HENT-212: Designing Social Enterprise

A social enterprise can be defined as a business (for-profit or non-profit) that dedicates the majority of its focus toward solving a social or environmental problem. In this hands-on course, students will engage with a suite of design strategy tools that will allow them to invent their own social enterprise and/or consult organizations on the development of new products and services that can benefit humanity. The course is a deep primer on the establishment and management of social enterprises, covering topics including the mechanics of social enterprise, business model design, service/product design for social impact, community engagement, and close examinations of various examples. Through the course, students will research the history of prominent business models in the impact space (sharing economy, one-for-one, give-half, micro-lending, etc.), create an intervention and prototype that tests a new model of impact, and design a unique business plan and pitch that will enable the long-term vision for their own enterprise to flourish. The course will also include guest speakers and critics from the social enterprise field, and students will gain context and awareness around the discipline of social entrepreneurship as well as a series of key methodologies that will allow them to be prepared to design a unique social enterprise including: Trends Analysis, Design Futures, Product Development, Service Design, Business Modeling, Public Speaking.