Social Enterprise Symposium

No Limits Social Impact Pitch Competition Finalists Announced

Hosted by the Center for Social Value Creation (CSVC) at the Robert H. Smith School of Business, the 3rd Annual No Limits Social Impact Pitch Competition is right around the corner and the five finalists are readying their presentations. Each finalist will present his or her pitch at the competition, which takes place as part of the 5th Annual Social Enterprise Symposium on March 1. The finalists are competing to win one of a number of prizes, as well as significant in-kind donations from CSVC partners, including:

Grand Prize: $3,000 cash prize + Desk Space at PunchRock, DC’s collaborative community for social entrepreneurs

Second Prize: $1,000 cash prize + Ashoka Headquarters Tour Package

People’s Choice: $500 cash prize + ThinkImpact Social Innovation Program Package

The competition is led by CSVC in partnership with the School of Public Policy’s Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership, with support from the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship. In addition, it is billed as an official University of Maryland Fearless Ideas event.

Finalists

Project Name: Destinalo.com
Team Leader: Cristina Huidobro
(Masters of Community Planning, 2013)

Destinalo.com is an online booking platform dedicated exclusively to offering amazing accommodation in environmentally friendly hotels, with the added value of being run by their owners. This allows travelers to find unique, authentic and sustainable places. More than offering just accommodations, Destinalo.com offers an experience. For those travelers looking for something different, Destinalo.com offers unique travel destinations that will allow them to get to know the traditions and culture of the places they are visiting. Travelers will be supporting the local economic development and the preservation of the environment.

“Destinalo.com is a tailor-made online booking platform for this type of small and sustainable tourism business. After researching the needs and expectations of this niche, we adjusted our processes to meet the requirements and characteristics. Therefore, we are putting online a market segment that currently is underserved and offline.” -Huidobro

Project Name: KidFit
Team Leader: Maggie Croushore (Masters of Public Policy, 2013)

KidFit works with schools to improve their Active Education (traditionally physical education and recess) delivery. Physical activity and health have a marked impact on academic performance, but traditional Active Education times are often unstructured and fail to deliver broad health or academic benefits. KidFit has developed a structured Active Education curriculum that incorporates Common Core academic standards, leverages cutting-edge technology, and builds unity within schools and their communities. The KidFit curriculum teaches life skills, such as goal setting, teamwork, and determination; analytical skills through analyzing data and tracking progress towards goals; and healthy lifestyles by showing students how small changes in their daily activities can make big changes in their overall health.

“I’ve been thinking about this issue for a long time. I studied childhood obesity during my undergraduate degree, taught in D.C. for four years, and saw the implications of childhood obesity on my students’ learning. The idea has been ruminating for awhile, but about a year ago I really got serious about putting together the curriculum and finding a school to pilot KidFit this past fall.” -Croushore

Project Name: Microjusticia
Team Leader: Juan Bellocq (Masters of Public Policy, 2013)

Fundacion Microjusticia Argentina is an Argentine nonprofit cofounded by young Argentine lawyers. While working in Buenos Aires’ most important corporate law firms they started recruiting colleagues to work pro bono in Buenos Aires’ largest slums (“villas miserias”). On Saturday mornings, they help disenfranchised citizens with legal and administrative solutions to many of the bureaucratic processes they must go through to regularize their legal standing vis-a-vis the government and the state. Three years later, Fundacion Microjusticia Argentina serves almost 1,000 people a year. They have partnered with Buenos Aires’ most relevant NGOs (shelters, after-school programs, microcredit institutions) to legally and administratively solve their communities’ inquires. They have also partnered with law firms and law schools that provide pro bono human resources (lawyers and law students) to be in charge of the beneficiaries consults.

“We are empowering people who live in villas miserias (slums) by fortifying their relationship with government, third parties and their personal commitment as citizens. All our outcomes are based around how many of the villa miserias dwellers that came to see us, end up being acknowledged by government either because they were able to register their kids for school, or they successfully applied for universal pensions, welfare programs or because they were able to convince their landlord to sign a written rent agreement for their house. Many of our beneficiaries either are unaware that they are entitled to certain rights or, if they are aware, they don’t know where or how to enforce or apply for those rights. We try to help them with where to go and how to properly demand the things they are entitled to as full members of society. Those are our outcomes. The impact is, for me, when they come back grinning the following Saturday after successfully accomplishing from a government agency what we told them they were entitled to, and they start bringing the rest of their family and friends to seek advice from our volunteer lawyers.” -Bellocq

Project Name: Payvius
Team Leader: Mondiu Ladejobi
(Executive Masters of Business Administration, 2013)

Payvius is a low-cost, convenient mobile money transfer service that enables secure international money transfers from a sender in the USA to any mobile phone in Sub-Saharan Africa. It also provides recipients with the opportunity to build credit in developing economies.

“It’s really based off of a bad personal experience I had sending money to some folks back home [in Nigeria] using Western Union. I needed to send money home for a funeral and it was time-sensitive. It didn’t get there on time and that didn’t sit well with me. It was for a really favorite uncle of mine and it was supposed to be used toward shouldering some of the funeral costs. It was very frustrating and I figured, ‘Here I am at the Smith School of Business getting an MBA and being infused with all this knowledge to tackle these sort of problems. So, I’m going to create a solution to solve my personal pain.” -Ladejobi

Project Name: ProCity
Team Leader: Christopher Lane
(Psychology and Theater, UG 2015)

ProCity is a free donation network that gives users a unique value for any unwanted items. When an item is entered online, the user redeems ProPoints (valued at more than monetary worth) that can then be used to receive other items that enter the online feed. Any unclaimed item is then further donated to charity. The ProCity system encourages the recycling of items, benefits charity and promotes a less wasteful campus. Revenue may be generated from premium accounts, intracampus trade, the filtering of items and campus-specific advertisements.

“About a year ago, my brother came to me with this idea of how people could redeem ideas for free. To me, it sounded preposterous and impossible. But I thought about it a little bit more and I figured, ‘Why don’t I create a virtual currency called Pro Points where if you donate an item, you redeem benefits. And with those items you can get other items.’ That’s where I got the idea.” -Lane

All five of our contestants will be presenting six-minute pitches followed by four minutes of Q&A from three esteemed judges from the social impact space:

Jigar Shah, Consultant, Entrepreneur and Author of "The Impact Economy"
Devin Schain, Founder & CEO of Campus Direct, Inc.
Lisa Hall, President & CEO, Calvert Foundation

Mark your calendars for the finals of the No Limits Social Impact Pitch Competition and the Social Enterprise Symposium, wherein you’ll be able to watch all five of these exciting pitches and help determine the People’s Choice winner.