Retail prices of energy and lighting products in emerging markets are simply too high for end users, argues Lesley Marincola. As a result, large populations throughout the world live off the grid and have to rely on kerosene fuel and other less efficient light sources. To help combat this widespread energy poverty problem, Angaza has developed a pay-as-you-go financing platform for its solar products, as opposed to a large up-front retail price. In this podcast, Marincola also offers insights on...
Mar 10, 2014•20 min
Towera Jalakasi is an entrepreneur in every sense of the word. She has made the jump from being a consultant advising entrepreneurs to transforming sectors with enterprises of her own. She has helped small producer communities in her native Malawi access fair prices for their products and materials by creating links between them and outside markets. Even with all her success she still faces an uphill battle as a female entrepreneur in Africa, where the glass ceiling has yet to give way. In a bus...
Mar 07, 2014•27 min
According to World Health Organization (WHO), more than 200 million resource-poor people are threatened with arsenic poisoning by drinking contaminated groundwater in South and Southeast Asia, and other regions of the world. In this university podcast, host Sheila Sethuraman speaks with Arup SenGupta, professor of civil, environmental, and chemical engineering at Lehigh University, about his project to eliminate arsenic from groundwater without using electricity or chemicals. SenGupta describes ...
Feb 28, 2014•28 min
Through very innovative work in the area of agriculture, scientists have worked through social enterprise in improving and securing crop yield, especially rice, which has enabled farmers in India and Bangladesh to feed their families and earn a profit from their surplus. In this audio interview with Stanford Center for Social Innovation correspondent Sheela Sethuraman, Pamela Ronald, of the University of California, Davis, talks about how her laboratory, in collaboration with other scientists, d...
Feb 26, 2014•28 min
What insights does a former Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighter, now poet, activist and thought leader, have to teach social entrepreneurs? As it turns out, a lot more than you might imagine. MMA fighters understand what failure is–not the “I failed… now let me put my badge on” rhetoric that has become an essential, but increasingly superficial, part of any budding entrepreneur’s story. MMA fighters understand failure, and the pain that accompanies it. They get knocked down. They get knocked out. A...
Feb 10, 2014•21 min
TCHO , a chocolate factory in San Francisco, has encouraged social entrepreneurship in developing countries through its innovative supply chain practices. In this short audio lecture, John Kehoe, VP of Sourcing and Development at TCHO, discusses the company’s complex supply chain. His story starts with growers in Ghana, Ecuador, Peru, and Madagascar, and moves to to their factory and store in San Francisco. The company has developed TCHOSource, a unique partnership program that connects the TCHO...
Feb 06, 2014•10 min
The increasing demand for energy in emerging markets is a leading driver for international development. This demand results in increased need for environmental sustainability. In this short audio lecture, Katie Hill discusses the tension between economic development and environmental sustainability. Learn how companies can push through this tradeoff while lowering energy costs and reducing business risks. Hill explains how supply chains bases in Asia and Africa attract investments in affordable ...
Feb 06, 2014•7 min
For TCHO , San Francisco’s only chocolate factory, social entrepreneurship is the focus. In this audio lecture, company executive John Kehoe talks about how the firm not only produces high-end chocolate products, but also helps farmers in developing countries. He discusses challenges associated with sourcing and cultivating quality organic cocoa beans, and what it takes to invest in and work with growers. Kehoe spoke at the Stanford Graduate School of Business at the invitation of the Internatio...
Jan 31, 2014•38 min
Developing a successful social media strategy enables effective nonprofit management, organizational growth, and strong relationships with target audiences. In this audio lecture from the Social Media on Purpose conference, presented by Stanford Social Innovation Review and Tides, journalist and new media strategist Marcia Stepanek provides a robust framework for building a social media strategy that fits with the organization’s mission. Stepanek recommends specific steps that include identifyin...
Jan 21, 2014•20 min
Nearly all consumers eat, wear, or use items that are tainted by slave labor, which presents social responsibility challenges. In this short audio lecture, Katrina Benjamin describes the conditions enslaved people are in, and outlines four specific examples where slavery is an integral part of the consumer supply chain, as well as the degrading circumstances of enslaved adults and children. Benjamin addresses the complexity of slavery today, indicating the factors underlying slavery that must be...
Oct 10, 2013•7 min
LaborVoices brings unprecedented transparency to supply chain management to improve social responsibility. In this short audio lecture, Dr. Kohl Gill, CEO of LaborVoices, Inc., discusses his company’s mobile technology platform. He uses crowdsourcing to let workers’ voices bring accountability to supply chain management. Dr. Gill believes that real time information drives improvement in workforce management from both a social responsibility and operational perspective. In this Social Innovation ...
Oct 10, 2013•8 min
Ned Breslin kicks off the series by telling us where he draws his inspiration from and where he gets his perspective on social change from–punk rock. With a disregard for tradition and a fierce desire to challenge the norm, the punk rock ethos is the heartbeat of a story of social entrepreneurship. To the rise of social entrepreneurship, punk rock offers a narrative by breaking sideways in a world that tends to go straight ahead. With the immensity of today’s global challenges, Ned argues that t...
Sep 25, 2013•26 min
Being sustainable at the core requires corporate social responsibility that thinks beyond just good works. In this audio lecture, Coca Cola Chief Administrative Officer, Alex Cummings, shares his company’s experience applying environmental sustainability as an essential element to sustainable business. Mr. Cummings relates how Coca Cola aims to double its business in a decade through social entrepreneurship. He describes how they are employing social enterprise to improve packaging and supply ch...
Aug 16, 2013•46 min
Today’s model of consumerism does not prioritize the efficient use of resources throughout the supply chain. Consumers just don’t use the full lifetime of a product. In this talk, e-commerce social entrepreneur and former Walmart sustainability executive Andy Ruben emphasizes opportunities for efficient design, production, and reuse of consumer products, from the perspective of corporations and consumers. Speaking at the 2012 Global Supply Chain Management Forum, Ruben details ways to improve su...
Jul 30, 2013•27 min
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives are usually thought of as top-down, with the interests of company executives taking precedence over other workers. In this talk, CB Bhattacharya, a visiting Stanford professor and author of Leveraging Corporate Responsibility: The Stakeholder Route to Maximizing Business and Social Value , examines why the traditional approach to CSR should be reexamined. Speaking at a seminar organized by the Stanford Center for Social Innovation, he details how...
Jul 12, 2013•46 min
“Poverty is not just about an economic challenge. Extreme poverty is a condition where families cannot make meaningful choices to determine their own future.” The role of Nuru is to put those choices back on the table. In this audio interview, Jonathan Chang speaks with Jake Harriman, Founder and CEO of Nuru International . Nuru works to raise awareness of poverty in the developed world. At the same time they foster self-sufficiency in remote rural communities in East Africa. From combat operati...
Jul 11, 2013•43 min
Human capital is the most valuable asset in the social sector. Developing an effective human capital strategy enables nonprofits to grow, scale, and achieve greater impact. In this audio lecture from the Stanford Social Innovation Review’s Nonprofit Management Institute, Omidyar Network partner Sal Giambanco discusses how nonprofits can create a recruiting framework and demonstrate organizational value to employees. He explains how to attract and engage an excellent team. By sharing examples fro...
Apr 30, 2013•1 hr 20 min
Good leadership requires moving across boundaries of sector, race, ideology, class, and political affiliation. Instead of competing for resources or working in isolation, leaders should reach across divides to develop healthy networks of trust and collaboration. In this audio lecture from the Stanford Social Innovation Review’s Nonprofit Management Institute, Rockwood Leadership Institute president Akaya Windwood discusses how we can get movements and sectors to work together to advance the comm...
Apr 25, 2013•57 min
Whether we are struggling to generate fresh ideas or staring at problems with no solutions in sight, the spark of creative genius often seems out of reach. In this audio lecture from Stanford Social Innovation Review ’s Nonprofit Management Institute, Stanford Professor Tina Seelig discusses how we can unlock our creative genius through a set of tools and conditions we each have in our control—our “innovation engine.” Based on real-world examples and a dozen years of experience teaching courses ...
Apr 23, 2013•1 hr 5 min
While branding has been traditionally perceived as a tool for fundraising and public relations, nonprofits can take a new approach to brand management that effectively drives their mission and maximizes impact. In this audio lecture from Stanford Social Innovation Review ’s Nonprofit Management Institute, Harvard researcher Nathalie Kylander challenges traditional branding principles and proposes a new framework for developing a more strategic brand. By examining the concepts of brand democracy ...
Apr 16, 2013•1 hr 8 min
What exactly is the new “social economy,” how did it come about, and what are its implications for nonprofit management? In this audio lecture, philanthropy, policy, and technology researchers Lucy Bernholz and Rob Reich explore some possible answers to these questions. Evaluating the changes that the social economy has created, Bernholz and Reich focus on new options that are available for both doers and donors. Speaking at Stanford Social Innovation Review’s Nonprofit Management Institute, the...
Mar 26, 2013•1 hr 9 min
How can smaller and local nonprofits dramatically increase their impact? In this audio lecture, Heather McLeod Grant, senior consultant at the Monitor Institute and co-author of Local Forces for Good , shares ideas and case studies of high-impact small and local nonprofits, and how these organizations have leveraged outside forces and agencies to great success. Speaking from Stanford Social Innovation Review ’s Nonprofit Management Institute, McLeod Grant analyzes how many smaller nonprofits man...
Feb 22, 2013•1 hr 3 min
Nonprofit management is presented with the challenge of adjusting to constant developments in technology and social media. To cope, leaders learn to use a network mindset. In this audio lecture, author and social media guru Beth Kanter presents ways nonprofit organizations can develop a networking mindset. These hard-won lessons are based on her own and others’ experiences within nonprofits and successful social media campaigns. Speaking at the Stanford Social Innovation Review’s Nonprofit Manag...
Feb 06, 2013•1 hr 7 min
How can a tsumami early warning system save lives? In this university podcast, Ridwan Djamaluddin, Indonesia’s deputy chairman for natural resources development, speaks on how the government of Indonesia is relying on technology to deal with climate and weather threats. The work, he says, is not just about creating better detection instruments but also about getting information to flow to those who need it more efficiently. Djamaluddin spoke at the USRio+2.0 Conference, hosted by the Stanford Gr...
Nov 27, 2012•9 min
How do we transform our existing system into one that fosters sustainable economic growth? Entrepreneurship concentrating on scientific collaborations and innovations is the ticket, says Paul Kedrosky of the Kauffman Foundation in this university podcast. He argues that highly trained engineers, physicists and other professionals who have been sucked up by Wall Street need to return to their own domains and work more entrepreneurially. The way to more innovation and connectivity, he argues, is t...
Nov 27, 2012•12 min
Mobile and home-based technologies could help stretch limited funds and create sustainable healthcare for all. That’s the assertion of Eric Dishman, director of health innovation at Intel , in this university podcast. Estimating that there is a $500 billion opportunity for health IT in developing markets, particularly via non-governmental organizations, he argues that using technology strategically could help developing countries avoid the inefficient, high-cost, error-prone infrastructure of th...
Nov 15, 2012•22 min
Twenty years have passed since the 1992 Earth Summit, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development that made sustainable development a priority for the UN. In this university podcast, Michael Jones, Google ’s chief technology advocate, discusses how connection technologies are now being used to support sustainable development. “Information is not a mirror to reflect the world but a hammer with which to shape it,” he says, urging his audience to think big. Jones spoke at the USRio...
Nov 06, 2012•29 min
How can we strike a balance between environmental sustainability and economic realities? In this university podcast, aquatic filmmaker and oceanographic explorer Fabien Cousteau discusses the problem of the failing health of our planet as it relates to climate change, over-consumption of natural resources, and pollution. He offers glimpses of a public policy platform grounded by his strong belief that environmental discipline can be the basis for innovative solutions that strike a balance betwee...
Oct 30, 2012•13 min
How can we use technology to support sustainable development? In this university podcast, media expert Tim O’Reilly discusses notions of collective intelligence, man-machine symbiosis, and real-time feedback loops from sensors to provide a context for understanding the role of tools like FrontlineSMS, Ushahidi, Crowdflower, Samasource in powering the future. He considers Google’s autonomous vehicle and unpacks the technology behind it to provide deeper insight into where technology is taking us....
Oct 26, 2012•38 min
Twenty years after the first Rio Earth Summit, the world’s most vexing sustainability problems around health, environment, agriculture and economic growth haven’t changed. But technologies have –– and they could provide critical and innovative solutions. In this university podcast, Maura O’Neill, chief innovation officer at USAID , addresses international ministers from developing countries, technology experts, and NGO professionals convened by the U.S. State Department and the Stanford Graduate...
Oct 26, 2012•31 min
