Writing Homework Help

Reading from: Understanding Social Entrepreneurship: The Relentless Pursuit of Mission in an Ever Changing World Chapter 2 Defining and Distinguishing Social Entrepreneurship 

Miller Center’s 20th anniversary video, including history of the center and interviews w/ cofounders of GSBI 

https://www.millersocent.org/miller-center-celebra… 

Solving problems using social innovation and entrepreneurship: Jeffrey Robinson at TEDxBroadStreet 

Social Entrepreneurship: The Case for Definition By Roger L. Martin & Sally Osberg 

https://ssir.org/articles/entry/social_entrepreneu… 

Why Social Innovators Need Design Thinking 

https://ssir.org/articles/entry/why_social_innovat… 

SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS OF THE WEEK: LIGHT AND ENERGY 

Lal10 

Light in India 

Easy Solar 

Energy in Sierra Leone 

Earthspark Intl 

Energy Poverty in the Caribbean 

Part 1: WRITE 100 WORDS ON THIS WEEK’S READING AND/OR MEDIA EVENT

Write 100 words to tell our class your thoughts on this week’s reading and/or media events etc.

Discussion Prompt:

Discuss and consider how social problems can be addressed the social science method Design Thinking, social entrepreneurial thinking/approaches, and innovations provided by technologies.

Reference at least one reading, media event, or digital educational material for the week.

Part 2: Write at least 50 words per response to each fellow student for 100 words total.

1. In Social Entrepreneurship: The Case for Definition, I learned that social entrepreneurs are people who target “an unfortunate but stable equilibrium that causes the neglect, marginalization, or suffering of a segment of humanity; who bring to bear on this situation his or her inspiration, direct action, creativity, courage, and fortitude; and who aim for and ultimately affects the establishment of a new stable equilibrium that secures permanent benefit for the targeted group and society at large.” What I really liked about this definition was that it calls out the creativity of social entrepreneurs. For a time, I thought that to be a creative social entrepreneur, you need to create new products/services. But, watching Eric Silverman’s video, Energy in Sierra Leone, I realized that social entrepreneurs don’t need to create new products – they can manipulate existing ones to fit specific needs. Lighting technology and pay-as-you-go models have been around for a long time. It just took Eric’s innovation and design thinking to introduce the two together into Sierra Leone’s rural areas to address their lack of access to light.

2. In the reading and media events for this week, I learned much more about what a social entrepreneur actually is and what they do. From the name alone, it seems like social entrepreneurs would try to study or control human behavior. However, social entrepreneurs actually work to solve social inequalities that exist in our world, which is a very noble pursuit. Just like your stereotypical business entrepreneur, the social entrepreneur does not have to have an infinite range of skills to solve a problem by themself. Instead, they can make connections between different existing structures or professionals and guide them to work together for a solution.

Part 3: Analytic Response to Readings, Media, and Social Entrepreneurship Exemplars for the Week.

500 words minimum including quotes you incorporate from the text.

Required: at least three (3) verbatim quotes from the reading with page numbers (no page numbers required for websites) or paraphrases of the speakers/media events with general time stamp for videos or date for “live events.”

Prompt: Summarize the main ideas of social entrepreneurship. How does social entrepreneurship provide fresh ways to combat and solve social challenges using design thinking? What is different about social entrepreneurship when compared to other kinds of social change that are top-down (government, bureaucracies, elite hierarches, etc.)? How is expertise defined differently using design thinking in order to improve products/services that are client-centered? How does design thinking take advantage of inductive, iterative approaches that are different from traditional deductive hypothesis-testing models of social scientific inquiry? What did you find inspiring about the Social Entrepreneurs of the Week—what did they teach you about how solutions to social problems can be generated using an inductive, culturally appropriate, client-centered approach using design thinking?