Social Innovation Practicum: Designing New Interventions and Social Ventures

Social Innovation Practicum is an experiential learning course. Through the format of an interactive workshop, students will learn about the social sector by researching a problem or unmet need in society and then developing, testing, and refining a new idea or innovative approach that aims to address that problem. Our point of view will be that of the students as the designer of a new intervention and - presuming the intervention proves to be compelling and merits advancement - future founder(s) of a new social venture (nonprofit, for-profit or hybrid) or champion of a new intervention adopted by an existing social sector organization. We will explore in-depth the elements of successful interventions in the social sector that can achieve outsized impact. This will be achieved through lectures by the instructor on the topics at hand; discussion of illustrative case studies of many of today's award-winning impact models, and class-time in which students will be able to develop their ideas and benefit from guidance and feedback from the instructor, their classmates, and class guests. Students will work in teams as appropriate. Those students that have a pre-conceived idea for a new intervention will be encouraged to recruit others (from the GSB and/or from other disciplines across Stanford) to join their team. Any student who does not yet have an idea should contact the instructor to be paired with a team working on an area of interest to that student.