Impactathon With Soka University Bridges To Business

Last weekend’s Impactathon in collaboration with Soka University Bridges to Business introduced collectively greater than thirty Soka University college students and alumni for a weekend the place they realized about social entrepreneurship, listened to practitioners within the area, developed their very own social enterprise concepts, and pitched to judges.

Participants organized themselves into eight groups for twenty-four hours to analyze urgent native and international issues, establish root causes and take the primary steps in direction of creating enterprise model-based options.

On Friday night, Mary Patrick Kavanaugh, director of the Soka University Bridges to Business program, opened the occasion and welcomed attendees.

After networking over scrumptious tacos, individuals went by way of a mini social enterprise boot camp led by Innov8social founder Neetal Parekh the place they have been launched to authorized buildings, enterprise fashions, influence measurement frameworks and funding choices. They additionally engaged of their first casual pitches.

Bright and early Saturday morning, after warming up with just a few improv video games, the individuals had the distinctive alternative to listen to candid views by way of Impact Talks from Eugene Lee, funding skilled and founding father of Digital Mosaic, and Brian Walker, founding father of Culture Bridge and Diversity and Inclusion Manager on the Walt Disney Company. After the ultimate crew formation and a mini design considering train, the individuals dived deeper into the issues they wished to unravel.

They realized about storytelling and parts of a pitch throughout a brief workshop earlier than shifting into full hackathon mode, the place among the groups took the chance to talk with Impact Catalysts Mitul Jambusaria, David Babbs and Bin Li to get suggestions on their concepts. They integrated their analysis and suggestions into designing a simplified pitch slide deck for his or her last four-minute pitches.

Nine groups got here to the plate to pitch to a panel of skilled and considerate judges, together with Shaheen Sheik-Sadal, Founding Attorney at Esse Law; Carlo Tomaino, financial growth supervisor for the town of Lake Forest; and Stephanie Roxas, city planner for the City of San Clemente.

The day concluded with three groups receiving seed funding and mentorship as a vote of confidence to maintain shifting ahead.

Here is a abstract of groups and brief descriptions of their social enterprises.

It was unimaginable to observe individuals establish urgent points and are available to life as they explored options. Thank you to all concerned.

And that makes Impactathon® #14 🙂