Design Thinking

Back in February I attended Stanford's Entrepreneurship Week - Structures for Social Enterprise: Panel and Showcase. Easily one of the best events that I attended this year.

Kjerstin Erickson, founder and Executive Director of FORGE was one of the panelists. That was the first time that I got to hear her speak - she's awesome. During the Showcase I got to talk with Bhalchander Vishwanath of United Prosperity, and Ashkay Kothari who was representing the Stanford course Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability.

Ashkay told me that he when he first visited Rwanda for the purpose of the course, he spent a lot of time listening to people. His Extreme group developed the Komera.

Ashkay introduced me to the concept of Design Thinking for Social Innovation. The Stanford Social Innovation Review published an interesting overview of the topic in the Winter 2010 issue of the magazine.

While further researching the topic I came across a free toolkit that IDEO created:

This process has been specially-adapted for organizations that work with communities of need in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Human-Centered Design (HCD) will help you hear the needs of constituents in new ways, create innovative solutions to meet these needs, and deliver solutions with financial
sustainability in mind.

I'm certainly not an expert on this, but this seems to be crucial stuff for anyone who aspires to effect change. My two cents:) For example, check out How can we empower women in Uganda's rural communities?, which appeared in the Guardian on May 5.

PS - I'm extremely Stanford-biased, but you might want to follow Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability, Stanford Center for Social Innovation, and Stanford Social Innovation Review on Facebook:)

The Life Investment. Would you Sell Yourself for Social Change? :: San Francisco, Wed March 3

photo: Kjerstin Erickson


I've signed up to attend this event tomorrow, Wednesday, March 3. I just saw Kjerstin Erickson speak on Sunday at the Stanford Entrepreneurship Week social entrepreneurship panel, but she did not talk about this - looking forward to hearing her speak again!


The organization that Kjerstin founded as a Stanford undergrad, FORGE (Facilitating Opportunities for Refugee Growth and Empowerment) is amazing. Read more about it here.


photo: Kjerstin


SOCAP10 and Hub Bay Area Present:

The Life Investment. Would you Sell Yourself for Social Change?

Wed March 3
6:30pm - 8:30pm
The Box SF - 1069 Howard Street, San Francisco, CA


Some Background:
From this Jan 12 Change.org blog post - A few months ago, one creative investor started to get excited about the idea of Investing in Superstars. Sometimes, he posited, you run across someone who seems so exceptional that whatever it is they're doing, you want to be a part of it. What if, he thought, instead of waiting till they have some clear specific venture, you enabled them with resources up front and allowed them to achieve their potential earlier? What long term value for the world would that create?

The strategy he came up with to make the financials work was to suggest a sort of "Life Investment" - a few hundred thousands dollars up front in exchange for some small portion (1-5%) of your income for ever, with a "buyout" option of a number of multiples of the original investment.

One of the first people to determine to ... make it real was Kjerstin Erickson, the founder of FORGE and Social Edge blogger. Kjerstin is offering 6% of her annual income for a $600,000 up front investment.


Panelists:
The Skeptic: Nathaniel Whittemore, Assetmap.org
Note: Nathaniel is the founding director of the Northwestern University Center for Global Engagement, which I blogged about here. I've also blogged about Nathaniel here.
The Young Entrepreneur: Kjerstin Erickson, FORGE (Facilitating Opportunities for Refugee Growth and Empowerment)
The Investor: Kevin Jones, Good Capital
The Seasoned Entrepreneur: Greg Steltenpohl, founder of Adina Holistics and Odwalla


Event Schedule:
6:30-7:15 Mixer and Contact Stations - Saul Garlick (Think Impact), Daniel Epstein and Teju Ravilochan (Unreasonable Institute), and Ashni Mohnot(Enzi) will have stations to discuss their perspectives on the Life Investment.

7:15-8:30 Main Discussion - Panelists will act as respondents to audience perspectives. Audience participation and debate will be highly encouraged. We're looking forward to a high-energy, thought-provoking conversation that will leave us all with new insights to the future of social funding.

RSVP here. Tickets are $11.24. When you visit the website to RSVP you can view a list of confirmed event attendees (including myself:)