In the Social Innovation Challenge, the Center for Peace and Commerce (CPC) promotes, guides, and supports student-driven ideas to launch or to contribute to existing social enterprises by for-profit, hybrid and nonprofit organizations, locally and abroad.  In order to pioneer workable solutions to existing world problems both undergraduate and graduate students are invited to apply their creativity, skills, and knowledge in management and peace building.  

The Social Innovation Challenge (SIC) is a bottom-up initiative in which the CPC acts as catalyst and mentor. It is a proactive endeavor that responds to students’ interests and call to action. With CPC support, students are responsible for developing working proposals for achieving the four Ps: People, Profit, Planet, and Peace. The experiential nature of the process will stimulate the connection between their creativity and the realities of implementation. They will be enmeshed in an organic learning/enterprising or learning/consulting process.

What are the goals of the SIC?

• To stimulate and recognize creative thinking and action for solving social problems through enterprise.
• To invest in sustainable change.
• To promote enterprise development for the quadruple bottom-line (people, planet, profit, and peace).

Types of projects:

Students will be invited to propose projects to develop and launch a new sustainable social venture.

Social Venture Creation

In many courses throughout USD students are developing venture ideas to tackle social and environmental issues (Entrepreneurship; Business & Society: Business Initiatives with the BOP; Peace through Commerce; Economic Development; Conflict Resolution, etc.).  There are several student groups such as Net Impact engaged in venture development and service projects. The Social Innovation Challenge will invite them all to take their ideas to the next level—implementation. Funds will be granted to selected projects.

Students will be asked to work with a mentor, who could be either faculty or a member of the CPC Executive Advisory Committee. See the mentorship page for more information.

One possibility is to connect the project to an existing course or to an independent study.