Designing Solutions for Poverty
MIT Solve
Starting in 2018-2019, the Blum Center will partner with MIT Solve to host innovation workshops tackling the world’s most pressing problems.
Workshops will take place in early 2019 and convene experts, practitioners, researchers, and solvers to discuss:
- Women & Girls Empowerment – Entrepreneurship, STEM, and more
- Affordable Housing
More information about these events coming soon.
The Cove at UCI Applied Innovation
The Blum Center will partner with The Cove at UCI Applied Innovation to host workshops designed for community members, business leaders, and budding entrepreneurs.
More information coming in early 2019.
NVC Social Enterprise Track
Designed for student teams, the New Venture Competition at The Paul Merage School of Business offers the opportunity to form a team, launch a startup and potentially fund their business idea all within five months.
External Opportunities
Student entrepreneurs are invited to the annual Big Ideas Competition, which provides funding, support, and encouragement to interdisciplinary teams of students who have ‘Big Ideas.’
Based at UC Berkeley, the competition invites proposals in 9 categories:
- Art & Social Change: Create an innovative arts project that meaningfully engages with issues of advocacy, justice, and empowerment.
- Connected Communities: Design a novel solution that leverages technology to engage and enhance the well-being of campuses, communities, and cities.
- Energy & Resources: Propose a solution to spur the adoption of energy and resource alternatives that are sustainable and have potential for broad impact.
- Food Systems: Address a major issue confronting global food systems and develop a solution that promotes food security, sustainability, access, waste, and nutrition.
- Global Health: Develop an action-oriented, interdisciplinary project that would alleviate a global health concern among low-resource communities.
- Hardware for Good: Build a hardware technology, or leverage an existing product in a novel way, that is both socially and environmentally responsible.
- Workforce Education & Development: Identify a workforce solution that prepares individuals with the knowledge and skills necessary to secure employment and advance their careers.
- Scaling Up Big Ideas: For previous Big Ideas award winners who have advanced their ideas, and want to take their projects to the next level.