Coaching Social Innovators

At nearly any campus with a business school, there are clubs for marketing, finance, entrepreneurship, and a host of other business related topics. However, clubs for social innovation or entrepreneurship seem to be few and far between. This article explains to importance for social innovators and entrepreneurs to have a support system or a coach in order to create a better product or a bigger impact for their cause. Granted, social innovation and entrepreneurship are newer topics themselves, which contributes to the lack of support for social innovators in school. One video we watched in class mentioned a support ground from a university in England (I believe it was at Oxford) and at CMU we have our own organization dedicated to helping individuals bring about social change. However, it seems as though these organization have been focused towards graduate students rather than undergraduates, and they seemed to be clustered around business schools. This is one pitfall in the creation of these groups already - certainly these innovations can come from engineers and other disciplines at many levels. At graduation on campus last year, Dr. Cohen announced a new fund for budding entrepreneurs at CMU. Although this money can be directed to a larger groups of individuals with innovative ideas, it still seems as though it is focused on the entrepreneurial venture itself, and not the social change it could potentially bring about.

If we want to bring about more social innovation that can be much more effective, these coaching and support techniques discussed in the article should be expanded and more accessible for more students who may otherwise not have the experience or knowledge to make a change with their idea.