Business For Good

Announcing this year's finalists!

Global Village Fruits - Harvard University
IdeaMash - Harvard University
Refresh Bolivia - Harvard University
Sweetly Designs - Harvard University
Toilet+ - University of Dhaka
Ubomi Beads - Princeton University

About

In light of the 7th Annual Intercollegiate Business Convention’s focus on innovation and challenging boundaries, Harvard Undergraduate Women in Business is pleased to announce the 3rd annual Business for Good Competition. Social enterprise is reshaping the nature of modern business, becoming increasingly important as new businesses incorporate social responsibility into their missions. The Business for Good Competition will reward impactful social enterprise ideas among college students. We seek to facilitate creativity, innovation, and collaboration among social entrepreneurs, increase the visibility of social entrepreneurship, and encourage college students to consider social entrepreneurship as they move into the working world.

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Competition Guidelines

Starting September 1 and ending October 15, teams of students will submit their social enterprise business plans on the Business for Good Website. Students and competition mentors will have the opportunity to provide feedback on competition entries, and teams will be able to edit and refine their submissions before the final deadline. Five teams will be selected based on potential impact, innovation, and overall submission quality to present their ideas at the competition’s Finale Event at IBC 2011 in front of our judge panel.

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Application

Access the application here. Please submit completed applications to tara.suri@college.harvard.edu.

Competition Rules and Requirements

Participant Requirements

1. Teams – of up to five students - must be at least 50% female.
2. All participants must be college students.
3. All teams must be planning to attend or send at least one representative to the Intercollegiate Business Convention on October 28th at the Westin Boston Waterfront Hotel. Teams that are unable to do so will be disqualified.

Competition Setup and Rules

1. Students must submit their business plans between September 1 and the final deadline of October 20 to be considered. Students must submit before October 1 if they wish to receive feedback on their submission from competition mentors. Plans should still be in idea-phase and not yet implemented. Teams must address all questions and heed word limits.
2. Plans must fulfill the definition of social entrepreneurship as explicated by Harvard Business School Professor Jane C. Wei-Skillern, as “innovative, social value-creating activity that can occur within or across the nonprofit, government, or business sectors.”
3. Three to five teams will be selected to present their ideas at the Finale Event at IBC 2011 October 29th. These teams will need to prepare a 2-3 minute “pitch” for the event, where a panel of judges will select the winner and first runner-up.

Judging

Submissions will be judged equally on quality of submission, innovation and originality, and real potential for impact. Incomplete submissions and those deemed offensive, at the discretion of Harvard Undergraduate Women in Business, will be disqualified.

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Prizes and Incentives

Competition Winner

• Be named the "2011 Business for Good Winner" before all attendees of 7th Annual Intercollegiate Business Convention (nearly 1000 attendees at last year's convention)
• Receive a $1000 grant to pursue your project
• Opportunity to present social enterprise business plan to a panel of high-profile judges
• Individualized coaching from top Harvard Business School students
• Media exposure within and beyond the Harvard community, including HUWIB and IBC website publicity
• Access to IBC exclusive networking reception with corporate recruiters

First Runner Up

• Receive a $500 grant, sponsored by the Harvard College Women's Center.
• Be named the second place winner of the "2011 Business for Good Competition" before all attendees of 7th Annual Intercollegiate Business Convention (over 800 attendees at last year's convention)
• Opportunity to present social enterprise business plan to a panel of high-profile judges
• Individualized coaching from top Harvard Business School students
• Media exposure within and beyond the Harvard community, including HUWIB and IBC website publicity
• Access to IBC exclusive networking reception with corporate recruiters

All Competition Participants

• Individualized coaching from top Harvard Business School students

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Previous Winners

Lauren Braun

Lauren Braun is a senior at Cornell University with a major in Human Development and two minors, one in Inequality and one in Global Health. Born and raised in Indiana, Lauren has three wonderful younger sisters and two very supportive parents. Fostered by her childhood travels with her family to Europe and to most of the 50 states, Lauren became curious about ideas and cultures that were different from her own. Lauren became fluent in Spanish and, starting in high school, has served as a medical interpreter between Latino patients and American doctors. Thanks to her volunteer public health trips throughout Panama and Peru, she now loves to dance to reggaeton and bachata. Last spring, Lauren lived in Istanbul, Turkey, studying political, economic, and religious issues, learning Turkish, and traveling throughout the country. She is also a proud member of Delta Delta Delta Sorority and loves yoga, running, and reading. After graduation this May, Lauren plans to work for an international health organization and then attend grad school for a Master’s Degree in Public Health.

Project Description

"The problem is that indigenous Peruvian mothers using Ministry of Health (MOH) services at the Santa Rosa center forget the dates of their children’s vaccination appointments, so their babies receive late or incomplete immunization. This means babies have decreased immune functioning, which greatly increases their chances of dying before age five. Indigenous Peruvian mothers quickly lose the paper appointment reminder slips because they’re not conducive to mothers’ lifestyles and resource-poor environment. Consequently, nurses must spend hours trekking through mountainous villages to find mothers and remind them. Routine childhood vaccines expire because they aren’t used, and replenishing them requires more money because of vaccines’ fixed delivery costs.

In response to this dilemma, which I saw firsthand during my Cusco internship, I invented and patented a bracelet for babies to wear from birth to age four that tracks the number and type of vaccines they’ve received and the date of their next vaccination appointment. The bracelets are simple, inexpensive, user-friendly, and adaptable to any culture. They’re not language-specific, so moms who are illiterate or only speak Quechua can use them. Moms are likely to regularly check the bracelets because they carry young children with them on their backs. Most importantly, the nurses and mothers of Santa Rosa are ecstatic about using the bracelets. More children will receive full and timely vaccination, so fewer children will die before age 5. Nurses will have more time for patients, and the Peruvian government will save money by increasing the number of vaccines used before expiration."

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