SDG Detail

B8527-001Social Venture Incubator

Postgraduate course

Project description

This course is an incubator for startups making a tangible impact on people or the planet. The spirit of the course is to foster cross-campus access and collaboration to leverage Columbia talent and resources to build your team, access any necessary technology, advance your venture, and gain investor interest. This course is an application only, 6-week (1.5 credits) structured experiential course offered to MBAs and interested students across Columbia University�s schools. Students will build new or advance existing social, environmental, health, and other impact ventures through collaborative investigation, experimentation, iterative design, network building, and compelling presentations to interested stakeholders. Potential ventures are mission driven, financially sustainable, and may span a broad range of sectors. Note that ventures may be structured as for-profit, a hybrid for-profit/nonprofit enterprise, or be a uniquely innovative nonprofit. This incubator emphasizes the "double" or "triple bottom line" (achieving social and environmental impacts along with a financial return), encourages students to seek large market opportunities, and sets the expectation to materially leverage Columbia�s cross-campus talent and resources. Lean Launchpad and Design Thinking techniques will be used. Each session will consist of team presentations, lessons, inter-team collaboration, and mentoring. Student teams finish the course with a Minimum Viable Product (MVP, no coding required), a validation-driven business model, preliminary pro formas (with data room), an investor ready pitch deck, demo day experience, and a one-page investment circular for introductions.

Year 2021

Location United States

Organization Columbia University

Project aims

Build skill sets to launch a venture addressing problems affecting people and planet. Enable essential networking for venture and professional advancement. Leverage university resources of two or more schools, the Columbia Global Centers, and the alumni network. Catalyze traction on customer discovery and business model validation. Guide the startup launch on tight financial constraints.