Feature Story

August 9, 2007

Social Entrepreneurs From Around the World, Across the Country Come to Santa Clara University to Learn How to Grow Their Businesses

From Santa Clara University:

What might a technology marketing guru like Regis McKenna have to say to the manufacturer of a rope-water-pump device designed for low-income Cambodian villagers?

An incubator project at Santa Clara University brings social entrepreneurs and innovators from around the world and the U.S. to meet and work with Silicon Valley technologists, executives, and social venture investors to participate in a two-week incubator program.

Sponsored by the Center for Science, Technology, and Society and the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University, the Global Social Benefit Incubator (GSBI) supports the work of innovators who have demonstrated proof of concept in applying technology and promising new business models to address human needs through out the world.

Some examples of participants of the program are: The Freeplay Foundation from South Africa that designs and distributes wind-up and solar powered radios that provide life-saving information for some of the poorest people in Africa; Equal Access, a San Francisco non-profit that brings educational radio programming via satellite to remote villages in Nepal; Ideas at Work, a Cambodian non-profit that manufactures, sells, and leases a rope water pump device designed for household water collection by low-income Cambodian villagers; Nishant Bioenergy, a company from India that designed a low-cost, smoke-free cooking stove.

Geoffrey Bowker, Executive Director for the Center for Science Technology and Society at Santa Clara University said: "This event underscores the Center's role, serving as a bridge connecting Silicon Valley's resources with social benefit entrepreneurs to advance their promising technology innovations in service to humanity."

Read more from this post.