Translating research from R&D to commercialization
The Kauffman Foundation’s Global Innovation Challenge Summer Program focuses on teaching students to develop innovative skill sets that will promote entrepreneurship in developing countries. The initiative partners University of Southern California students with students in India to focus on local problems in India that must be solved for citizens to evolve to a more sophisticated entrepreneurial economy. Through the program, students develop plans (via for-profit companies) to address the local needs.
Many social entrepreneurship programs exist on U.S. campuses. Most focus on not-for-profit solutions as a means of solving real-world problems in developing countries. USC boasts the largest population of global students on a U.S. campus, and its established partnership with the Desphande Foundation, a Massachusetts and India philanthropic foundation that supports innovation, entrepreneurship, and international development, allows the Global Innovation Challenge Summer Program to test the boundaries of for-profit and social entrepreneurship.
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