Fellow Net Impact Club Members,

Some sweet and to the point info for you!

1. Town Hall Meeting: This Wednesday, 6-7pm!
   
   All Net Impact Club members and friends are invited to our first town hall meeting of the year. This is an opportunity for cabinet members to update the entire club on what is happening. It is also a chance for club members to ask questions, give feedback, and hold the club leadership accountable for how the club is progressing.   PLUS - we will unveil the final desifn for your Net Impact Hooded sweatshirt!
   
   
2. ACTION REQUIRED!  Order your Net Impact zip-up fleece hooded sweatshirt today! 
   

   The unveiling of our amazing design will occur at Wednesday's Town Hall meeting.  This is going to be a hot item,so don't miss it!  Please take a moment to fill in your name and the size you want into the Google document at this link ASAP!    Please respond so you can have have the sweatshirts ordered and ready for you to take to the Net Impact Conference in November.
   
   

3. Net Impact Conference... Just 4 weeks away.
   
   Don't forget to sign up for the Net Impact Conference at Cornell University from November 13-14, and submit your resume! See below for more informationabout how to sign up today.

Thank you and have a great week!

To view our last newsletter, from October 5th, please click here.

Net Impact Club Fall 1 Town Hall Meeting – Wednesday, October 14th, 6-7pm

When: Tuesday, Oct. 13, 4:00-5:00pm
Where: Seminar B
Who: Targeted for FYs, but SYs are welcome.

Contact person: Teddy Salgado

Details: Have your resume reviewed by a Career Fellow who knows about Net Impact-related careers. Get their insight about how you can tailor your resume to most effectively target social sector, sustainability, etc. organizations. We have a few CF's on hand. This is in place of the normal Job Search Team and is open to ALL First Years. Bring your resume and your laptop to edit!

When: October 14, 2009, 12PM – 7:30PM

Where: TBA

RSVP: Brianna Dieter

Greetings from Infosys! We would like to invite you to learn about internship opportunities with Infosys, a company delivering technology-led business solutions in a flattening world (www.infosys.com). Kindly share this with other members of Net Impact Club who would also benefit from this opportunity.

InStep is Infosys’ flagship global internship program which engages best-in-class talent from leading global academic institutions. The program draws students from business, technology and liberal arts backgrounds to work on high-impact projects involving strategy and cutting-edge research. At InStep, we prepare you for a successful career in a flat world. We cordially invite you to join us and learn more about internship opportunities at Infosys

When:  Wednesday, October 14, 5:00pm-6:00pm
Where: The Fuqua School of Business,Classroom G

Visiting Lecturer: Jay S. Golden

• Assistant Professor, School of Sustainability, Arizona State University
• Co-Director, The Sustainability Consortium

Details: Jay S. Golden was recently named a 2009 Aspen Institute Faculty Pioneer for his leadership in developing curriculum that fosters multidisciplinary approaches to sustainability challenges. An assistant professor in the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University, he teaches courses on climate change adaptation and sustainable urban energy, and directs the National Center of Excellence on SMART (Sustainable Materials & Renewable Technologies) Innovations.

Dr. Golden co-founded and co-directs the Sustainability Consortium, a partnership of researchers from leading universities, non-government organizations (NGOs), governmental agencies, and business partners that is working to develop the best system science and empirical tools for governments and businesses to adopt a unified and transparent sustainability index. This sustainability index is being implemented into supply chain decision-making by global retailers including Walmart.

More about Jay Golden: http://www.sustainable-tech.com/.

Fall 2009: Global Climate Change: Challenges and Options in North Carolina and Beyond

Join us for four evenings of lectures by eminent UNC-Chapel Hill scholars who will address global climate change and its impact closer to home. The University is actively engaged in many facets of this topic and many researchers are contributing to options and solutions to the challenges we face.

Public Policy and Planning for Climate Change
When:Thursday, October 15, 7–9 pm.

Course #2624

Richard “Pete” Andrews, Professor of Public Policy and of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, UNC-Chapel Hill
Climate change poses major challenges and policy choices both for America and North Carolina. One such challenge is in determining what North Carolina can do—and what makes sense for us to do—to mitigate the rapid pace of global warming. How can we reduce carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions before they do even more damage than is already inevitable? Another challenge is in determining how North Carolina can best adapt to the global warming that has already occurred and to its consequences, such as sea level rise, droughts, storms, and more. How can we make wise decisions to create a sustainable and productive economy in the context of these trends? A third challenge is deciding what policy changes are needed. North Carolina has already taken some initial policy initiatives, but what further steps are needed, and how will these work as the federal government now begins to create national policies to address these issues? How will these policies affect other important aspects of North Carolinians’ lives—businesses, households, local governments, and particularly people of modest income struggling with the effects of the present economic recession? How can effective climate policies be designed to serve these other needs as well?

Climate Change and the Carolina Coast
When: Thursday, October 29, 7–9 pm.

Course #2625

Brent A. McKee, Mary and Watts Hill Jr. Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Marine Sciences, UNC-Chapel Hill, North Carolina has one of the most vulnerable coastal zones in the United States in terms of projected climate change impacts. Projected acceleration in the rate of sea level rise and predictions of an increased intensity of Atlantic tropical storms could result in an unprecedented loss of coastal environments and ecosystems. However, our understanding of how coastal wetlands, estuaries, and river systems will respond to these climate changes is very poor, and those responses are not incorporated into current models of coastal change. We will discuss what some exciting new research tells us about what we can expect over the next century in coastal North Carolina.

The Energy Landscape: Options for the Future
When: Thursday, November 5, 7–9 pm.

Course #2626

John Papanikolas, Associate Professor of Chemistry and Deputy Director of the UNC Energy Frontier Research Center
Energy is at the heart of our economic well-being. But limited oil and gas supplies and the impacts of global warming caused by fossil fuels are leading to increasing uncertainty about our energy future. In this presentation, we will explore this important global issue. We will discuss emerging and future technologies that could increase sustainability and efficient use of existing energy supplies. We will also explore the impact of our continued dependence on fossil fuels; control of carbon emissions; an energy future based on nuclear energy, hydrogen, biomass, and solar; and how we can reach that future.

Details: http://www.fridaycenter.unc.edu/pdep/wbi/index.htm

1. Entrepreneurship Coach at the See Saw Studio (http://www.seesawstudio.org)

When: October 2009 - May 2010

Date & Time: Every Tuesday, 4:30pm - 6:00pm

Details:  Good Work provides weekly entrepreneurship training to students at the See Saw Studio. See Saw is an art and design program for youth ages 12-18. Students learn the fundamentals behind developing their art, fashion, and other design products/services into a viable business. The program meets every Tuesday from 4:30pm to 6pm and runs from October 2009 until May 2010.

Here are some ways to serve:

• Preparing and facilitating 2 one-hour lessons covering one of the following areas:
  1. Networking and public presentation (elevator speech)
  2. Business identity (name, logo, tagline, and blurb)
  3. Product design and service delivery
  4. Marketing and promotion
  5. Product placement, merchandising and packaging
  6. Customer service
  7. Financial literacy (personal money management)
  8. Pricing and bookkeeping
• Coordinating field trips to local businesses and arranging local entrepreneurs to speak to the youth
• Coaching students on creating a business plan for their company
• Help develop a web-based store where youth can sell their products and services
• Help develop relationships with local retail stores where students can sell their products and services

2. Financial Literacy Coach at the Durham Performance Learning Center (http://dplc.dpsnc.net/)

When: Januarary - March, 2010

Date & Time: Thursdays, 2:00 - 3:00pm

Details:  Good Work will provide a 10-week personal money management program for high school students at the Performance Learning Center. This program will meet on Thursdays from 2pm to 3pm and will run from January to March 2010. You can serve by facilitating the curriculum.

Who: Socially Responsible Entrepreneurs

Next deadline: December 4, 2009

Presented by: The William James Foundation

The William James Foundation will match hundreds of sustainable entrepreneurs with reading judges who

will provide detailed feedback, and provide more than $100,000 in cash and in-kind to the top entrants.

Details:  The William James Foundation supports entrepreneurs who are starting for-profit businesses with defined social and/or environmental goals. We can best help entrepreneurs who are passionate about their expertise (e.g. renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, moving people out of poverty, etc.) but are new to starting their own for-profit business. These entrepreneurs come from all over the world, and range from teenagers starting a community business to PhDs with multi-million dollar ideas for renewable energy.

We provide this help through a Socially Responsible Business Plan Competition. Entrants start by submitting a short executive summary (no more than five pages) by December 4th, 2009. Almost all entrants will receive an average of ten pages of constructive feedback per plan per round. This feedback comes from our pool of hundreds of experts from the worlds of finance, academia, in-the-field practice, and other entrepreneurs. This is an excellent opportunity for entrepreneurs to learn from those who have successfully combined their passion for a better world with the rigor of financial sustainability. The top entrants will also have a shot at dozens of prizes that are together worth more than $100,000. Please visit www.williamjamesfoundation.org/criteria to see who can enter and how to do so.

Full details on the competition can be found at www.williamjamesfoundation.org. A short handout covering criteria, entering, and prizes is at www.williamjamesfoundation.org/entrant.doc.

See a list of more than 40 similar competitions at www.williamjamesfoundation.org/competitions.

When: Wednesday, October 14th, from 8:30am – 1pm

Where: The Fuqua School of Business, HCA Auditorium

More Info : Please join us for the 2009 Fuqua Energy Symposium on Wednesday, October 14th, from 8:30am – 1pm.  We have a strong line-up of panelists from the likes of GE, Barclay’s, Scott Madden Consulting, Duke Energy, and John Deere Renewables, among others.  The panelists will be addressing the current energy & environment issues and policies impacting decision-makers across a wide variety of industries.  As a student, an understanding of these issues can be a strong differentiator when searching for a job. 

Please see below for full line-up and use the link to RSVP (lunch will be provided).  We hope to see you there!

RSVP Here:  http://qtrial.qualtrics.com/SE?SID=SV_51tzFyvx10ZnqXq&SVID=Prod

*UPDATED*  CASE Brownbag: Education Entrepreneurship with NC STEM

When: Thursday, October 15, 12:30-1:30pm
Where: The Fuqua School of Business – Room TBA
Audience: All Duke Students

More Information: What happens when you apply entrepreneurial business practices to catalyze disruptive innovation in an education system that is business evolution cycles behind the economy? The answer is business, policy, education and local community leaders deeply engaged and empowered to impact not only their local economy, but one of the US's greatest challenges.

Bring your lunch and come learn how the NC STEM Community Collaborative, a partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, MCNC, and a network of communities, is breaking new ground in education innovation using science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) processes, entrepreneurial business practices, and network dynamics theory to change the way we educate our children for the world they live and work in, not just the one we came from. Karl Rectanus, NC STEM’s leader, will join us for an informal discussion about NC STEM and the challenges of education entrepreneurship. Karl has been a teacher, administrator, improv comic and technology executive, growing a Software-as-a-Service company from $0 to $10mm in annual revenue with 75% annualized organic growth, and uses all of those experiences to lead the innovative non-profit, NC STEM Community Collaborative, housed at MCNC in RTP. Please consider joining this dialogue on the value, impact, and overlap of business skills on this work, as well as a mentored study opportunity offered by NC STEM this year.

NOTE: if you need to come late/leave early to accommodate class schedules, we understand.

Contact: Ruth Tolman, rt10@duke.edu

When: Interview on November 13 during the Net Impact Conference

Deadline: Application due October 15, 2009

The Environmental Defense Fund and Net Impact are expanding the Climate Corps program with a goal of placing 50 fellows in host companies next summer to develop an economic rationale for energy efficiency. The Climate Corps fellowship is ideal for students who have completed their first year of an MBA or graduate program, and have an interest in environmental science, consulting, financial analysis, engineering, and climate change.

You can learn more at www.edf.org/climatecorps and read about the program in a recent BusinessWeek article.

Candidates who submit their applications by October 15th may be invited to interview on November 13th at the Net Impact Expo, the premier networking event of the Net Impact Conference.

READ ADDITIONAL DETAILS IN OVERVIEW ATTACHED TO THIS EMAIL .

*UPDATED LOCATION* Career Workshop: Job Search Teams for Social Sector Careers

When:  Every Tuesday, 4:00-5:00pm
Where: The Fuqua School of Business, Seminar Room B

    OR

When: Every Thursday, 4:00-5:00pm

Where: The Fuqua School of Business, Seminar Room C

Audience: Fuqua MBA Daytime Students

Details:  Are you considering a career in the social sector? Come learn about the social sector, the social sector job search process, and the resources available within Net Impact, the Career Management Center, and CASE to support your internship search. This workshop is for students who are new to the social sector and is being held as part of the Net Impact Club Job Search Teams. Come find out if a career in the social sector is a fit for you. The workshop will be offered two separate times by Matt Nash (Managing Director, CASE). Both sessions will present the same information. This is designed for FY students, but open to any MBA students.

Job Search Teams meet weekly starting in the fall to provide students interested in social sector and "non-traditional" careers with tools, education, and a network of support. Participants share their career aspirations and internship search strategies, build on- and off-campus networks, receive tactical support including mock interviews, and offer support and structure to what is often a hectic first-year. We offer two times each week - just pick the one that fits your schedule.

If you have any questions regarding JST, please contact Sophie Messer or Teddy Salgado.

Weekly Sustainability Roundtable

When:  Wednesdays, 9:00am-10:00am

Where:  The Fuqua School of Business, Fox Center

Audience: Fuqua MBA Daytime Students

Details:  Join Katie Kross for coffee and a discussion about your sustainability job search or other sustainability questions. Anyone who is interested can drop by. We’ll have a table reserved in the Fox Center on Wednesday mornings between 9:00am-10:00am. Katie is Associate Director of the Corporate Sustainability Initiative at Duke and author of Profession and Purpose: A Resource Guide for MBA Careers in Sustainability.

Fall Term 1 Dates: Sept. 16, Sept. 23, Sept. 30, Oct. 7 and Oct. 14

When: Friday, October 23rd 11:00am-5:00pm

Where: Kenan-Flagler Business School, McColl

Details:  The Net Impact Club of UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School is proud to host its Eighth Annual Careers in Sustainability Forum on Friday, October 23rd in McColl. Business professionals in various sustainability fields will share their experiences in renewable energy, entrepreneurship, venture capital/socially responsibility investing, consulting, corporate social responsibility, green building, and more. Attendance is free! Here are some examples of panelists that spoke at past Forums: Advanced Energy, Duke Energy, Centex Homes, The Body Shop, IBM, Home Depot, Burt’s Bees, Novozymes, Smithfield Foods, and Wachovia. Details on the registration and panelists will follow soon. For now, save the date! Please forward this invitation to individuals or groups who you think would be interested in attending.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact UNC Kenan-Flagler Net Impact VP of Careers, Mark Hilpert at mark_hilpert@unc.edu.

Stone Circles is a 15 year-old nonprofit organization that works to sustain activists and strengthen the work for social justice through spiritual practice and a sustainable relationship with the land. stone circles was founded and is directed by Claudia Horwitz, an Echoing Green and Rockefeller Foundation Next Generation Leadership Fellow, and author of The Spiritual Activist: Practices to Transform Your Life, Your Work and Your World (PenguinCompass 2002). Two years ago stone circles created The Stone House, a retreat center, training ground and farm on 70 acres of land in Mebane, NC. Stone circles uses the House to run our their programs, rents the space to social change organizations, hosts educational workshops and youth programs on the land, grows a lot of their own food, and engages in national field-building. The budget ($560K) is based on a revenue model of foundation grants (general operating and program support), a strong individual donor program and earned revenue.

Stone circles is at an exciting point with two problems to solve:

(1) A long-term financing strategy that integrates capital, endowment, scholarship and maintenance funds
(2) Scaling up our earned revenue (facility rental, product development and more)

They are looking for MBA students interested in helping find solutions to these challenges. This can be a mentored study, or a volunteer engagement, depending on student preferences.

Contact: Ruth Tolman, CASE if interested (ruth.tolman@duke.edu)

The North Carolina STEM Community Collaborative, funded through generous support of MCNC, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and community partners, recognizes that community collaboration is the lever to ensure sustainable innovation in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education. It builds the capacity of local communities to create innovative and sustainable educational programs that are characterized by individualization, quality and scalability. STEM feels that we must prepare our children for the world they live in, not the one they came from. NC STEM is a new organization, incubated in 2008, bringing entrepreneurial approaches (in a non-profit setting) to education innovation in NC to ensure equitable, sustainable innovation. A large part of this work is in communications, helping build understanding of and demand for education innovation.

NC STEM is looking for 1-2 MBA Interns/Mentored Study Candidates to help drive the communications, including social media, PR, advocacy, and messaging. In this role, candidates will have great opportunity to engage on a critical challenge, impact many parts of a start-up environment, get visibility to leadership in every private & public sectors, and make a difference in education of all children.

Contact: Karl Rectanus, Leader (karl@ncstem.org, 919-248-1107) and/or Stacey Yasses (syasses@mcnc.org)

If you are registered for the Net Impact Conference in Ithaca, don’t forget to submit your resume to resumes@netimpact.org by Monday, October 12. This will ensure that your information is included in the resume book that is sent in advance to participating companies. You may even get contacted by an exhibitor regarding networking events or workshops.

Register Now!

Still trying to decide whether or not to attend?

The conference will provide excellent opportunities for networking and career exploration. In addition to some of the leading nonprofits and sustainability-oriented businesses , some more traditional companies will be exhibiting, including:

This goes to show that sustainability is becoming increasingly important to a number of firms and industries. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to get in on the action early on!

If you have any questions about the conference, please feel free to contact Liana Humphrey at liana.humphrey@duke.edu.

Application Deadline: Thursday, November 5, 2009 @ 11:59pm EST

The Acumen Fund is excited to announce that the application process for the 2010-2011 Class of Acumen Fund Fellows is now open!

Applications will be accepted online until 11:59pm EST on Thursday, November 5, 2009. Detailed information about the program and application process, as well as the bios of current and past fellows, can be found on the Acumen Fund website. To apply, or to send more information to others you know who might be interested, please click here.

The Acumen Fund is looking for dedicated individuals with the practical skills, the creativity, the empathy and the leadership potential to affect change by leveraging market-based solutions to create social impact. Acumen Fund Fellows are drawn from a pool of talented, passionate people from all geographies, sectors, backgrounds and ethnicities.

Since graduating its first class of Fellows in 2007, the Fellows Program has continued to grow and expand, using the experiences of each class to continue building a unique training curriculum specifically focused on leadership and social enterprises. Fellows Alumni have called the program a life-changing experience, and one that allowed them to build critical business skills and a better understanding of the challenges involved in serving low-income consumers around the world.
 
The Acumen Fund is also excited to welcome the new Class of 2009-2010 Fellows to New York. Over the coming weeks the 2010 Fellows will be training and actively preparing to support Acumen Fund investments. The Fellows have committed to sharing their experiences both from New York and on the ground, so expect to see frequent posts from them on the Acumen Fund blog.

Deadline: Attend Info session as advertised, register for class for Term 2
Who: Open SYs MBAs only

Details: The Strategic Planning Practicum offers an opportunity to perform a strategic plan for a midsize company in the area ($10million to $500 million annual sales). Opportunity to join the team of students that will consult to the Institute for Sustainable Development (ISD) as part of Prof. Bill Sax’s Strategic Planning Practicum course. ISD director Chris Carmody is seeking a team of Duke MBAs to help them develop a strategy to scale up the Green Plus certification program. More detail on Green Plus project in the overview attached.

Compensation: Course Credit
Contact: Professor Bill Sax (bas4@duke.edu)

Note: there are also 2 projects currently available in the Strategic Planning Practicum focused on Healthcare. Contact Professor Bill Sax for more information about the project details.

Professor Joel Huber is looking for a few outstanding students to fill a Practicum project that may be of special interested to those interested in education, and/or scaling social impact. The practicum team would work with the National Humanities Center to look at expanding their education programs. The National Humanities Center has very successful web based programs to help high school teachers use original historical materials in their classes. The Center is seeking a team to formulate a strategy to scale that program nationally. Read more details about the project here.

The practicum course runs through terms 2 and 3 and provides credit for two 3 credit courses. Teams in the past indicate that the time commitment for the Practicum is comparable to a two regular Fuqua courses, but, of course, scheduling is far more flexible. This practicum involves a team of five students, with priority given to Fuqua MBA's.

More detail about the practicum program: http://faculty.fuqua.duke.edu/~jch8/marketing490/

Interested students should contact: Prof. Huber (Joel.huber@duke.edu) or Barmak Modrek (Barmak.Modrek@fuqua.duke.edu)

Lets proudly represent the Duke MBA Net Impact club!  Buy a NIC hoody to show your support!

Are you always cold walking around school?  Sick of all those cheap t-shirts you collect at every event?  Well stay warm and stand out with a Net Impact fleece zip-up hooded sweatshirt. We are currently assesing interest and signing up does not commit you to purchasing a Net Impact hooded sweatshirt.  However sign up by Wednesday so we can send you the final design and cost (cost subject to quantity purchased, however we expect the range to be ~$25-$30 USD. 

Please sign up here if interested and you will receive the final design of the hooded sweatshirt before you commit to the order. (http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AkT1--GWd5lGdG1jZzNHN3EwZ1I0VWhRNVpIRThDNXc&hl=en).

When: Friday, October 23rd

Where: Duke Law School

Presented by: The Duke Environmental Law & Policy Forum

Details: For all of you interested in environmental policy, here is your chance to be involved. The Duke Environmental Law & Policy Forum, which is made up of Nic Students, Law Students, and Nic/Law students, is holding its 2009 Symposium on October 23rd (a Friday) at the law school, and we encourage you all to come.

The symposium is being co-sponsored this year by the USDA office of Ecosystem Services and Markets, and it is a very unique experience. In essence, the USDA has been charged with developing ecosystem service markets, and they are co-sponsoring this symposium because it is being used as a policy development tool. The panelists, and the audience, will actually be a part of the policy development process. There will be plenty of chances to interact with the speakers and moderators, and we have some very high level government, academic, and private industry folks coming from all over the U.S..

So...please come for the show, and register here: http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/delpf/symposium, where you can also find the latest agenda. Robert Bonnie, the Senior Advisor to the Secretary for Environment and Climate at the USDA, and more importantly an eminently distinguished Nic School Alum, is the keynote speaker, so if nothing else please come see what we can aspire to!

What are ecosystem service markets (some of) you may ask? In a nutshell, ecosystem service markets are a way for landowners to get paid for all of the super beneficial things that undeveloped land does, such as: cleaning water, protecting from floods, housing endangered species, sequestering carbon, nitrogen, and a million other good things. Stuff you all know about. If you are taking environmental law with Professor Salzman, you will know more soon. So, once we develop a market for these services, then undeveloped land may be able to compete with development, or at least we will be working in a more efficient market (for those of you economists out there) where ecosystem services are valued correctly. There are going to be extensive open question & answer sessions, and we want your questions and opinions in this process.

         When:  October 23, 2009

         Where: Hamner Conference Center

                        Research Triangle Park, North Carolina

        Registration Deadline: October 16, 2009

Forum participants will hear directly from Southern business owners and entrepreneurs on:

• Greening your business
• Energy efficiency and renewable energy as ways to improve profits
• Current and emerging opportunities in alternative fuels and renewable energy
• Public policy activity, such as the Tennessee Solar Initiative
  And more...

Keynote speakers include: 

Harry Wingo, Policy Counsel, from Google, Inc.
David Kirkpatrick, Managing Partner, from SJF Ventures
Kil Huh, Project Director of Research, fromPew Center on the States

Register and review the current agenda here.

NOTE: Current students receive a 50% discount!

When: December 3-4, 2009

Where: Århus, Denmark

Audiance: Competition open to all MBA and Engineering students

Deadline: Application due October 26

An international opportunity!

Details: Vestas invites you to contend with students from top programs around the world in The Winnovation Challenge 2009. Apply now for your chance to meet Vestas executives in Århus, Denmark, and turn your plan into reality.

Vestas is holding a global energy competition for Master Business and Engineering students. Students from all over the world are invited to participate in a case competition and students with the best ideas are flown to Århus, Denmark for a final event.   The challenge for business students is business case certainty and the task is to come up with a strategy to drive additional demand for wind energy by lowering one of the costs - financing.

Application materials must be received by October 26. Final competition will take place in Århus on December 3-4. The winner will receive two airline tickets for a trip around the world.

Go to http://www.vestas.com/winnovation for full registration details and competition rules.

If you have any questions about the competition, please don't hesitate to contact Vestas at winnovation@universumusa.com.

2010 Dell Social Innovation Competition

What: Development Competition sponsored by Gates Foundation.

When:  Proposals due November 15, 2009

Where:  The World Bank, Paris  - The winning team will be invited to a two-day summit in Paris in March 2010

Who: Fuqua MBA Students

Details:  Net Impact is working with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on an exciting call for ideas for “Innovative Financial Solutions for Development”. The team with the winning proposal will be invited to attend a two-day summit in Paris in March 2010 with the Gates Foundation, the World Bank, and other international development organizations.  The Gates Foundation is particularly interested in getting graduate students and professors involved in the project.

A personal invitation from Alejandra Villalobos, Strategic Projects Manager at Net Impact (the National chapter):

"On behalf of the Gates Foundation, we’d like to specifically invite Fuqua's students and faculty to consider submitting proposals. The Fuqua School of Business has a long history of presenting groundbreaking scholarship and innovative market ideas, plus especially strong offerings in international business, finance and economics. The Gates Foundation was particularly interested in seeing proposals from your program, in the hopes they would incorporate all of these strengths."

For more information, see background information below as well as the comprehensive outline attached.

BACKGROUND:

With the Agence Française de Développement (AFD) and the World Bank, the Gates Foundation will be co-hosting an international Marketplace on Innovative Financial Solutions for Development (MIF), to be held in Paris on March 4-5, 2010. The 2010 MIF will be dedicated to innovative, smart, fine-tuned financial mechanisms for mobilizing, channeling, and spending funds dedicated to development.

A key feature of the MIF will be a competition to garner fresh ideas for financial solutions aimed at reducing poverty and sustainably improving livelihoods through addressing market or government failures. Grants will be awarded for up to five proposals in a two step selection process entrusted to a special jury. In the first phase, approximately 20 finalists will be selected to present at the MIF Conference in Paris, and the MIF will award up to five grants of up to $100,000 each.

Proposals are welcomed from all development finance innovators, including financial institutions, private-sector companies, social enterprises, non-governmental and civil society organizations, government agencies, foundations, and development organizations. The Gates Foundation specifically reached out to us to encourage universities and other academic organizations to become involved. Faculty and/or teams of students are encouraged to submit ideas for consideration.

To learn more and submit a proposal, visit www.fininnov.org

READ ADDITIONAL DETAILS IN OVERVIEW ATTACHED TO THIS EMAIL .