OverviewSkill DevelopmentSocial Entrepreneurship and DesignQuestions?

Design

This advanced studio will provide you with the opportunity to work with world-class social businessesand non-profits on new social ventures that tackle problems ranging from poverty and lack of access tohealthcare to environmental degradation in both local and international contexts.The semester will include two major milestones: a 3-week design workshop with an internationalnon-profit organization operating in Asia, and a 9-week project where students will develop in-depthproposals for their own social ventures based around products, services and systems designed incollaboration with local businesses and non-profits. This work will be supported by personal mentorshipfrom design professionals with experience at IDEO, Sustainable Minds, Continuum, KVA and otherfirms. Projects may be completed individually or in small teams.Throughout the semester visiting speakers will conduct open lectures and discussions on relevanttopics ranging from product design and ethnographic research to sustainability and marketing.This will be a fast-paced studio where you will be expected to practice and build upon your skills inmany major areas of craft that are crucial to design practice: rapid sketching, concept development,modeling and prototyping. However it will also be an opportunity to develop research-orientedskills related to thought-leadership in this exciting discipline of design: collaboration with non-profitentrepreneurs, conducting user research studies, evaluating and comparing precedents, developingbusiness plans and pitching your ideas to community leaders and potential funders.Designers are playing a pivotal role in social entrepreneurship, an emerging field that seeks to addresspressing social issues such as poverty, health and environmental degradation with financially self-sustaining models. From IDEO and Philips to small start-ups, the design community is learning to “dowell by doing good,” designing new products and services that meet social needs while generatingprofits. Likewise, designers working in the non-profit sector are taking a more progressive approach byfocusing on philanthropy as an investment rather than a hand-out.Please feel free to contact us at:

sloan@OneEarthDesigns.org

yi.zhang@alum.wellesley.edu

Social entrepreneurs

are part of a movement to

reshape the world of business

into a tool foraddressing

social problems

that have been

neglected

traditional

capitalism

and