Social Entrepreneurship

The Dingman Center, together with the Center for Social Value Creation, offers many engaging curricular and out-of-class opportunities to explore social entrepreneurship, a fast-growing field that is transforming traditional business school programs around the country.

Student Support

• Students can pitch business ideas with a social mission through the Center’s Pitch Dingman program.
• A portion of the Smith E-Fund, which provides seed stage funding to members of the University of Maryland community, has been allotted specifically for business enterprises that have a social focus.
• Many students pursue ventures that focus on environmental sustainability or “cleantech”—products and services that improve performance and productivity while reducing costs, energy consumption and pollution. For example, the 2008 Cupid’s Cup winner was Anaptyx, a company that provides Internet access to entire apartment communities through energy-efficient technology.
• The Center also partners to provide research support and other entrepreneurship resources for fledgling entrepreneurs who wish to cultivate their own social enterprises. MBA alumna Cherry Kwunyeun found the Dingman Process useful in articulating her social vision. Read Cherry’s story.

Curriculum

• Students may take courses in social entrepreneurship at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.
• The Center for Social Value Creation leads Social Innovation Fellows, a one-year program that gives Smith School undergraduate students hands-on opportunities to seek innovative solutions for social and environmental challenges through the application of business principles."

Student Clubs & Competitions

• Through the Center for Social Value Creation and AshokaU, students can join the Terp Changemakers, a team of students from across the UM campus working to build a thriving social entrepreneurial community.
• There are a number of business plan and case competitions worldwide that focus on social responsibility, social entrepreneurship, sustainability and/or business ethics. The Center for Social Value Creation encourages students to enter competitions to share their social business ideas and sharpen their case writing skills. Click here for a full list of business competition.

Learn more about the Smith School’s Center for Social Value Creation