders, policymakers, and academics to examine strategies companies can utilize to take supply chain responsibility to the next level. (Conference Date to Be Announced)

Past Conferences and Speakers

The Science of Getting People to Do Good

What can research tell us about how to inspire people to do the right thing? This exclusive one-day briefing will share simple, practical, and cost-effective solutions for encouraging social activism and other responsible, caring, and prosocial behaviors. Using common societal examples including nutrition, voter turnout, bullying prevention, and recycling behavior, we'll examine what motivates society and what influences individual choices. (March 2012)

Conradin von Gugelberg Memorial Lecture on the Environment

Eric Schlosser is the author of New York Times bestseller "Fast Food Nation" and a co-producer of the documentary FOOD INC. Considered a leading authority on the impacts of industrialized agriculture, Mr. Schlosser will speak on the intersection of food, agriculture and the environment as the 2012 Conradin Von Gugelberg Memorial Lecturer on the Environment. (March 2012)

Social Entrepreneur Structure Lab

The Social Entrepreneur Structure Lab helps budding social entrepreneurs build their ventures from the mission up. The workshop will cover the various legal structures at their disposal and the pros and cons of each option. We will also explore asset management, financing, governance and more. The workshop will prepare participants to consider unexpected challenges and opportunities, while safeguarding their mission and vision for their venture. (February 2012)

USRIO+ 2.0: Bridging Connection Technologies and Sustainable Development

The Stanford Graduate School of Business is joining with the U.S State Department to sponsor USRIO+ 2.0: Bridging Connection Technologies and Sustainable Development, an international development conference focused on how social media and mobile networks are helping to improve lives in the developing world. This will be the premier U.S. Government event in the run-up to the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20).(February 2012)

In Conversation with Bill Drayton

Professor Bill Meehan hosted a "fire-side chat" with Ashoka CEO, Founder, and MacArthur Fellow, Bill Drayton. Drayton shared his vision that everyone can be a Changemaker, and explained Ashoka’s approach to supporting social entrepreneurs, group entrepreneurship, and the infrastructure to allow this sector to thrive. (November 2011)

Rupert Scofield, The Social Entrepreneur’s Handbook

Co-Founder and President of FINCA International, Scofield has been a social entrepreneur for 40 years. Scofield examined the challenges of running a social enterprise, and shared personal success stories and advice on what not to do — lessons he learned the hard way. (November 2011)

Patagonia Founder Yvon Chouinard, The Responsible Company

Patagonia founder and author of Let My People Go Surfing, Yvon Chouinard discussed how to lighten your social and environmental footprint and help make economic life more socially just and environmentally responsible. Chouinard addressed elements of business responsibility for our time, how to our gifts of moral capacity and adaptive ingenuity to take stock of what we do, how to do less harm to the natural world and each other, and how to create healthier businesses in every sense. (November 2011)

A 40-Year-Strong Community: Anniversary Celebration

More than 500 alumni were in attendance as the Center for Social Innovation and its Public Management Program celebrated forty years of educating leaders with an anniversary event that honored the societal contributions of Stanford GSB alumni, students, and faculty. (October 2011)

TEDx Silicon Valley

TEDx Silicon Valley gathered some of the Bay Area's leading thinkers and doers at Stanford's new Knight Management Center to discuss social innovation and explore the emerging concept of Living by Numbers. Attendees learned new things people can measure (and never thought could be measured) and discovered the power of crowd sourcing and the collective power of small coordinated actions. (May 2011)

Avoiding the Slippery Slope: Leadership Lessons from Inside the Oil Spill

Keynoting the annual Conradin von Gugelberg Memorial Lecture on the Environment, Dr. Marcia McNutt, Director of the United States Geological Survey and Science Adviser to the U.S. Secretary of the Interior, spoke to a business school audience about her role heading the Flow Rate Technical Group, which attempted to measure the historic Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. (February 2011)

The Federal Budget and an Innovative Economy

The Public Management Initiative at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, in partnership with the Washington DC-based Committee for Economic Development, hosted a dinner forum on the federal budget deficit and its potential impact on innovation. Speakers and panelists included seasoned Silicon Valley executives and entrepreneurs, United States policymakers, and leading macroeconomists. (January 2011)

At the Forefront of Nonprofit Transformation: An Evening with Leading CEOs

This special event welcomed chief executive officers and executive directors of leading nonprofits to share their visions for the future of nonprofit management. Panelists included Peter Goldberg of Alliance for Children and Families, Cathy Tisdale of CampFire USA, Jim Gibbons of Goodwill Industries International, Father Larry Snyder of Catholic Charities, and Dr. David Shern of Mental Health America. This event was sponsored by our Public Management Program. (January 2011)