CASE to Recognize Ashoka Founder and CEO Bill Drayton with the 2007 CASE Leadership in Social Entrepreneurship Award, sponsored by Square 1 Bank

CASE and Square 1 Bank will honor Ashoka Founder and CEO Bill Drayton with the 2007 CASE Leadership in Social Entrepreneurship Award.  On Tuesday, April 24th Drayton will be presented with this award and will participate in an on-stage dialogue with CASE Faculty Director Greg Dees. The event is open to the public and will be held at Fuqua's Geneen Auditorium at 10:30am. Read more about the event and this year's recipient here.

Fuqua Team Wins Second Place at National Sustainable Innovation Competition

A team of Fuqua first year students took the second prize and earned the title “2007 Global Champions of Sustainable Innovation” March 24 at Thunderbird School of Global Management.  The team included David Grosfeld, Andrea Pawliczek, Ben Pinsky, Suzanne Steffens, and Kane Zhang.

Ten teams from top business schools around the world competed March 21-24 in the final round of a sustainable innovation competition held in conjunction with Thunderbird’s first Sustainable Innovation Summit. More than 85 teams representing 45 universities in 13 countries competed in the competition.

Students in the final round of the competition developed innovative and sustainable business concept plans that addressed real-life challenges faced by global corporations Johnson & Johnson and Merck & Co. Inc. Each team had to address questions proposed by both companies.

"The competition put us in the shoes of decision makers at top healthcare companies, and let us grapple with one of the big issues they face today - entering emerging markets and doing so in a sustainable manner. This question has no easy answers, but we were able to propose some solutions that were innovative and realistic at the same time," said David Grosfeld.

The Duke solution for Merck involved moving clinical trials to China, entering the herbal market, and conducting a pilot with the urban health insurance system to show the value of Merck drugs.  The Duke solution for Johnson & Johnson included selling refurbished medical equipment and providing seed money for entrepreneurs to produce low cost products in emerging economies.

“Innovative, real-world solutions presented by the student teams that participated in the Thunderbird Sustainable Innovation Summit exceeded our expectations in many ways,” said Neil Currie, Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies. “We all gained new insights that will contribute to immediate action in the short term as well as help shape our responses to challenges that corporate and community leaders (including the students who participated) will continue to wrestle with for years to come. It was a privilege to participate in the creative process with the best and brightest MBA talent and experts from around the world, and we are already planning for the next challenge.”

CASE's Paul Bloom Discusses Social Entrepreneurship and CASE Research in Local Business Journal

CASE Senior Research Scholar Paul Bloom was recently interviewed and featured in a Triangle Business Journal article "Adding fuel to social entrepreneurs' spark". In this interview, Bloom address the growth in social entrepreneurship in the Triangle (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, NC) discussing how attracting corporate support and building on some of the findings from CASE's Scaling Social Impact research could fuel further growth.

Read the full Triangle Business Journal interview here.