On June 25, nine students from the University of Cape Coast in Ghana graduated from the Social Venture Institute, a ten-week program focused on advancing sustainable solutions to community challenges through social entrepreneurship, scaling, and franchising.
Developed by the Social Ventures Foundation and offered in collaboration with the Global Business School Network (GBSN), the program extends and complements classroom learning, asking students, “If you had a superpower, what would you do to reduce poverty in your country?”
Students at the University of Cape Coast responded to this prompt with innovative ventures in farming productivity, clean water access, plastic waste reduction, and more, showcasing what’s possible when universities train future leaders in not only creating profitable businesses, but also generating long-term social and economic impact.
Solving real-world problems
The Social Venture Institute is organized into three labs. In the Social Venture Innovation Lab, students identified a social challenge and designed a business venture to address it. At the graduation ceremony, they emphasized the value of adopting an entrepreneurial mindset and sourcing and validating ideas through conversations, focus groups, and other direct community engagement.
Samuel Owusu-Yeboah finished the program with a model for an SMS-based expense log to help users in Ghana’s large informal business sector set prices and track profits based on real-time data.
Percy Frempong found that lack of access to things like soil and water testing and mechanized tools were a barrier for farming families to expand their operations, responding with a community-based rental model that lets farmers access tools without buying them outright.
Eva Ankomah developed a plan to convert shipping containers into dignified, affordable toilet and shower cubicles for coastal market centers and low-income residential areas, including exploring a strategy for partnering with engineers on water recycling.
Driving inclusive growth
The Institute’s other two labs – the Social Venture Franchise Lab and Social Venture Impact Lab – pushed students to explore strategies for replicating successful models and evaluating social ventures the way an investor would.
In many cases, students focused on ventures that could simultaneously create jobs and meet development needs. Akua Tiwaa Buabeng-Boateng presented the Clean Water Kiosk, which trains local entrepreneurs to run safe and affordable water access points, backed by centralized branding and technical support. Mavis Ologo Tawiah surveyed a farming community in Eastern Ghana and developed a plan to make farming a more attractive and viable career path for young people by connecting farmers with services and retailers to buy their products. Sampson Akuse worked on supporting women to build secondary income streams through vocational skills like honey production and bread-making.
Students also analyzed business performance, challenges, and opportunities. Deborah Donkor worked with a sexual and reproductive health organization, learning about their challenges with transportation costs and dependence on donors. Peace Afi Asiwome Sedziafa assessed the impact of a drinking-water network and looked at how the network combined grants from different sources to fund its work.
At the graduation ceremony, students emphasized how the program shifted their mindset toward practical problem-solving and, as Jeffery Essel reflected: “the most important parts of social change, such as a person’s sense of dignity, their ability to make their own decisions, their cultural identity, and the strength of the community they belong to.”
Expanding the Social Venture Institute
The pilot with students at the University of Cape Coast found that this flexible, relatively light touch program could produce a meaningful educational and community impact.
The program is online and asynchronous, with a commitment of approximately two hours per week from students. Host universities support program coordination and student selection with training and resources provided by the Social Ventures Foundation and no direct cost to the university. Based on the pilot’s success, the Social Ventures Foundation and GBSN look forward to launching the program with additional universities later this year.
Addressing the program’s outstanding students, GBSN CEO Dan LeClair reflected on the profound lessons they are already putting into practice. “I once believed the purpose of business was to make money first and then use that money to solve the world’s problems. I also thought education was about mastering concepts before you could apply them,” he said. “Eventually, I realized I had both backwards. Solving problems of people and the planet isn’t what comes after earning profits, it’s what we must do to achieve true business success. And real understanding doesn’t come from studying alone, it comes from doing. You already know what took me years to figure out.”