Dear Net Impact Club Members,

We appreciate your support for the CASE Summer Internship Fund (SIF) during the Carnival Party at Parizade this past Saturday night. Thank you so much to everyone who came out! We are also excited to inform you that registration for the Duke Conference on Sustainable Business and Social Impact is open, so be sure to REGISTER NOW! The day-long conference will take place at Fuqua on Wednesday, February 17th.  In addition, we are excited to announce the launch of our campaign "What does sustainability mean to YOU?.” See our first featured Fuquan below. We will be rolling out this campaign over the coming weeks to further the dialogue around what sustainability actually means to members of the Duke community.

Last, it’s hard to believe, but it’s almost time to elect next year’s Net Impact Club Co-Presidents! Candidates will present their platforms this Wednesday, February 10th, from 1:00-1:30pm (location TBD).  Please be sure to come and support the candidates!  Polls will open at 5pm on Friday, February 12th, and will close on Monday, February 15th. All FYs who are active members of the club and all SY cabinet members are allowed to vote.

As a reminder, the timeline for club elections over the next week and a half is as follows:

Guidelines for participation in elections is mentioned further below in the Newsletter .

More details for each of upcoming events are in the newsletter below.

Conference Details: 

• 3 outstanding keynote speakers:
  • Chad Holliday, former Chairman and CEO of DuPont
  • Dina Powell, Director of Corporate Engagement of Goldman Sachs
  • Jonathan Greenblatt, President of Our Good Works and Co-founder of Ethos Water 
• 12 panel sessions organized into 4 tracks: Strategy, Marketing, Entrepreneurship, and Finance
• Panel topics include: marketing for social enterprises, sustainable investing, design innovation for social impact, strategies for climate change, building a sustainable supply chain, market-based solutions for international development, Web 2.0 for social impact, financing clean technology, new business models for consumer products, and more!
• Participating organizations include: Newman’s Own, John Deere, IDEO, Ben & Jerry’s, Acumen Fund, World Resources Institute, Mars, SJF Ventures, Transfair USA, Burt’s Bees, The U.S. EPA, and many other leading organizations spanning the for-profit and non-profit sectors.

Get up close and personal....Ask Chad Holliday a Question

You have a unique opportunity for a discussion on business and sustainability with Chad Holliday, former chairman and CEO of Dupont.

Please take this quick survey to provide your top 3 compelling and provocative questions for Chad Holliday and we will ask him in the opening plenary of the Duke Conference of Sustainable Business 2010.   http://duke.qualtrics.com/SE?SID=SV_0DtFr1epf7Few2U&SVID=Prod

Interested in volunteering? 

The SBSI Conference is still seeking volunteers. The following is the list of all SBSI conference volunteer slots. If there is an issue with your time, please try and find someone to take your spot as opposed to leaving the spot blank.
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AqNRIv_KlJ-7dGVzNjVLWHdWQ1pTT2ZGRmxGQVVQbnc&hl=en

The following is the list of all panelists and whether they have a student host or not. Please fill in your name to the right of the panelist if you would like to be a student host and assist the panelist in getting around Fuqua.
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AqNRIv_KlJ-7dGpNZ2szSnhRSFNuamZweXl2QlpCMnc&hl=en

Any questions regarding volutneering during SBSI can be directed to jim.wilson@fuqua.duke.edu

Duke University’s Corporate Sustainability Initiative is pleased to announce its Call for Applications for the 2010-11 class of CSI Fellows.  The CSI Fellows Program supports CSI’s vision to educate and enable the world’s next generation of sustainable business leaders.  Fellows, selected from graduate students at both The Fuqua School of Business and Nicholas School of the Environment, work with CSI on applied research projects as well as programmatic support and strategy.  Fellows are not paid, but they do have access to unique, high-impact project and networking opportunities (for instance, participation in CSI Corporate Advisory Council meetings and dinners, special events with sustainability guests and thought-leaders, and first right-of-refusal on project opportunities with our research partners). 

The application deadline is February 14. If you have any questions about the CSI Fellows program or would like to apply, feel free to talk to Katie Kross or any of the 2009-10 Fellows:  Beth Boomgard, Mark Braby, Amrita Dhingra, Wyley Hodgson, Alex Michalko, Elise Richards, Martin Romero-Wolf, and Jen Snook.

As an institution, we are already making important operational changes and developing innovative ways to address climate change, but we also need your help. The university is currently producing about 330,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas annually. In order to reach our goal of climate neutrality by 2024, each of us must make smarter choices about the use of energy, getting to and around campus and how we dispose of waste.
 
As part of this effort, we are introducing The Green Devil Challenge to help focus on specific actions you can take.  Each month, a new challenge will be issued to encourage individuals to make small changes in their daily lives that will help reduce our emissions at Duke.  

The first challenge is simple - make a commitment. More than 3,300 students and employees have signed the Sustainable Duke Pledge. But a much broader commitment is needed if we are to make substantive change. If you have not already, we encourage you to take the pledge. If you have already pledged, take the next step and invite your friends or colleagues to do the same.

Accept the challenge at: http://sustainability.duke.edu/action/challenge/

When: Thursday, February 11, 7:00 - 8:30pm
Where: Fuqua School of Business, HCA Auditorium
Audience: Duke students, faculty, staff, and the public

CASE Award for Enterprising Social Innovation & Lecture with VisionSpring

More Information: The CASE Award for Enterprising Social Innovation (ESI) recognizes outstanding individuals, organizations, or companies whose innovations blend methods from the worlds of business and philanthropy to create sustainable social value that has the potential for large-scale impact. This award recognizes VisionSpring’s work to improve vision and economic opportunity in countries all over the developing world. Drawing upon techniques and concepts from both the commercial and social sectors, VisionSpring’s innovative business model achieves significant impact for entrepreneurs and for their customers in underserved markets – bringing dramatically improved vision to individuals at the base of the economic pyramid and leading to improvements in health, income, and productivity in the world's poorest communities.

Dr. Jordan Kassalow, VisionSpring’s Chairman and CEO, will deliver the ESI Lecture and accept the CASE Award for Enterprising Social Innovation on behalf of VisionSpring. Read more about VisionSpring.

KOMAZA is seeking talented business professionals to help build a world class organization and deliver sustainable impacts to the impoverished communities they serve. They are looking to fill exciting roles in the following functions: 

·        Crop Production: oversee all field and farmer operations relating to the planting and growth of trees

·        Strategy and Design: develop business model to maximize triple bottom line impact (people, planet, profit)

·        Value Capture: design all harvesting, processing, and logistics operations to transform farmer crops into profits

·        Organization Development: create and manage supporting functions to fuel continued growth

·        Fundraising and Communication: coordinate all external relations and outreach activities to attract critical funding

The Mind Trust's Education Entrepreneur Fellowship is a nationally unique incubator for transformative education ventures designed to solve public education's most vexing problems. The Fellowship offers promising education entrepreneurs the opportunity to develop and launch their break-the-mold education ventures. The Mind Trust, which invests approximately $250,000 in each Fellow, provides Fellows the freedom to innovate and the comprehensive support necessary to succeed. During the two-year Fellowship, Fellows receive a full-time salary ($90,000/year), full benefits, a $20,000 start up stipend and the professional support and mentoring necessary to turn a promising idea into a successful educational venture with large-scale, transformational benefits for children in Indianapolis and throughout the nation. Fellowship ventures target underserved or disadvantaged populations with solutions that attack the root problems in the delivery of public education. The Fellowship is for people who envision entirely new approaches to the challenges of public education and who possess the entrepreneurial skill necessary to turns their ideas into reality. Fellows join a community of education entrepreneurs dedicated to forging dramatic change in public education nationwide.

The Fellowship is open to people of all ages, backgrounds and experience levels.

Click Here to Apply Now!

You can also contact The Mind Trust at fellowship@themindtrust.org or (317) 822-8102.

Duke University’s Corporate Sustainability Initiative is offering a summer internship to work with us on Ecolabels and Sustainability Metrics Research.

CSI has launched a new research project sponsored by the Sustainability Consortium, a consortium of academic institutions and Wal-Mart supplier companies, focusing on eco-labels and certification.  The Duke project, led by CSI executive director Dan Vermeer, is investigating the strengths and weaknesses of current eco-label and certification systems, and how these systems might be better harmonized.  We are also investigating corporate evaluation and use of these systems, and the role of government action and policy in supporting eco-label and certification efforts. 

The summer intern will contribute to the research and analysis work of this project, which may include:

• Conducting background research and analysis of different sustainability certifications (such as GreenSeal, Energy Star, or FSC certification)
• Creating case studies on different certifications
• Conducting interviews with industry practitioners to understand how they identify, select, and use third-party sustainability certifications
• Analyzing the relative strengths and weaknesses of sustainability certifications and eco-labels and identifying best practices
• Writing a summary of findings and/or co-authoring blog articles and case studies based on the findings

For more information, click here to download a full description or contact Katie Kross. The application deadline is February 12 at 5:00 PM .

When: Wednesdays, 9:00am-10:00am
Where: The Fuqua School of Business, Fox Center
Audience: Fuqua MBA Daytime Students

Details: Drop by to chat with Katie Kross about your sustainability job search or other sustainability questions. 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.

Spring Term 1 Dates: Feb. 10, Feb. 24, Mar. 3

Pioneer Employer Case Competition: Intent to Compete due by Feb 9 2010 (Tuesday)

The Pioneer Employer Case Competition: Raising Wages, Increasing Profits, sponsored by the Hitachi Foundation, focuses on the co-founder of Integrated Packaging Corporation who dramatically improves the standard-of-living for his employees while also turning his fortunes around. It is dedicated to curriculum change in MBA programs. In addition to the case analysis, the competition will require students to work with MBA faculty and administrators to incorporate cases on pioneering employers into their MBA curriculum. The competition will have $10,000 in cash prizes and free registrations for the 2010 Net Impact Conference!

Aspen Business & Society Case Competition: Intent to Compete due by Feb 10 2010 (Wednesday)

The Aspen Institute hopes to provide an unparalleled opportunity for future business executives to explore the significant and positive influence that business can have on society. The Aspen Institute's Center for Business Education, with encouragement from many of the founding schools in the Shipley Competition, has this year re-envisioned the concept of a prominent case competition focusing on the social, environmental, and ethical challenges that mainstream, for-profit business leaders face.1st Place: $20,000 with $3,000 to choice of charity; 2nd Place: $10,000; 3rd Place: $5,000. Visit: www.aspencasecompetition.com. Note: Currently Duke is not listed as a participating school. Depending upon interest, Net Impact will contact Aspen to include us.

Please contact Anand Kanoria at avk8@duke.edu directly if you are interested in either or both of these.

  When:  May 20-21, 2010
  Where: Westin Market St and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
               San Francisco, CA

Presented by Opportunity Fund, Kiva, and the US ACCION Network

  Microfinance USA is the place where microfinance practitioners, investors, and enthusiasts meet.  
  Featured speaker: Maria Shriver, First Lady of California

Download full description file and visit www.microfinanceusa2010.org for more information.

Competition dates
        Team applications are due Friday, February 19, 2010.
        Wednesday, March 31, 2010: Case released at 5 pm EST
        Friday, April 9, 2010: Registration, opening ceremony and reception
        Saturday, April 10, 2010: Competition day (Columbia Heights Ed Campus, at 3101 16th St, Wash DC)
READ MORE HERE ....

There is just over a month left to enter the 2010   Dell Social Innovation Competition.
READ MORE HERE....