Premal

Thank you for your post, you really hit on the key elements of our university strategy.

Yes, institutionalizing our work is critical. For example The William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan, Stanford GSB, and Harvard Business School have all published or are in the process of publishing case studies on Acumen and our investments (Water Health International, 1298, Scojo, and Voxiva). This year we are pushing hard to increase the number of case studies written as well as working with professors to influence the curriculum at top business schools.

Your second point around connecting the eager and skilled talent with the needs of our investees is a good one but as you mentioned a real challenge. We are doing this on a small scale, currently we are managing with 3 student teams in New York, India, and Tanzania, but this is such a small piece of the puzzle.

As we move forward we working with some of our key partners to help us think through this issue. Stay tuned to our website as many ideas are brewing…

Like you say in this post, it’s important that universities integrate social enterpruenership in the core curriculum. Having said that it would be nice for prospective students to have access to information about which universities are providing this curriculum.

Secondly, I feel if some of the investment success stories from Acumen or other similar funds can be incoporated in the curriculum as case studies for students it would be a good learning experience.

Finally, if students can do internships with investee companies as a part of the curriculum it would give first hand experience to them. I do recognize that the investee companies don’t have enough resources to train or support these students so this is a problem that needs to be addressed.

Like you mention it’s good to see universities getting involved in making this a part of the curriculum. It would be great if prospective students can have access to information about unversities that specialize in social enterpreunership.

The other thing I feel would be great to see is if some of the investment success stories from Acumen and other funds can become case studies for students in the universities.

Finally, if there is a meaningful way to involve students in the investee companies like internships where they can learn first hand it would be good. I do recognize these companies don’t have the luxury of providing training and support to students as they would find in a traditional internships with larger organizations.

Thanks for the post.