GSB Social Innovators : Center for Social Innovation (CSI)

They are inventing the future

Our community of students, alumni, faculty, and program participants is actively engaged in creating a more just, sustainable, and prosperous world.

Daniel Grossman

Daniel Grossman's Wild Planet creates toys that parents love as much as kids. His aim is to inspire learning and inventiveness.

Jake Harriman (MBA '08)

Jake Harriman starts seed projects in extremely stressed areas of the world. He works to help people lift themselves out of poverty in five years.

Eric Weaver (MBA '92)

Eric Weaver helps working people create assets. He wants to see everyone in the Bay Area achieve financial self-sufficiency.

Bruce McNamer (JD/MBA '96)

Bruce McNamer empowers entrepreneurs in rural areas around the world to become self-sufficient. He finds helping people to help themselves a noble calling.

More Innovators

News Makers

Alums Preserve Land in the Sierras

Mercury News - 10/27/2009

Jim and Becky Morgan of Los Altos Hills, both graduates of Stanford's GSB, are helping to preserve pristine land near Lake Tahoe by purchasing land, one acre at a time. The couple have delegated over $10 million for this in the coming years.

The Green VC Race

Business Week - 10/22/2009

The race for leadership in the emerging clean technology industry is officially on. Business Week profiles the scramble between Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, led by John Doerr, and Khosla Partners, led by Stanford alumnus Vinod Khosla (MBA '80), to fund the new Google of clean technology.

Stanford Leads the Way on Management Innovation

Forbes India - 10/15/2009

Stanford faculty and alumni have taken several places on a recent list of thought leaders in 2009. The Thinkers 50, published by Suntop Media, catalogs the most important management thinkers in the world. Stanford mentions include Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer, Lecturer Eric Schmidt, and alumni Tom Peters and Jim Collins (both MBA '72).

Novogratz Emphasizes Global Interconnectedness

The Philadelphia Inquirer - 10/08/2009

Jacqueline Novogratz recently spoke in Philadelphia, making a splash for her non-profit the Acumen Fund by emphasizing the interconnectedness of our world. Novogratz emphasized the importance of human dignity over wealth at the Globalislocal event. The Acumen Fund was established in 2001 as a non-profit "venture capital firm for the poor," transferring funds from foundations and benefactors to entrepreneurs combatting poverty in developing communities.

Khosla's Take On Green Technology

Rediff - 10/07/2009

In a recent interview with Rediff, Vinod Khosla (MBA '80) elaborates his perspective on future green technologies, the Obama administration, and the importance of clean technology in developing countries like India and China.

Recent Grad Fights Economic Disempowerment

The San Mateo Daily Journal - 10/06/2009

James Gutierrez (MBA ’05) is leading the war against economic disempowerment in California by working directly with local clients. He’s CEO of Progreso Financiero, a company that provides microloans to individuals who have traditionally struggled to break into the financial realm because they lack a FICO score. Gutierrez does this by engaging directly with the local Latino community, as borrowers are more likely to repay someone they have met than a traditional bank. Progreso Financiero was born out of a research project while he attended Stanford Business School; since then, it has offered over $20 million in loans to families, and expanded to 16 sales spots in Northern California.

New Ideas for A Better World

The White House Blog - 10/06/2009

Jacqueline Novogratz, Stanford Business School Alumnus and Founder of the Acumen Fund, was one of the speakers at an exciting new event called TED@State. Novogratz challenged government employees to think of a third type of aid, patient capital, that is a mix of traditional aid and the market, and the speech made TED@State is a new initiative that brings together the world changing ideas of TED (a small non-profit) and the foreign policy of the Department of State; read more in the White House Blog article featured.

Funding the Future

SUCCESS - 09/30/2009

Jacqueline Novogratz, MBA ’91 and founder of Acumen Fund, recently interviewed with SUCCESS Magazine, tracing the roots of her desire to change the world and her hopes for the future. Novogratz describes how she’s used her business backgroud to infuse social projects with new life; she comments that “much of the innovation we’ll see will come from private individuals using the tools and skills of business.” To learn the rest of the story, read the original article or check out Jacqueline’s book new book, The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World.

GSB Alum Takes the Lead on Wind Farms

Chattanooga Times Free Press - 09/25/2009

Peter de Vos (MBA ’81) joins a distinguished group of alumni working in alternative energy as the newly appointed chairman and CEO of the Tennessee Valley Infrastructure Group, a contractor for wind farm construction. Mr. de Vos brings years of financial experience to this field, most notably as head of US investment banking for RBC Capital Markets. He hopes his expertise will be of use for emerging developers looking for funding and advice. Mr. de Vos is excited about the future potential of wind energy given new federal support and tax credits, and predicts that “2010 and 2011 will be strong years for wind farm business.”

For Khosla, clean tech is all about scale

Grist - 09/23/2009

Khosla and his partners had been investing their own money, but earlier this month the firm announced it had raised $1.1 billion for two funds-one of which is the largest first-time fund in a decade. It was a rather staggering amount, given that clean-tech investing has plummeted from $4 billion in 2008 to $513 million so far this year, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers, as the "Great Recession" continues to take its toll. Putting money into the two Khosla funds was the nation's largest pension fund, the California Public Employees' Retirement System... It's not the size of Khosla's fund but what he intends to do with it that should command your attention. In short, he wants to take the green out of green investing and globalize the bottom line.

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