Share Proudly! Reports: A Social Entrepreneurship News Digest

1. Student-Run Phones4Loans Rings in Success

In the last edition of Share Proudly! Reports, we cited Phones4Loans, a project dialed up by students in Colorado State University’s Social and Sustainable Entrepreneurship course. Students developed Phones4Loans in a two-pronged effort to collect used cell phones and to dispatch profits from recycling the old mobiles to Kiva, which provides sustainable loans to low-income entrepreneurs. The community answered the students’ call: Phones4Loans collected over 300 cell phones, whose resale profits will help launch the businesses of over a dozen low-income entrepreneurs. Read More.

2. Indian Institutes Lay Down Foundations for Change.

India, the second most populous nation and second fastest growing economy in the world, still endures the epidemic of poverty and malnutrition. Yet, in the face of these woes, the subcontinent is growing a generation of schools and students with a social conscience.

The Tata Institute of Social Science (TISS) has founded The Habitat School in conjunction with the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay.

The new school features three departments, including pedagogy, research, advocacy, and intervention in the targeted programs: urban planning and governance, water policy and governance, and science, technology, and society. TISS has also joined a consortium to train Indian HIV/AIDS counselors; the consortium recently landed an $18.2 million project from UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, and GFATM, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. Already home to children’s rights law and master’s programs in social entrepreneurship, disaster management, globalization, and labor, TISS has founded a certificate program in social work aimed at bolstering grassroots work in India’s tribal communities. Read More.

3. The Indian Institute of Bio-Social Research and Development (IBRAD) amplifies India’s humanitarian academic surge with its foundation of a post-graduate degree in rural management and sustainable development. The degree expands IBRAD’s commitment to responsible commercial use of natural resources and its vision of enacting systemic social change to solve environmental crises. Read More.

4. Google.org Searches for Change

Google.org is channeling its resources and innovative staff into five ambitious social projects to confront global challenges from climate change to poverty. The initiatives are to:
1) Develop Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal (RE<C);
2) Accelerate Commercialization of Plug-In Vehicles (RechargeIT);
3) Predict and Prevent (identifies and expedites response to areas at risk of emerging threats from climate to disease);
4) Inform and Empower to Improve Public Services; and
5) Fuel the Growth of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs).

Adding to the expanding body of social-centric institutes and programs in India, Sonal Shah is aiding the development of Google.org’s fifth initiative, fueling the growth of SMEs. United with the Omidyar Network (established by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife, Pam) and the Soros Economic Development Fund, Sonal Shah and Google.org have created a $17 million investment company to launch and assist SMEs in India. Read More.