This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Social Enterprise Track of the HBS New Venture Competition, and our Social Enterprise Initiative team is using this opportunity to reflect on the impact of the program, how the sector has evolved, and what we have learned over that time.
When we look back over the past 25 years, we marvel at the remarkable energy of our students who, year after year, bring new ideas and an action-oriented optimism to solving social problems.
We created the Social Enterprise Track to provide students an evaluation framework that recognizes and values social impact; connection with expert judges, including philanthropists, impact investors, capacity building organizations, and social entrepreneurs; and feedback that would help them move forward on their ideas.
Since that first year, we have received 877 team entries including 2,381 student participants from graduate schools across Harvard University. Over $1.4 million in prize money has been awarded to the top teams.
Stop and think about that for a moment: 877 teams of students, each with an idea to make the world a better place. Each of them took the time on top of their rigorous courseload to learn about a social problem, devise a potential solution, and put together a pitch to launch something new into the world.
In the words of Susan Wolf Ditkoff, MBA 2001, founding member of the Social Enterprise Track and longtime New Venture Competition judge: “Throughout my experience at HBS, the mission of educating leaders who make a difference in the world is a simple statement, but it's hard to enact in a powerful way. When we started this competition, I would have been over the moon delighted if we'd had three entries. In our first year, we were blown away that we had 11. And now to have hundreds out there over the last 25 years, is beyond my wildest expectations.”
The social impact sector has evolved and matured significantly over the past 25 years. Funding mechanisms have expanded beyond traditional philanthropy and government to include impact investors and innovative outcomes-based funding models. Driven by the desire for greater accountability and our urgent need to understand what works to create positive social change, impact measurement has become increasingly sophisticated, moving beyond activities and output measurements to demonstrating outcomes and long-term social change. Technology has evolved, with powerful tools available for the sector to scale quickly and efficiently in a way that was unimaginable 25 years ago.
We have seen these trends reflected in our New Venture Competition social enterprise teams. Many more student ventures are now structured as for-profit enterprises than 25 years ago. The lines between the Social Enterprise track and the “traditional” Business Track are blurred and many of the teams who enter the traditional track have some social impact element to them. Ventures are increasingly focused on ensuring that their work benefits all members of the community, including marginalized and vulnerable groups.
As we look forward to the next 25 years of the New Venture Competition and the prospect of incredible technological and social change yet to come, we draw tremendous optimism from our students who consistently bring energy, enthusiasm and innovation to founding new ventures that will make meaningful progress on our most important social issues. Susan Wolf Ditkoff shared, “Watching the student teams bring their talent to the problems of society, and seeing their laser focus on the solutions that we need for the future is a gift. And I'm delighted if I can help them along.”
We couldn’t agree more.
See below for blog posts from three of our past winners reflecting on their entrepreneurial journeys and what the New Venture Competition experience meant to them.
