Social Enterprise Initiative

Summer Fellowship Program

Read About Past Summer Experiences


2009 Social Enterprise Summer Fellowship Summaries

This summer close to 125 students participated in the HBS Social Enterprise Summer Fellowship program, which since 1982 has helped students find positions in social enterprise and supplemented the salaries from the organizations. While benefiting the organizations and communities they serve, students were also able to develop their skills in a challenging management environment and explore future involvement in social enterprise.

Click on organization name for summaries. Full reports are available through the Social Enterprise Initiative. If you are considering a position with an organization who has hired in the past, we also suggest you speak personally with students to hear their experiences.

2009 Social Enterprise Summer Fellowship Summaries

Click on organization name for summaries.

3Tier

Evelyne White
This summer I worked for a late-stage start-up company called 3TIER Environmental Forecasting ("3TIER"). 3TIER is a renewable energy information company that provides site assessment and forecasting services for wind, hydro, and solar energy around the world. Its FirstLookŪ Prospecting and Assessment Reports provide a cost–effective (in many cases free) and scientifically rigorous tool to help governments and developers identify promising sites for wind, solar and hydro power development. During my eleven weeks, I developed reports and training materials to be used in developing countries, completed a USAID RFA seeking a US–China Clean Energy Partnership and built a pricing model to help management understand how to maintain a sustainable business model through appropriate pricing of products in each of its target markets. Working for 3TIER enabled me to take a first step down the path to a career dedicated to promoting the adoption of renewable and affordable sources of energy around the world.

ACT Charter School

Elizabeth Nielsen
My summer internship gave me the great opportunity to work at ACT Charter School, a college–preparatory charter school that aims to prepare traditionally underserved urban youth for success in college and life. At ACT, I was mainly responsible for 2 projects: first, managing the implementation of a ten year strategic plan to grow from 1 school to 15 schools, and second, to design and implement an alumni engagement program to support ACT alumni in graduating from college. Both projects granted me a great and wide range of experiences in which I could employ skills learned at HBS — from high level strategic planning, to tactical, day–to–day implementation.

Acumen Fund

Michael McCreless
This summer I worked as a Portfolio (Investment) Associate at Acumen Fund, a social venture fund that invests in early–stage start–ups that use new technologies or business models to deliver essential goods and services to the poorest people in India, Pakistan, and East Africa. I worked on a deal team to evaluate an opportunity to invest in a venture that installs mini power plants that run on discarded rice husks in off–grid Indian villages. I also wrote a white paper on a new approach to measuring the social impact of venture philanthropy. The work and my co–workers were both challenging and inspiring, and I would recommend Acumen Fund to anyone who is interested in using business models to address the most intractable problems of poverty in developing countries.

Ari Medoff
I worked with the Acumen Fund in Karachi for ten fascinating, hot, and jam–packed weeks this summer. The Acumen Fund is a social venture capital group that invests in for–profit businesses or nonprofit organizations delivering critical goods to low–income populations in the developing world. Investments are debt, equity, hybrid instruments in for-profit enterprises, and grants to nonprofits. The aim is to i) use the power of markets to help alleviate poverty, and ii) pioneer a sustainable nonprofit model. Acumen has committed over $7 million in Pakistan to date, in ventures as diverse as a dairy farm, a housing developer, and a microfinance institution. Investment returns are to be reinvested. My primary responsibilities were to assist the management of the microfinance institution and to create a monthly reporting system for the entire Pakistan portfolio. I learned a great deal about Acumen's innovative business model, and also about many of the operational challenges entrepreneurs face in the developing world.

Agora Partnerships

Seke Ballard
Over the summer I worked for Agora Partnerships, an organization which is on the forefront of building what they term the "impact investing" industry. Though the notion of mobilizing private, return–seeking capital to affect economic development isn't entirely new, Agora's method of offering start–ups a full suite of services aimed at addressing all of their business needs is unique among organizations in the space. The distinctiveness of their approach translated into a phenomenal summer experience which exposed me to the complexities of investing in emerging markets where familiarity with any other form of financing outside of debt is slim to none. As an organization, having to answer questions like "How does venture capital work?" or "Why are your returns so much higher than banks' returns?" was a powerful opportunity for us to engage in meaningful introspection, not least because our answers to these questions went to the foundation of our existence.

Alba Collective,The

Chahna Gosrani
I have always used education as a way to give back to the community and have volunteered with various high schools over the last ten years. I wanted to use this summer to continue this tradition but find a way to have a greater impact. I found a great opportunity to do this at The Alba Collective, a start up that aims to promote the autonomy and financial stability of poor women craft workers around the world, in conjunction with the Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA), a women's trade union based in Ahmedabad, India. My role was to define the target market and business operations for the company. Through applying learnings from my RC year, in conjunction with my previous consulting experience, I helped the company to define its value proposition in the value chain, which is helping it to complete its first product order. I had a fantastic experience and was able to get involved and really shape the business and hopefully help start a company that will impact the lives of women and communities in India for years to come.

Monica Tai
This summer I worked with the Alba Collective, which is a non–profit start–up working to promote greater access to human rights protections for poor women craft workers around the world through increased autonomy, financial stability and education. As a Creative Design and Business Development Consultant for Alba, I spent the summer working on both research and field projects. For my research project, I looked into examples of innovative design engagement in the social sector and web–based marketing tools in the luxury goods industry in order to help frame Alba's business model. For the fieldwork component, I travelled to India for two weeks to perform market research and to work with the Self–Employed Women's Association (SEWA) to assess how Alba could be effective in helping the women of SEWA create more sustainable income through their craft. I spent a week interviewing craftswomen in rural villages in Gujarat, listening to their stories of how far they have come and trying to understand their needs going forward. It was an incredible experience to be able to learn from the strength of these village women and then to apply my professional skills to try to help improve their production capabilities and eventually their level of income. The opportunity to work with both Alba and SEWA this summer gave me invaluable exposure to working in both India and the non–profit sector.

Bankable Frontier Associates

Mark Younger
I had the privilege of working for Bankable Frontier Associates this summer, a Boston–based consulting firm specializing in access to financial services for the poor. The firm develops and recommends strategies for companies, foundations and governments to expand financial service offerings to rural and low–income customers. This summer, I worked for the Banking and Securities Commission in Mexico (CNBV) to develop a strategy to measure and monitor financial inclusion in the Mexican population. Through supply–side regulatory reports and demand–side consumer surveys, we attempted to collect enough information to understand the growth of and changes to access, use, permanence and impact of financial services in the Mexican population. It was a fascinating experience with a progressive client who is thinking deeply about how to shape the financial industry through policy and product incentives.

BASE Africa

Taiwo Ajayi
I spent this summer developing BASE Africa-a web–based venture focused on enabling early–stage entrepreneurs in Africa to successfully build their businesses and contribute to wealth–creation on the continent. As BASE Africa's co–founder, I was able to fully dedicate my time to recruiting a team, segmenting our target market (which included launching a comprehensive survey, conducting interviews with various stakeholders, and facilitating focus group discussions both in the US and in Ghana), developing a test website and identifying strategic partners. Having established a foundation for our venture, I will continue to work on refining the business model and testing the online platform in three pilot countries (Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya) over the next year.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts

David Rosales
With the healthcare reform debate in full swing, the summer of 2009 was an exciting few months to be working at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, a large non–profit health plan and a leader in payment and coverage reform efforts at a state and national level. As a summer associate within the Business Consulting Group, I worked primarily on two projects. The first was a fascinating initiative aimed at reducing non–urgent use of the emergency room by investigating and implementing various strategies to increase the access to care and realign member and provider incentives. For the second project, I worked with the Sales organization to assess and develop recommendations to improve sales support for BCBSMA's 10 largest employer customers. In addition to this project work, I had the opportunity to meet senior leaders from across the organization, participate in professional development sessions, and was fortunate enough to receive the BCBSMA Innovation in Healthcare award for a proposal to apply concepts from the Behavioral Economics field to BCBSMA's plan offerings.

Boston Ballet

Anna Pikovsky
This past summer I worked at the Boston Ballet. My role was essentially as a strategic advisor to the Executive Director and General Manager, helping the organization address a variety of strategic, financial, and operational issues with their Ballet Schools. The project began with understanding the actual cost–basis of the schools since central resources had never been allocated to the Schools. From this information, it was clear that the Schools faced an annual funding gap. This information, as well as other diagnostic analyses, was used to craft a new development strategy and message geared specifically at Ballet School Parents. The new campaign will be launched this fall and is projected to bring in over $1 M in contributed revenue. In addition to the work on messaging and development, I analyzed the School's profitability by location. To further improve performance, I recommended changes in their current ticketing promotions and retail strategy.

Bridges Ventures

Tara Reeves
I spent the summer interning for Bridges Ventures, a socially responsible venture capital firm based in London. Bridges Ventures is an investment company whose commercial expertise is used to deliver both financial returns and social and environmental benefits. The founders and employees of the company believe that capitalism is a good thing, and that market forces and entrepreneurship can be harnessed to do well by doing good. The company's funds invest in businesses based in regeneration areas and in sustainable business sectors such as the environment, education and healthcare.

As a summer intern, I reviewed new business plans to assess potential new investment opportunities and researched attractive business sectors. I also worked closely with the managers of the social entrepreneurs fund and Monitor consultants to develop an investment thesis around the lack of social housing stock in the UK, where I was shocked to learn that 1 in 5 people live in public housing. I also enjoyed socializing with family and friends and the other 40 or so HBS interns in London this summer.

Carl Sloane

Vivek Kumar
This summer I worked with 3 other HBS MBA students along with HBS Professor Emeritus Carl Sloane on a non–profit consulting project to assess the financial viability of 23 non–profit organizations serving Boston's North Shore Jewish community. The study covered areas including Fundraising, Social Service, Religious Service, Education, and Recreation Centers. I was specifically responsible for a comprehensive analysis of the 8 local Synagogues, including interviewing senior executive and spiritual leaders and operational and financial analyses. The non–profit world, specifically relating to religious organizations, is filled with many challenges including assuring efficient fundraising and the corresponding impact to future success, and the impact of having volunteers as members of the board. These religious organizations provide great value to the community and I enjoyed being a part of the beginning of a transformation that can positively affect many people.

Benjamin Lewis
Over the summer I had the chance to work with Carl Sloane, HBS professor emeritus and former chairman and chief executive of Mercer Management Consulting, on a critical assessment of 23 separate Jewish Non–Profit organizations on Boston's North Shore. The experience was remarkable for a number of reasons: I worked with a great team of four HBS students, had the opportunity to learn from a one–of–a–kind individual with extensive experience in consulting, and contributed to a high–impact community study that will hopefully shape the community for years to come. Stepping in during a time of significant economic struggles, I was the sole individual responsible for five distinct organizations (a K–8 grade school, a community center, two synagogues, and an after–school community religious school) and was asked to collect information through interviews, analyze the organizations as stand–alone entities as well as in the context of the community, and provide recommendations on potential operational, strategic, or collaboration/merger opportunities for improvement. The experience changed my view of work in the non–profit arena, and the SE Fellowship helped me accept the opportunity to push myself very far outside my comfort zone for the summer.

Kevin O'Boyle
My summer working with HBS Professor Emeritus Carl Sloane on the North Shore Jewish Community Turnaround Project will have a lasting impact on both my leadership development as well as that of the professional and lay leaders of the 23 institutions that took part in our study. The purpose of our project was two–fold: first, to develop a plan to help relieve the financial stresses besetting most, if not all, institutions on the North Shore; and, second, to help address long–standing issues of leadership and service quality that underlay and contributed to these financial stresses. I was personally responsible for leading research on the central fundraising and planning organization and the major social services organization. After performing leadership assessments, fundraising efficiency analyses, service portfolio rationalizations and a benchmarking study of multi–agency consolidation models of similar communities, I made recommendations to restructure both organizations, to modernize business practices, to geographically expand services and to divest non–essential services in order to achieve service quality improvements and near–term savings of approximately 500 thousand dollars. It is my hope that these recommendations will strengthen the North Shore Jewish Community for years to come. This project also provided the invaluable experiences of managing a turnaround project.

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)

Robin Tang
I worked at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in Baltimore, MD, where I helped author a Report to the Congress on value–based purchasing for physician services. Although the 2009 health reform debate centered around coverage, the less–glamorous field of payment reform may in fact hold the key to controlling costs while actually improving healthcare quality. Many health policy experts believe that the current Medicare payment system, called "fee–for–service," has helped drive explosive growth in American healthcare costs without comparable results. Payment for value — defined as maximizing medical outcomes obtained per dollar spent — might be the answer, and most experts believe Medicare must lead the way. The final report will be available to the public in May 2010.

Community Lab

Molly Rosenman
This summer, I worked as the Director of Process and Execution at Community Lab, a non–profit startup based in New York City. Community Lab engages a robust network of volunteers to work with the world's largest development organizations to build high–quality, sustainable systems that meet the health, education and nutrition needs of underserved communities worldwide. Community Lab was a fairly new organization when I joined, and my role for the summer was to analyze each of their major operating lines. In conjunction with the CEO, I assisted in the definition of the short/long–term strategic direction for each operating line, drafted operating procedures for each, and worked to set a timeline for the build–out of each group. Over the course of the summer, I was also involved in marketing, staffing, developing client/partner relationships, and working with the first volunteer teams engaged in development projects through Community Lab. Working in a startup gave me direct exposure to a wide variety of issues and business challenges, and pushed me to apply many of the skills I'd developed in my first year at HBS. Hopefully, this also enabled me to impact the way in which Community Lab will deliver on its mission to communities worldwide. Overall, the experience was highly rewarding, and I look forward to an ongoing affiliation with the firm as a strategic advisor.

Congressional Oversight Panel, US Congress

Ben Steiner
This summer, with the generous support of the HBS Social Enterprise Initiative, I worked for the Congressional Oversight Panel of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, one of the U.S. Government agencies responsible for overseeing the U.S. Treasury's deployment of the financial bailout funds. As part of its deployment of the TARP funds, the U.S. Treasury acquired warrants in more than 270 bank holding companies. COP's July Oversight Report, "TARP Repayments, Including the Repurchase of Stock Warrants," examined the value of these warrants and evaluated Treasury's efforts to resell them back to the issuing banks. I was the lead financial analyst on the July report team and was personally responsible for valuing the warrants. During my summer internship, I applied many of the skills I acquired in the RC year, particularly from Finance, Negotiations and Financial Reporting and Control. My Social Enterprise summer experience not only provided me with an interesting summer and a powerful networking opportunity, but also will be the subject of a new case I am writing that will become part of the RC curriculum. I am grateful for the opportunity the Social Enterprise Initiative gave me, would like to move back into public service after graduation and hope that future generations of HBS students continue to enjoy this generous funding opportunity.

Cristo Rey New York High School

Danelle Radney
This summer, I had the opportunity to work for Cristo Rey New York High School in East Harlem. The school is a part of a national Network of private, college preparatory, Catholic high schools focusing on students from low income families. Using a unique work study model to keep tuition affordable, the students work one day a week in job sharing teams and their salaries go back to pay for their tuition. My role was under the Director of the Work Study Department, working to identify new potential industries and potential corporate partners while developing new strategies to increase the number of jobs for their students. It was great experience to be able to combine many of my interests into one job-education, faith, and strategic consulting.

Dalberg Global Development Advisors

Hui Wen Chan
Dalberg Global Development Advisors is a niche consulting firm specializing in international development consulting. Staffed almost exclusively by former management consultants from the top firms, they attempt to address development issues through private–sector management consulting methods, by serving organizations in the development sector. As someone who had a consulting background from Mercer Management Consulting and experience working in global health at the Clinton Foundation in China prior to HBS, I was looking for more commercial approach to solving development challenges. Dalberg provided me with a unique opportunity to work in development areas such as access to finance and global health in a more structured business–driven environment.

District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS)

Yerrie Kim
Getting up every morning this summer to go to work at the District of Columbia Public Schools was truly amazing. Education was a field I have been deeply passionate about, but never thought to develop a career in. Therefore when the opportunity presented itself for me to be a senior associate working at Chancellor Michelle Rhee's office for the summer of 2009 at DCPS, it was an opportunity I could not pass. Through a combination of hands–on and strategic work, I learned many valuable lessons; how hard it is to communicate well, the virtue of action over words; difficulty of making policy decisions that affect front line activities; and the importance of great leadership and people. In fact, I can honestly say that the summer of 2009 has been the biggest turning point of my life so far. I thank the HBS Social Enterprise Initiative for making it available for me to work at the forefront of education reform, with some of the most inspiring leaders in the field.

Venus Miller
My internship with the District of Columbia Public School system in the office of Chancellor Rhee was an extremely rewarding experience. Not only did it expose me to the institutional challenges to driving true education reform, but it also allowed me to see education reform at work in one of the most broken school districts in the country. I worked with the Office of Portfolio Management, the team that focuses on "out–of–the–box" solutions for the more challenging schools, which gave me exposure to the various innovation programs that are being implemented across the country. My project was to cross reference the metrics of the projects within portfolio against the DCPS–wide effective schools framework to ensure alignment and identify gaps. Most importantly, my internship helped me understand the role that businesses can play in education reform, and I look forward to helping to drive those partnerships in the future.

Scott Torres
This summer I worked for the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) as part of the district's Urban Education Leadership Internship Program (UELIP). Specifically, I helped the budget office to plan for a transition from limited ad–hoc department financial reviews to comprehensive and quarterly forecasts. These forecasts, when implemented in fiscal year 2010, will help district management to recognize and respond to deviations from financial projections sooner. The result will be a more efficient allocation of financial resources. At DCPS, I also helped in a project to map the fiscal year 2010 budget to six key goals outlined in the district's five–year strategic plan. This project will provide a foundation for future analysis of how money is spent in accordance with strategy. A third assignment that I worked on in collaboration with other budget office analysts was a spend forecast of the remaining two months of fiscal year 2009. Aside from my time in the budget office, UELIP offers numerous opportunities to hear from chiefs in various district departments and other leaders in DC government. Highlights from this part of the program include a visit to the Department of Education and a small–group discussion with Deputy Mayor Valerie Santos (HBS '03). Overall the summer reinforced my belief that more leaders must focus on quality public education both as a fundamental backbone to equality of opportunity and as a wise economic investment for the United States.

E.L. Haynes Public Charter School

Ben Reno–Weber
Thanks to the HBS Social Enterprise Summer Fellowship working for the E.L. Haynes Public Charter School in the Petworth neighborhood in Northwest Washington DC. E.L. Haynes serves a predominantly minority and economically disadvantaged community, but has managed to achieve results that are consistently above private and magnet schools in the District. It achieves this through an unfailing belief in the potential of its kids, a commitment to excellent teaching, and a willingness to do anything it takes to help kids succeed. The organization is also incredibly well–run, and for me it was an example of all that high performing non–profits have to teach business. I worked with them developing their Human Capital systems, as they transitioned from a start–up to a growth organization. It was a perfect application of my HBS skills, but more importantly enabled me to get a really good view of the daily life of a non–profit leader.

Education Pioneers

Melissa Anderson
During the summer of 2009, I worked with Teach For America's Boston Regional Team as an Education Pioneers Fellow. Education Pioneers recruits high–caliber graduate students with professional backgrounds to make an immediate impact in education by spending the summer working on a mission–critical project for a partner organization.

Teach For America's mission is to build the movement to eliminate educational inequity by enlisting our nation's most promising future leaders in the effort. Teach For America recruits outstanding recent college graduates and working professionals to commit to teach for at least two years in urban and rural public schools. Alumni take the perspective and conviction that come from teaching successfully in low–income communities forward to become leaders across levels and professions addressing the challenges facing children growing up in low income communities. At Teach For America, I worked with the Greater Boston Region on strategic and operational planning for individual giving and alumni engagement. I assessed internal and external best practices in each area, as well as the current state of the Boston Region, creating strategic plans and operational tools to engage the alumni base in Greater Boston and stimulate a local individual giving campaign.

Kate Banting
Education Pioneers is a training program that brings together graduate students from across a variety of disciplines to learn about urban educational reform. Fellows are matched with a partner organization in the education sector for a ten week fellowship. I worked directly with BELL (Building Educated Leaders for Life), an academic afterschool and summer program for urban youth. At BELL I evaluated the opportunity to diversify their income streams by selling their in–house online training program to other organizations in the sector. After a thorough evaluation of the market, competition and internal capabilities, we determined that this is an area of high customer demand that also fits well with BELL's mission and internal capabilities. For the latter portion of my summer, I developed the marketing and product development plans and helped begin implementation of them. Through this initiative, I am confident that BELL will now be able to help more children receive higher quality afterschool/summer programming by increasing the quality of instruction provided.

Katrina Conley
I spent my summer as an Education Pioneers Fellow placed at Victory Schools. As a Fellow, I not only had the benefit of attending professional development sessions focused on addressing issues in urban education reform but I also became part of a national program placing graduate students in internal consulting roles with various educational organizations. My particular placement was with Victory Schools, an educational management organization that operates 10 charter schools in New York. My projects included benchmarking operational best practices in education to recommend key action steps to streamline Victory Schools' procurement and payroll processes. In addition, I was tasked with developing a purchasing strategy for the organization by analyzing historical spending data and identifying the most viable categories for vendor consolidation.

Catherine Lee
This summer, I had the opportunity to work in the Department of Early Childhood at Boston Public Schools. The Department of Early Childhood serves the 6,000 Kindergarten and Pre–Kindergarten students across the city of Boston. I spent the start of my summer working on the pilot year of the Summer Reading Academy, a summer literacy program for Kindergarten and First Grade students. I helped to secure space for the program, hire site coordinators and teachers, enroll students, and train teachers. At the conclusion of the program, I also collected attendance data and staff surveys to identify best practices and possible improvements for future years. During the second half of my summer, I focused on NAEYC accreditation. NAEYC accreditation, a voluntary set of professional standards for early childhood programs, is a major priority of both BPS and the city of Boston. I worked with the Director of Early Childhood to create a strategic plan around accreditation. The plan is intended to aid in increasing district support, raising critical funds and implementing NAEYC accreditation effectively. I worked at Boston Public Schools as an Education Pioneers fellow. Through my fellowship, I attended weekly workshops focused on different reform initiatives in public education.

Whitney Petersmeyer
This summer I was fortunate enough to work with Teach For America (TFA), a national not–for–profit. TFA aspires to build the movement to eliminate educational inequity by enlisting our nation's most promising future leaders in the effort. Its vision is that one day all children in this nation will have the opportunity to attain an excellent education. Since its inception in 1990, the TFA network has grown to include more than 20,000 individuals. Currently, some 6,200 TFA corps members teach in 29 urban and rural areas profoundly affected by the achievement gap. TFA is highly data–driven, but as the organization has scaled teams have become increasingly siloed in their respective efforts to collect and analyze mission critical data along the program continuum. I worked on a project for the Insights group of the national Marketing team, to analyze surveys deployed across the organization and identify opportunities for increased integration of research along the program continuum. I designed a "Research Excellence Collaborative," a cross–functional initiative to maintain strategic oversight of research, facilitate knowledge sharing, and enable longitudinal tracking against org–wide objectives. I also developed proposals for standards, tools and guidance teams need to effectively execute research.

William Robinson
I was fortunate enough to work for the DC Public Education Fund (DCPEF) this summer, a new organization raising money to support the innovative reforms and pilot initiatives at DC Public Schools. My charge was to design DCPEF's performance management system. At the beginning of the summer, I worked with key constituents including the board and district chiefs to craft the organization's first set of goals, performance success measures, and a strategic plan to help them achieve those goals. Throughout the summer, I led the implementation of a software program to track the organization's data and designed a performance dashboard to enhance organizational accountability. Finally, I built a personnel evaluation system to reflect the organization's unique goals.

I was fortunate enough to work with a passionate set of reform–minded colleagues, and was inspired to witness the leadership of Michelle Rhee. I also enjoyed applying numerous lessons from the HBS classroom and participating in the Education Pioneers Program, which provided wonderful opportunities to collaborate with talented individuals interested in education.

Pooja Shah
I spent the summer working as an Education Pioneer fellow at the KIPP Foundation in San Francisco. Education Pioneers is a national non–profit organization that recruits graduate students across disciplines, including business, policy, law and education, and combines them in a cohort experience to discuss critical issues related to education reform. The organization also places its fellows in consulting roles with leading education organizations.

My placement was with the KIPP Foundation, an efficiently managed national charter management organization whose core function is to train prospective school leaders who will, in turn, open KIPP charter schools across the nation. In my role at KIPP, I worked directly with the CFO on the development of the 2010–2015 strategic plan. Specifically, I created an in–depth financial projection model and conducted scenario analyses around sources of philanthropic and non–philanthropic funding, helping to guide the Foundation as it evaluates growth initiatives.

Lindsay Steinmetz
This summer I was an Education Pioneer Fellow at Boston Public Schools (BPS) in the Office of Human Resources. As part of a cohort of 44 graduate students from policy, law, business and education, I had the opportunity to discuss and explore areas of education reform in weekly workshops as well as work on 4 strategic projects for BPS. I designed a roll–out plan of 360 degree reviews for central office employees, analyzed the current teacher evaluation system and recommended improvements to make it more competitive for the $4.85 billion Race to the Top Funds, developed and implemented a 3 day professional development institute for 150 school secretaries, and worked with the 8 person staffing team to document and improve their policies for staffing 143 schools. Overall, the summer showed me that I do believe that change can happen from within the system, but it also demonstrated the need for leadership and management to form a strong vision and strategy that various departments can use to organize their individual initiatives. This experience has opened up my mind to many more questions about people development, raising the bar on professionalism in public education and the long term consequences of bad hiring practices. Yet, I continue to be convinced that improving public education through human capital initiatives is the best leverage point and will most affect the 56,000 students in the city of Boston.

Jessica Vazquez
I spent my summer as an Education Pioneers fellow in Los Angeles, CA. As a fellow for Education Pioneers, I participated in bi–weekly seminars focused on leadership and reform initiatives in the education sector with other graduate students in education, law and policy.

Additionally, I completed a 10–week internship with Partnerships to Uplift Communities (PUC) Schools, a Charter Management Organization that operates charter schools in the Los Angeles and San Fernando Valley. PUC's mission is to operate effective schools that prepare students for college success in these densely populated urban communities that contain overcrowded and low achieving schools. As part of my project with PUC, I developed and implemented a web–based calendaring tool to optimize the management and communication of multiple state and district deadlines. Secondly, I worked to implement a calendaring system at each school to help in the communication of school site events with students, parents, teachers and the community. Lastly, I worked to improve the design of financial documents in order to improve the tracking of financial transactions at each school site.

Egg–energy

Emmanuel Cassimatis
I spent the summer launching Egg–energy in Tanzania. Egg–energy aims to provide a battery swapping service to connect low–income communities to power in Tanzania. Ninety percent of people in Tanzania have no access to electricity, yet many live close to power lines. Last–mile distribution is indeed too expensive and the communities resort to kerosene for their lighting and AA batteries for their radios. The proposed service would improve the communities' quality of life by making available a cheaper, more convenient, safer and cleaner energy source.

Having won several business plan competitions in the US (Harvard - Social Enterprise, Knox Lawrence, MIT Ideas), the team from Harvard and MIT gathered the prizes to conduct further market research, incorporate and realize a pilot. The summer activities were varied and included market research, investigating partnership opportunities, making a prototype, analyzing procurement options and organizing processes for the pilot. I am thankful for the fellowship which allowed me to live the excitement and challenges of an entrepreneurial experience, while contributing towards a potential power solution in a developing country.

Alla Jezmir
This summer, I had the privilege of working for EGG–energy, a for–profit venture with a social mission to deliver electricity to low–income customers in Africa, starting with Tanzania. As a member of EGG–energy's founding team, it was absolutely thrilling to begin executing EGG–energy's business plan and immersing fully into the mess and delight of an early–stage start–up.

I spent two weeks in May in the San Francisco bay area presenting EGG–energy's business model to potential investors, primarily in the venture capital community. After graduation, I joined three other EGG–energy founders in Dar es Salaam as part of the launch team. We focused primarily on site selection, partnership development, market research, incorporation, and fundraising on the ground. The experience reaffirmed my belief in the power of businesses with a social mission to provide essential goods and services that improve people's lives and refueled my commitment to supporting the venture in an advisory role.

Embrace

Tomasz Gorzycki
I spent my 2009 summer working for Embrace, a non–profit start–up organization that came up with a technology, that has a potential to save millions of lives of prematurely born children. Embrace prepares to launch an affordable incubator, which costs only a fraction of the standard incubator's cost. My job was to figure out the pricing, distribution and estimate the demand for the Indian market. I applied my previous work experience at a consumer goods company as well as learning from strategy and marketing classes. This experience could easily become another HBS case for the first year students and I believe it was a great application of the theory I learned. The unique environment of a start–up company allowed me to learn about myself how I feel and how I operate in an ever changing environment of informal and unstructured processes. I had to create processes and find out the best ways to get my job done. It was a completely different experience from my previous job in large corporations. Also the social impact created by the company was a fantastic motivator for all my actions, which was a great learning about myself. Even if I do not work for a non–profit organization in the future, my summer experience allowed me to see that I should commit to similar activity even if it meant a part–time help.

Nickyl Raithatha
This summer I worked for Embrace, a non–profit start up looking to launch a proprietary low–cost infant warmer in India to prevent hypothermia in newborn babies. As a member of the marketing and distribution team, I was tasked with choosing the launch state, segmenting the market, establishing a willingness to pay, and recommending the most suitable distribution channel and partner. My in–the–field research consisted of identifying and interviewing countless healthworkers, NGOs, government officials, pharmaceutical companies and medical device manufacturers, all across India. The experience was a great insight into the social enterprise space, and also into the workings of a young start–up. It was great to put so many of the learnings from my first year at HBS into action, and I am grateful to the Social Enterprise Initiative for facilitating such an opportunity.

Ridhi Tariyal
This summer I interned with a healthcare non–profit start up called Embrace in India. Embrace started out as an effort in a Stanford design class to create an affordable solution to the critical problem of hypothermia in premature babies. Our product is a portable sleeping bag which allows neonates to be transferred between institutions to receive further clinical care. It fills a critical gap within the Indian healthcare delivery system which is not organized around newborns. I played a role in mapping out the marketing strategy for the company and determining the optimal distribution strategy in the Indian context. I interviewed physicians, nurses, midwives, recent mothers, and more to gather product feedback, understand how best to sell the product and facilitate adoption within the current standard of care. I also spoke with government leaders and NGOs to evaluate various ways of ensuring proper training of healthcare workers to use our simple medical device. It was an enriching summer which allowed me to use my business skills and developed my ability to work within an unfamiliar and challenging context.

Esha Tiwary
I interned this summer with Embrace, which is a non–profit social enterprise that aims to save the 4.2 million premature and low birth weight babies born annually around the world. This company was started out of Stanford a year ago, and has developed a very low cost infant incubator that costs a fraction of existing equipments. They're going to launch the product in India in early 2010. My summer was divided into two parts. For the first month I was based out of Palo Alto, CA and focused on developing a strategy for their US business in order to raise funds and awareness for the India launch. My work involved coming up with a plan, doing market research to test the idea, product design and creating a team to take the project forward.

For the second half of the internship I was based in India. My responsibilities included developing a marketing and distribution strategy for the launch including identification of the target segment, geographical focus, product pricing and also finding the right distribution partners and supply chain model. I also got involved setting up manufacturing for the product in India. Overall, I had a great time over the summer. By being involved in so many aspects of the business, I was able to apply a lot of the principles I learned during RC and could also deeply appreciate the challenges faced by a start–up and a non–profit company.

Endeavor

Osman Buyukmutlu
This summer I had the exciting opportunity to prepare projects for Turkey Office of Endeavor. Endeavor helps high–impact entrepreneurs to break down barriers to success in their environment. Currently, Endeavor Turkey helps 25 entrepreneurs who established 14 companies in Turkey. These companies serve in a variety of industries including telecommunication, food delivery, wireless technologies and insurance. I developed four main projects for Endeavor Turkey: (1) Developing "Entrepreneurial Stakeholder Map of Turkey"; (2) Preparing the E–Book called "Financial Incentives that could Improve your Competitive Advantage in 50 Questions & Answers"; (3) Developing Strategy for International Expansion and Finding Financial Resources for two entrepreneurs; (4) Performing Due Diligence Analysis.

Carlos Julia Cano
My experience over the summer, taking an internship in Social Enterprise, has been both really valuable and rewarding from a professional and personal standpoint. I worked for Endeavor, an organization aimed at supporting high–impact entrepreneurship in developing countries. Through their eMBA program, I helped a Colombian entrepreneur define his growth strategy within the financial sector. I believe this way of supporting entrepreneurship is the most effective one to contribute to the development of economies and societies.

Nikolaus Ehrensberger
Through Endeavor I worked for 10 weeks at an oven and refrigerator manufacturing company called Prática in the state of Minas Gerais in Brazil. The managing entrepreneur had ambitious growth targets but no clear plan on how to achieve his targets. Throughout my summer project I built a strategic growth roadmap by analyzing growth options in their current markets, in new markets, though new products and through international expansion in order to continue growing at an annual rate of 40% until 2015. Finally I built a financial projection in order to value the company and determine the resources necessary to achieve the growth plan, and find the best financing option for Prática.

Taahir Khamissa
I have just completed my summer as an 'eMBA' Summer Associate with Endeavor based in Monterrey, Mexico. Endeavor aims to transform lives and economies in emerging markets by supporting high–impact, innovative entrepreneurs; who attempt to make real differences in the social and commercial landscapes of these markets. Entrepreneurs in these markets are offered world–class strategic advice and insight into sources of intelligent capital. In turn, these entrepreneurs serve as much–needed role models in their communities to encourage further entrepreneurship and hence development. I spent my summer working with one of these Endeavor companies, Vialux, a telecom–infrastructure company based in Monterrey, Mexico. Vialux is currently the only provider of cell sites in Mexico offering custom–built solutions to complex infrastructure issues for telecom clients. By providing site solutions in locations that were previously inaccessible to telecom carriers, Vialux is playing a crucial role in the development of Mexico's people and economy by expanding communication coverage to previously disconnected communities throughout the country.

Demet Mutlu
Endeavor is a US based non–profit founded in 1997, whose mission is to transform the economies of emerging markets by identifying and supporting high–impact entrepreneurs. James Wolfensohn, former President of the World Bank and member of the Endeavor Board of Directors, believes that "Endeavor has played an instrumental role in promoting entrepreneurship as a tool for development. It is a model that should be replicated around the world." I had the fortunate chance to experience this powerful model thanks to the HBS Social Enterprise fund.Through Endeavor, I worked for Yemeksepeti.com, an e-commerce platform for delivery restaurants in Turkey, which allowed me to gain experience in the technology sector. I helped Yemeksepeti, develop a new value proposition and launch one of their ventures. More specifically in order to develop the final recommendation, I had to: Lead a market research study both with consumers (users) and customers (restaurants); Datamine the current user base to identify high potentials ;Analyze the business model and economics to develop a financial forecast ; Understand both competitive threats from current providers and future entrants ; Develop a launch and marketing plan.

My summer experience made me realize the potential that a technology firm can have in Turkey. It also showed me that a company can produce a positive social impact as well as profits. Finally, my internship helped me realize that my passion does lie in entrepreneurship and it initiated me to execute the business plan I had developed for years. Over the summer I launched my startup, raised capital and have been able to leverage the powerful Endeavor network throughout all stages.

Oliver Tompkins
I spent my summer working for Endeavor, a US based non–profit whose mission is to support entrepreneurs in emerging markets. Through Endeavor I was paired with a Colombian bioproducts company called EcoFlora. EcoFlora is based in Medellin and produces a range of organic, biopesticides as well as organic, natural food ingredients. My project was to develop and begin implementing an export strategy to help the company transform from a small Latin American producer into a global producer. The project was a wonderful experience. I began by developing the strategy; this was very similar to a lot of my previous work as a consultant but was very new for EcoFlora who had not previously had anyone help them prioritize the potential between their different products or across different markets. Once the strategy was developed I then helped them contact distribution partners in the US and Europe and was able to move forward to the point where we had contracts in place with three different parties. Overall the summer was a great experience for me and one where I felt like I was able to contribute a large amount to the future success of EcoFlora. I would highly recommend working for Endeavor as a great opportunity for anyone wanting to work in Emerging Markets and wanting to be able to really influence the future of an organization.

Brook Yakin
Endeavor is a US–based nonprofit that supports high impact entrepreneurs in emerging economies. Through Endeavor, I worked for Three Melons, an Argentinean "game studio that develops online and iPhone games with a social component and free–to–play business model, both with original IP and well–established third party properties, designed for advertising and entertainment." Based in Buenos Aires, my summer work involved developing a business plan and operational strategy to expand Three Melons' existing business while simultaneously launching the original IP self–publishing game studio for distribution on social networking sites and mobile devices (primarily Facebook and iPhone applications). Specifically, this involved analyzing the existing business and recommending changes to the CEO and senior management, including updates to project–scoping methodology, budget changes to improve managing SCRUM sprints and creative development for content studio. Through participating in the Endeavor program, I realized my three ideals for my summer employment: working abroad, working for a start–up and working within a social enterprise.

Federal Bureau of Investigation

Jaclyn Barrett
During the summer of 2009, I had the opportunity to work at the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a member of the Special Advisor Program. The FBI is a United States government agency under the Department of Justice whose mission includes protecting and defending the United States against terrorist and foreign intelligence threats, enforcing the criminal laws of the United States, and providing leadership and criminal justice services to other agencies and partners. Though its mission is unique, the FBI faces management challenges similar to any large, private–sector organization, and the Special Advisor Program was created within the FBI to help address these management challenges.

My project for the summer was part of the Bureau's Leadership Development Program - a broad and exhaustive effort to more systematically develop the FBI's leadership talent. I was part of a cross–functional team that was specifically focused on improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the promotion process for Special Agents. My summer internship experience was extremely rewarding - both personally and professionally. The challenging problem we were facing provided a great opportunity to apply knowledge and skills I gained in my prior private–sector experience, as well as in my first year at HBS. And knowing that I was contributing to the FBI's mission of protecting the United States made it easy to get up for work each morning!

Matt Segneri
I was fortunate enough to spend my summer as a Special Advisor Intern at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. With 30,000 employees, a $7 billion budget, and a workforce based in all 50 states and over 60 countries, the FBI faces similar management challenges to those of any private–sector or large non–profit organization. The Special Advisor Program, an internal advisory group made up of graduates from top MBA programs, tackles the FBI's most complex management issues. I worked with the Bureau's Leadership Development Program to develop a best–in–class promotion process for Special Agents. This summer was one of the best personal and professional experiences of my young career, and I thoroughly enjoyed working in a mission–driven organization with an incredibly passionate and patriotic group of people.

FEED Projects/FEED Foundation

Kathryn Tisch
The Social Enterprise Fellowship afforded me the opportunity to intern this summer at FEED Projects. Founded by Lauren Bush, the company sells FEED bags through retailers such as Bergdorf Goodman, Whole Foods, and Barnes & Noble. Each bag includes a metric–based donation, e.g. feeding one child in school for one year, through charities including the World Food Program and Millennium Villages. It was my responsibility to manage the development six new products. This involved designing the product look and logo, working with factories and charitable partners, cold–calling potential retailers, setting manufacturing and shipping schedules, determining pricing, and developing website content and social media advertising for new product launches.

Gazelle.com

Patrick Wetherille
My internship at Gazelle.com gave me great insight into the world of a successful for–profit social enterprise. Gazelle's mission is to show that it's profitable to be green. They resell and recycle used electronic devices, using the resell side to subsidize their recycling. I worked specifically on their pricing engine, a proprietary system that maximizes value to the firm through the use of algorithms and market data. I also put together research to estimate the size of the secondhand electronics market, a market research firms have only begun to explore. All in all, it was a great experience: passionate people doing work that brings together private and social goals in an impacting way.

Giving Back Fund, The

Joseph Kim
My Summer Fellowship allowed me to gain experience in the non–profit space at a firm named The Giving Back Fund, located in Los Angeles, California. The Giving Back Fund is a non–profit that helps celebrities in the entertainment and sports industries realize what it means to be a philanthropists and how they can leverage their success into social good. The Giving Back Fund develops charitable programs, identifies high quality charity partners and manages donor advised funds and foundations for their clients. In addition, The Giving Back Fund pioneered the Best Practices Fundraising Summit held yearly in Los Angeles and The Giving Back 30 published in Parade Magazine that highlights celebrities who have made the largest donations to charity.

During the eight week fellowship at The Giving Back Fund, I was able to work closely with the CEO and Vice President to form a new pricing model, calculate monthly operating profits with yearly forecasts and develop a business plan. The new pricing model involved breaking down the services they offered into specific tasks, then allocating the hours spent on these tasks. The new model allows The Giving Back Fund to be self–sustainable and offer pricing more accurately and quickly. Calculating operating profits allowed The Giving Back Fund to correctly access their current financial situation, and plan for the future. Overall, the summer fellowship was a fulfilling experience, in that it provided me a first time opportunity to work within the non–profit space in an intimate supportive atmosphere.

Global Fund for Children, The

Gabrielle Bill
I had the fortune to spend my summer at The Global Fund for Children (GFC), a non–profit grant–making organization that supports innovative, grassroots groups that in turn help their communities' most vulnerable children achieve a better quality of life. My time was spent working on the "Global Fund for Children Books" brand, a children's book publishing division housed under the organization's Global Media Ventures division. My primary responsibility was somewhat consultative: I was tasked with looking at the division's current marketing tactics and revamping the program to bring greater exposure, and more aggressive marketing, to the product line. Secondarily, I was responsible for developing a strategic partnership outreach program to help GFC make greater connections with both corporate and non–profit organizations. By the end of the summer, I had created 360 degree marketing plans for three of the group's children's books, leaving behind a template that can be used to craft further marketing plans, and had researched more than 50 organizations and five unique types of partnerships that GFC could potentially pursue. Overall, I had a wonderful time learning about the non–profit community and the impact that a small, but incredibly complex organization such as The Global for Children, can make in the world.

Google China CSR

Lavina Tien
This summer I had the privilege of working for Google China's Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative, which seeks to leverage Google's resources to find innovative solutions and entrepreneurial approaches to address the challenges of inequality, poverty, education, and the environment in China. In particular, I focused on the hallmark of our CSR initiative, Caring for China - Google Social Innovation Cup for college students (益暖中华). Caring for China is the country's first nationwide competition aimed at empowering China's youth to address pressing social issues through grassroots, innovative solutions. Open to college students around the country, it also serves to instill a sense of social responsibility and civic engagement in the minds of China's youth generation. In a nutshell, we solicit project proposals from college students across all 31 provinces that demonstrate a creative, practical solution to a social problem in their local community. We then select a certain number of projects to fund and be implemented over the students' summer vacations. Social issues covered range from education, poverty, disability needs and healthcare, to the environment, arts and culture, women and children issues, and general community development. My role was two–fold - in addition to supervising a team of interns in charge of monitoring and coordinating all ongoing projects over the summer, I was also responsible for media promotion and outreach to print, TV, radio and web outlets across the world. The goal was to leverage these news outlets to spread the work that our students are doing, as a means to inspire youth in other nations, as well as other companies to start thinking about how to make a meaningful impact on their society. Overall, I learned a great deal about the importance of youth empowerment and the art of managing a Corporate Social Responsibility initiative, and am also happy to have been able to apply some of the lessons learned from RC year.

Government of Canada–Minister's Regional Office

Alexander Purdy
This past summer, through the generous support of the SE Summer Fellows program I was able to work with the Ministers' Regional Office (MRO) in Calgary. These offices are staffed with senior bureaucrats and are located throughout the country to help Her Majesty's Cabinet and its Honourable Ministers in executing government's orders. It was an exhilarating summer to spend at the heart of Canadian policy development because of the sheer amount of government activity related to stimulating the economy. I spent the majority of my time on three major projects: (1) developing a framework and a financial model for green house gas emission negotiations with oil & gas companies; (2) completing a feasibility study and recommendations for a large government backed clean energy venture capital fund; and (3) completing due diligence on and prioritizing $580 million of stimulus funding for the western provinces. I spent the bulk of my summer working directly with the Minister of the Environment and trying to learn the fine balance between environmental protection and economic development of a resource rich country.

Housing Partnership Network, The

Aaron Chadbourne
As a summer intern working for the Housing Partnership Network, I split my time between public policy and business analysis. My major project involved managing a strategic review to assess the mission impact, sustainability, sector innovation and risk of each of the organizations business lines and programs. Based on these reviews, I analyzed of the Network's portfolio of activities, planned and led a two–day management retreat, and worked to revise the evaluation tools for future use, especially when considering new ventures. My time spent on public policy involved crafting proposals for regulatory and legislative reforms to strengthen the viability and financial sustainability of community development in the United States. Collaborating with our member organizations, our goal was to help focus the non–for–profit affordable housing development community on the most significant regulatory and legislative challenges relating to their work and to help unify the sector in its effort to guide legislators and officials at the Department of Housing and Urban Development toward possible solutions.

The Housing Partnership Network is an entrepreneurial organization that is actively advancing social enterprise within the not–for–profit community development space. The management team embodied professionalism and provided me with access to top leaders, decision–making, and intimate exposure to their social enterprise business model. The entire staff was welcoming and I was encouraged to play an active role in shaping the organization and its work. At the end of the summer, I left the organization with an informed understanding of their social enterprise model and a sense that I had contributed to their economic stabilization efforts.

John Coleman
This summer I worked for the Housing Partnership Network, a Boston–based national alliance of nearly 100 top community development organizations. My primary assignment was to work with their Chief Lending Officer on projects related to the community stabilization efforts that comprised their response to the growing number of foreclosures and declining communities in the United States. In doing so, we partnered with the National Community Stabilization Trust, a joint effort of six national housing and community organizations, and a number of local partners. I had the opportunity to work on several projects across numerous functions and content areas.

IGNIA Partners

Brent Grinna
This summer I interned at IGNIA Partners, a Monterrey, Mexico based venture capital fund that invests in businesses that serve or employ people at the Base of the Pyramid ("BoP"). The BoP is defined as the four billion people globally who survive on several dollars per day or less. By providing capital and counsel, IGNIA can support businesses that will create jobs and enable social mobility in Latin America. Although IGNIA is driven by a social mission, the firm targets 25%–30% IRRs with the belief that market rate returns must be demonstrated in order to attract sustainable "capitalist" capital to the BoP and break the reliance on philanthropic funding and government grants. Specifically, I worked on strategy at Pro–Organico, IGNIA's most recent investment. Pro–Organico assists small–scale farmers to convert to USDA certified organic growing and coordinates sales and logistics efforts in the US and Canada. Farmers win by increasing their revenue per hectare in excess of five times relative to conventional Mexican prices, US consumers and retailers win due to increased year–round organic produce supply and IGNIA (hopefully) wins by growing a business from $2 million in sales to $30 million in sales in the next 5 years. Hopefully this model will become an important piece of the global fight against poverty. I was very enthusiastic about identifying a position in the social venture capital niche of the broader Social Enterprise space because I was able to combine my passion for development in Mexico and my pre–business school professional experience in private equity and venture capital investing. The summer was an excellent learning experience from a professional, cultural and social perspective.

Vera Makarov
My 10 weeks at IGNIA allowed me to combine both of my passions - investing and social impact. IGNIA is a Mexican social venture capital firm focused on integrating low income individuals as producers in global supply chains or consumer of essential goods and services. Throughout the course of my summer, I evaluated and recommended for investment a telecommunication start–up and a water purification initiative. I also co–authored two IGNIA articles on the social venture capital and healthcare industries. And finally, I designed and implemented IGNIA's social and environmental management system to measure and demonstrate the fund's double bottom line returns.

Intelligent Mobility International

AJ Viola
Intelligent Mobility International is a social enterprise based in geared towards developing a market–based solution to the need for mobility devices in the developing world. IMI currently produces a repairable, durable, manual wheelchair that allows its user to achieve independence and mobility at an affordable price. My tasks for the summer were two–fold: exam manufacturing opportunities to bring the production cost of the chair down and assess the viability of entering the Indian market. I spent 3 weeks in Bangalore, India, meeting with manufacturers, hospitals, and NGOs. In addition to this I assisted with refining IMI's business plan and delivering strategic recommendations for both growth and product development.

International Finance Corporation (IFC)

Ali Hashmi
The last few months at IFC have been "career defining". As the investment arm of the World Bank Group, IFC seeks to promote sustainable economic growth by investing its capital in promising private sector enterprises in developing countries. Yet IFC is unique among international financial institutions - a development institution operating on for–profit principles and run largely by MBAs. As an Intern at the Infrastructure Department at IFC, I worked on a sector that has become a critical component of the world's response to the global financial crisis. On the transaction side, I worked on deals that would not have otherwise been financed by private sector investors - two port deals in trade dependant–Latin America, and an airline deal in capacity–constrained South Asia. On the non–transaction side, I contributed to the World Bank Group's response to the global financial crisis by working on the launch of the Infrastructure Crisis Facility, a $2 billion fund which seeks to finance infrastructure projects that no longer have reasonable access to capital in the global financial markets. My experiences as an investor this summer allowed me truly appreciate so many of the premises I took for granted as a former investment banker in New York - availability of near–perfect information, well–defined legal and regulatory regimes, predominance of the private sector etc. Many of these premises do not hold in the developing world. As a result, I was forced to truly think outside of the box to identify the truly high development impact investment opportunities. Whether I chose to return to the private sector, or pursue a career in international development, I know the lessons I have learned at IFC will continue to serve me in the future as I define my own path to giving back.

JUCCCE

Yashih Wu
This summer I worked with JUCCCE (Joint US China Collaboration on Clean Energy) in their Shanghai headquarters. Our mission is to change the way China creates and uses energy within the next 10 years by targeting key decision makers in each of the main areas of energy use. Our main programs include 1) training mayors of China on how to develop eco–friendly cities, 2) accelerating the deployment of Smart Grid solutions in China, and 3) using carbon credits to purchase and distribute 10 million CFL lightbulbs to students in exchange for old incandescents, resulting in an offset of 3 million tons of CO2. My role as Partnership Manager was to help them develop their marketing and sales strategy, particularly for corporate partnerships which are the main source of funding for JUCCCE's programs. As such, I got to meet with executives from MNCs and local companies operating in China, as well as Chinese and U.S. government officials interested in working with JUCCCE. This was my first time working in China, in clean energy, in non–profit, and in an entrepreneurial environment, so it was incredibly stimulating. I will definitely be looking to get back to China and working in clean energy as a result of this experience.

Jumpstart

Jared Leiderman
Through the SE Summer Fellowship, I was afforded the wonderful opportunity to apply my education to the implementation of Jumpstart's strategic plan. Jumpstart trains and motivates college students and local community members to volunteer through AmeriCorps and work directly with pre–school children from at–risk backgrounds. By focusing on program quality, evaluation, and efficiency, Jumpstart has grown to serve over 15,000 children each year.

My role this summer was to help translate the new five–year strategic plan into implementation. The planning process helped Jumpstart decide to spend scarce resources more wisely by growing in depth within particular metro cities. Over the summer, I created a toolkit to help local Executive Directors more easily implement the new plan. This includes ways to map need, search for alternative sources of funding, and navigate local communities to better advocate on behalf of effective early childhood education. The experiences of serving through Jumpstart and learning about what makes it a highly–successful, highly–functioning non–profit were hugely valuable in my education.

LA County Department of Health Services (LADHS)

Jamie Chang
The Social Enterprise Fellowship supported me in working at the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services (LADHS) this summer. The Los Angeles County public healthcare system, often called the Safety Net, serves more than 10 million residents. I was able to utilize my medical and business school training to work on a variety of projects that had a direct impact on Los Angeles County physicians and patients. Based on a LADHS "Report Card" identifying diabetes care as an area for improvement, I helped to develop a quality improvement pilot program at the UCLA – Olive View Medical Center. My work focused on identifying metrics that could be used to measure physician compliance with best practices, and the practical roll out of a reminder system to be incorporated in the electronic medical records and ordering system at the hospital. As part of another project, I was also able to combine my career interests in emergency medicine with the operations management lessons I learned in RC TOM. I visited the LA County Hospital Emergency Departments (ED's) and mapped out the patient process flow at each institution. I then analyzed the patient flow data currently collected by the County to identify bottlenecks in the process and provide recommendations to make patient flow more efficient. My work was well received, and I was given the opportunity to present my findings to CEO's, Chief Medical Officers, and ED Chiefs at the different LA County hospitals. It was a productive and educational summer that allowed me to combine my medical and business interests, and I am thankful for the Social Enterprise Fellowship for allowing me to contribute to such an important organization.

Lapdesk

Maria Karaivanova
Maria Karaivanova, HBS'09 graduated in June 2009 and decided to spend the summer working for The Lapdesk Company in Johannesburg. There, she focused on international business development and launching Lapdesk's online initiative. Lapdesk is a multi–national organization specializing in the educational development of underprivileged children in global emerging markets. Maria was awarded a Harvard Social Enterprise fellowship and is part of the Endeavor eMBA program. Additionally, Maria was invited by the Financial Times newspaper to write an editorial and blog about her summer experience as part of their first MBA blog initiative (http://blogs.ft.com/mba–blog).

League of Dreamers (LeaD)

Jennifer Kelly
The League of Dreamers (LeaD) is an online Mentorship Network start–up for the youth who are looking for the right career or who may want to become more successful in the career they currently have. Its mission is to "address inequality and social immobility in developing countries by helping the youth believe that their career desires can come true and by dramatically increasing the chances of their success," and the vision is two–fold: (1) become the number one place that college students and young professionals go to find comprehensive information on industries and directly link to mentors in different fields and (2) become the largest active network of leading/successful young professionals in many different industries. Over the summer, my objective was to complete the alpha site and prepare the partnerships needed to run a pilot. As the founder/CEO, my main responsibilities included finding the right full–time team to develop the site and managing the project, updating and planning with my board, meeting with possible partners and creating connections needed for the future.

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts

Rebecca Arnold
This summer I had the unique opportunity to work at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. I was a summer fellow in the Executive Business and Strategy group, working directly with the President, Reynold Levy, on a number of key business initiatives. My projects fell into under three categories - Cost Management, Income Enhancement, and Membership. Through these projects I was able to see the entire span of the organization and work closely with many parties, including the CFO, the Procurement team, Marketing, Development, Membership and the rest of the Executive Business and Strategy group. I worked with procurement to identify savings opportunities across the organization. I identified and quantified income–enhancing opportunities in Valet Parking and Playbill and identified ways for Lincoln Center to take advantage of opportunities with Fashion Week, which will be held there beginning Fall 2010. I also developed a recommendation and plan for Lincoln Center to tap into the world of charitable online gift registries. It was a fantastic summer in which I learned a lot, worked with smart and passionate people, and made a contribution to an organization I care deeply about.

Jennifer Rentas
This past summer I had the wonderful opportunity to be a summer fellow at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Inc. in New York City. I worked as a member of the Executive Business & Strategy team, with a number of previous HBS Social Enterprise fellows and under the direction of the President of Lincoln Center, Reynold Levy. During my summer fellowship I focused my time on two main projects, the first of which involved developing performance metrics for a new Visitors' Center opening this November at Lincoln Center. The project required me to gather data on reporting requirements to New York City, as well as develop mechanisms to report data internally and to Lincoln Center constituents. The second project focused on an effort to increase earned income through the rental of Lincoln Center venues for social events. The project involved identifying target opportunities, drafting a marketing strategy, and creating marketing materials. My work this summer, while allowing me to delve deeply into specific projects, also exposed me to diverse areas of the organization and allowed me to develop an understanding of the culture and structure of an arts organization as well as a successful non–profit organization such as Lincoln Center. The fellowship also presented me with many opportunities to engage in discussions and share my work with Senior Management, including meetings with the President and CFO. I found my summer fellowship at Lincoln Center to be a truly enjoyable experience, during which I had the opportunity to learn a great deal while at the same time contribute in a meaningful way to the organization's work.

Living Cities

Mark Severs
Living Cities is a philanthropic collaborative of 21 of the largest foundations and financial intuitions that aspires to improve the lives of low–income people and the urban areas in which the live. Living Cities engages in this work through three major avenues: grantmaking, policy work and capital formation. I worked with Living Cities' Capital Formation department. A major goal of the capital formation department is to 1) create a family of socially conscious investment vehicles that directs capital into the non–profit arena, and 2) to demonstrate to foundations and others that social investment vehicles can achieve both real financial and social/programmatic returns. Specifically, I assisted with a variety of tasks for an existing fund [Catalyst]: diligence, meetings, notes, research, etc., but spend the majority of my time working on the private placement memorandum for a second fund that will focus on the green economy. I spent most of my time researching, reading, talking to others in the field for thoughts and information in order to document and shape the investment thesis.

MaRS Discovery District

Michael R. Blickstead
I spent ten weeks this summer interning at MaRS, a non–profit innovation center dedicated to maximizing the economic and social impact of Canadian innovation. Within MaRS, I worked on a project with Causeway Social Finance, a national collaboration working to accelerate a social finance marketplace in Canada. I partnered with the Chief Operating Officer of Volans Ventures (an HBS alumnus) to build the case for blended value investing in Canada. Blended value investing seeks to generate financial returns as well as social/environmental returns. To build the case, we analyzed key stakeholders in Canada and abroad, enablers (such as academics, foundations, government, and private sector companies), and existing financial tools in the social finance space. We also developed pitch books for various investment opportunities in the social finance space including a blended value investment fund, green bonds, and a community wind farm project.

After a summer of due diligence, I am still optimistic about the ability of the private sector to adapt traditional financial products to deliver social and environmental impact while still generating strong financial returns. The necessary deal flow exists, the returns have been demonstrated, and the associated risk may be lower than that related to traditional venture capital or private equity investments. Governments, foundations, and academic institutions can also play a key role in enabling the growth of social finance through helping support the creation of large–scale blended value investment funds, removing regulatory barriers, developing appropriate legal structures, and building the capacity of blended value enterprises to scale.

Meadow Networks

Jean–Claude Homawoo
During the summer months of 2009, I spent 10 weeks working for Meadow Networks on a new venture concept dubbed "Open Road". Meadow Networks is a consulting group that applies innovative wireless technologies and policies to the transportation sector and was founded by Robin Chase, also the founding CEO of Zipcar. The goal of Open Road is to build an open technology platform for vehicles upon which a variety of applications will be developed. One might think of it as an "Open Onstar," or a mechanism by which a vehicle could be turned into an interface such as Google's Android or Apple's iPhone, providing open APIs of car data and a communications platform. With this platform, innovators can develop and implement thousands of applications, some of which will transform the way we own, use, and connect vehicles to the world of data around them. Application examples pertinent to climate change include ones that dramatically reduce vehicle miles traveled, primarily by transforming the real and perceived economics of driving by: 1) incorporating externalities (congestion pricing, true cost of parking); 2) turning fixed and sunk costs into variable costs (car–sharing, pay–as–you–drive insurance, per mile leasing; smaller increments for parking); 3) restricting access to vehicles (fleet sharing, car sharing); 4) combining real–time travel data to recommend and facilitate use of other types of travel (that are faster, cheaper, more convenient than driving a single occupancy vehicle: ride–sharing, congestion avoidance, multimodal travel options). Because of the long–term nature of this project and my desire to remain involved in its development, I plan to continue working on business development with Robin Chase and Open Road during my final year at HBS within the framework of field studies.

MeXvi

Kasey Maggard
I spent eight weeks this summer working for MeXvi. MeXvi is an entrepreneurial, Mexican company that manufactures and sells a housing system that is applicable to low–income and self–construction housing in both rural and urban Mexico. They have built more than 4,000 homes. I completed two projects for them. The first was an internal audit of their operations and strategy. This was especially important since the company had just completed a merger which implied significant changes. I identified areas of opportunity, prioritized them and created an implementation plan. The second project was to work with a microfinance institution to create a housing product. Through market research, customer interviews, subsidy reviews and individual budget calculations we proposed a new product.

Micro Home Solutions

Rakhi Mehra
Micro Home Solutions is an affordable housing start–up based out of New Delhi, India. Given the housing shortage of over 27 million units, the mission of the organization is to provide low cost– hi quality homes to the urban poor. The founding belief is that asset ownership is critical to break the vicious cycle of poverty and enjoy the higher quality of life. As a co–founder of the venture, along with my architect husband, we've spent bulk of the summer meeting and interviewing with various stakeholders. These interactions with government, non–profits, commercial and national banks, prospective clients have helped us inform our entry strategy and develop a list of prospective partners. We've also gained some visibility with our concept amongst the players in the sector and are making funding proposals that will see us to our pilot project.

Millennium Challenge Corporation

Alice Yang
The Social Enterprise Summer Fellowship supported my internship at Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) in Washington, D.C. Established in 2004, MCC is a United States Government corporation whose mission is to reduce global poverty through the promotion of sustainable economic growth. I chose to intern at MCC because of my background in international health and development, my interest in seeing the inner workings of the federal government during this tumultuous time, and my curiosity about the operational consequences of MCC's status as a government corporation. I worked in the Monitoring, Evaluation, and Economic Analysis unit on several fascinating projects assessing foreign aid impact and effectiveness. As a joint MBA/MPP student with the Kennedy School of Government, I particularly appreciated this opportunity to supplement my prior professional experiences with a summer internship in the public sector.

National Math and Science Initiative

Ali Jaffer
I spent my summer working with the National Math and Science Initiative (NMSI), and their affiliate organization in Texas, Advanced Placement Strategies (APS). APS and NMSI share a mission to improve math and science education and teaching in the United States. APS has a successful history of implementing an incentive program for students and teachers in dozens of high schools in Texas. This model has since been replicated in several states by NMSI.

In spite of this impressive track record, APS was currently undergoing significant organizational and strategic shifts that involved restructuring internal operations, re–designing the programmatic model, and re–evaluating the expansion plans. Essentially, APS was seeking support as it transitions from a company in its 'growth' phase, to a company that was preparing a longer–term horizon maturity phase.

My role was to work on behalf of NMSI to help APS with planning and implementing this transition. This involved assisting in settling the new organization's financial status, determining valuable insights from APS's past work, helping in the design of the new operational model, and planning for future expansion and growth. As a result of this work, I had an enjoyable and educational deep dive into the world of organizational transitions, and also provided exposure into the managerial decisions that are often made in SMEs and non–profits.

National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)

Drew Sloan
While at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) I served as a member of a 5–person team of fellow MBAs tasked with analyzing NREL's IP portfolio, discerning NREL's various strengths and weaknesses, and creating recommendations for how NREL could best provide value to the renewable energy market space in the years to come. It was an incredibly valuable opportunity that allowed me the chance to gain a comprehensive knowledge of the renewable energy space as a whole as well as be able to dive deeper on those aspects that really interested me. The experience further opened my eyes to the endless possibilities of renewable energy and the growing role that it will play as the world becomes more and more focused on stemming the tide of climate change.

National Trust for Historic Preservation

Xin Xu (Echo)
The summer internship at National Trust for Historic Preservation is a wonderful combination of personal interest and career aspiration. I not only challenged myself to devise a comprehensive strategic plan for enterprise–wide e–commerce opportunities, but also fully enjoyed the architecture and art history. The people I met include architects, architecture historians, public policy lobbyists, preservationists as well as e–commerce and new media professionals. It is a different world of influential and engaging power, which I have not seen in my previous private or for–profit sectors. It also gives me alternative angles of viewing and doing things. Working with the Executive Vice President and Department Directors, my strategies covers consumer segmentation, market sizing, financial projections, operational models, and organizational resources planning, which looks like starting a small business on my own. Now I look forward to seeing my work being executed and bringing concrete results for the preservations. Last but not least, I had the opportunities to network with a bunch of 20ish interns and organized tours to famous historic sites and house museums in DC metro area.

NewSchools Venture Fund

Shannah Varon
As a Social Enterprise Fellow, I spent the summer working with NewSchools Venture Fund, a venture philanthropy organization that invests in education entrepreneurs and supports innovations to close the achievement gap in our nation. I spent 10 weeks with NewSchools working in the Boston office on two research projects: 1) I investigated district–led school turnaround efforts to broaden NewSchools' understanding of this work, and 2) I conducted a market map and made investment recommendations in the early education space in Washington, D.C. In addition, I participated in the Education Pioneers Fellowship to supplement my knowledge of the education reform movement in Boston. The internship experience was a fantastic way to learn about a fascinating organization and model of philanthropy-venture philanthropy-which I had learned about at HBS but never seen in action. I was also able to develop deep content knowledge in my research areas and was called upon throughout the summer to share my work with external stakeholders and policymakers. Finally, through the combination of NewSchools Venture Fund's own network and my Education Pioneers cohort, I was able to meet some ground–breaking individuals in education and develop contacts that I know will help me find my way in the education space in Boston.

New Sector Alliance

Tiera Brown
The world of social enterprise is much grander than I would have ever imagined. Nonprofits have really done a thorough job of providing solutions to a variety of problems that plague our society. This summer I had the opportunity to work for New Sector Alliance (New Sector), a social impact consulting and talent development firm where I developed a volunteer management program. Working for New Sector exposed me to a new arena in the nonprofit sector - capacity building. Similar to strategy consulting, capacity building is the process of improving the internal functions of an organization. Although my internship project did not turn out to be the external consulting project I initially thought it would, I was exposed to another very important aspect of business - daily operations. Working directly with the New Sector staff, I was able to see what is required to run a small business. There are many tasks that need to be accomplished to run a business, especially a nonprofit organization, and they may not be exciting or groundbreaking but somebody has to do it! I am grateful to have had the opportunity to view the organizational strategically from a high–level perspective as well as from an operations standpoint learning what is required on a day–to–day basis. My internship at New Sector Alliance was all–encompassing in those aspects and was beneficial to my professional development. I would like to thank both New Sector Alliance as well as the Social Enterprise Initiative for giving me the opportunity to branch away from my corporate background and experience the world of social enterprise first hand.

Susan Saddawi–Schmidt
I was staffed by New Sector to serve the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) client. My project involved conducting case studies of existing collaborations within the CDC sector, with the goal of drawing out and disseminating best practices. After an extensive literature review and background interviews, my team developed an evaluation framework and criteria to apply in assessing the case study partnerships. Our final deliverables to LISC took the form of recommendations for funders/lenders to promote and support strategic partnerships, as well as a list of best practices for achieving and sustaining successful (high–quality, high–impact) strategic partnerships. In addition to the client work that I performed, I had primary responsibility for developing the project workplan, supervising the two undergraduate fellows on my team, and mentoring a cohort of undergraduate summer fellows on other New Sector projects. My team's work has acted as a catalyst for funder/CDC conversations - sparking the call for a dedicated conference on the topic of partnerships. Our case studies have also been found useful by the organizations involved, providing them with valuable insight into their successes and opportunities for improvement.

North Face, The

Carly Smith
As a summer sustainability associate at The North Face, a division of VF Outdoor, Inc., I partnered with TNF's marketing, operations, and design teams to eliminate waste, develop sustainable products, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and market its sustainability–related achievements. By launching a packaging reduction initiative, developing product design goals, and calculating TNF's carbon footprint, I made progress to reduce The North Face's environmental impact. In addition, by designing and launching several first–of–its–kind projects, I developed replicable models for the larger VF Corp organization (30+ brands), which recently (July 2009) launched a companywide sustainability effort.

NYC Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC)

Eliza Funston
My summer with the NYC Economic Development Corporation's green business development group provided broad exposure to this new and growing sector and gave me the opportunity to interface with a number of the city's green stakeholders. As a summer associate with the group, I was involved in an interagency effort to develop a comprehensive green economy plan for the city. I worked on several initiatives to encourage green businesses to locate and grown in NYC. One of my main projects focused on ways to educate companies about the resources available currently, including incentives and funding sources.

NYC Mayor's Office of Long–Term Planning and Sustainability

Julian Felch
Ten weeks at the New York City Mayor's Office of Long–Term Planning & Sustainability was an illuminating experience in how New York City government designs and executes city wide policy. My work focused on the Greener, Greater Buildings Plan, a package of 4 bills and 2 non–legislative components scheduled to be voted on by the City Council in late 2009, which will improve the energy efficiency of existing buildings in the city through required lighting upgrades, energy audits, and retrofits. The Buildings Plan is a piece of PlaNYC, the city's 127–point long–term urban plan. Announced in 2007 by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, PlaNYC addresses the major challenges facing NYC in the coming decades - rising population, aging infrastructure, and climate change. Through a collaborative effort involving public agencies and private stakeholders I worked on defining qualifications and quantifying demand for the new generation of green construction–related jobs stemming from investment through the proposed Buildings Plan.

Office of Management and Budget, Treasury Branch

Adam Chepenik
I spent this past summer working in the White House Office of Management and Budget. My team was responsible for appropriating and monitoring the resources of the Department of Treasury, including the Internal Revenue Service, the Office of Financial Stability, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, and the U.S. Mint. We also covered the financial regulators, the Postal Service and the other branches in the Executive Office of the President. During the summer, the team exposed me to a range of activities. They asked me to help calculate the cost of the TARP program to the U.S. taxpayer, propose revisions to the regulatory reform legislation transmitted to Capitol Hill, attend a multitude of hearings and briefings on the financial services industry, and required me to produce detailed cash flow analysis evaluating the structure of financial stability efforts. Despite their seriousness of purpose, the staff at OMB continuously met their responsibility with humility and good grace. Having spent a summer at OMB, I now tell people if they are interested in the intersection of business, politics and public policy; and they want to advise the Nation's leaders how to refine healthcare, energy and environmental regulation; and they want to work with a group of fast paced, talented public servants; and they are interested in managing a multi–billion dollar portfolio impacting the lives of millions of American citizens starting the day you start your job - the White House Office of Management and Budget is the place you want to work.

Partners in Health

Jennifer Tom
This summer, I was given the opportunity to work for Partners In Health, an international global health organization dedicated to delivering quality health care to people and communities devastated by the joint burdens of poverty and disease. As a summer associate, I conducted an analysis of the current procurement and supply chain system in Haiti. This included reviewing and documenting the overall procurement process, from drug and medical supply request through delivery to the sites, and providing recommendations for improvement along each step. While PIH focuses primarily on providing healthcare, it also recognizes that providing jobs to the people of the Central Plateau is necessary once patients are back on their feet. My summer therefore also involved exploring the possibility for creating dignified, fair–wage jobs through numerous artisanal and industrial ventures.

PlanetTran

Brandon Halcott
My ten week summer internship was spent at PlanetTran ("PT"), a national livery service that uses a vehicle fleet of hybrids alongside a proprietary reservation platform and dispatch system to achieve minimal environmental impact and maximum vehicle efficiency. PT is currently running a very lean organization with four corporate employees. This structure afforded me the opportunity to work on numerous facets of the business including finance, operations, strategy and sales team management.

Prior to my start date PT received funding from The CueBall Group, a venture capital firm based in Boston. My first task saw me preparing a weekly reporting package for CueBall on financial results, operating efficiencies and sales force efforts to provide greater clarity on Company performance. Next I worked with the sales team developing a sales methodology and identifying profitable opportunities based upon an internal formula. Another project saw me researching all of the current government programs available for small green businesses. I was able to identify programs that will provide substantial expense savings that PT is currently exploring. Finally, but definitely the most appealing was researching, interviewing and ultimately hiring a development firm to help PT create applications to take reservations over Blackberries, Iphones and other mobile devices. Seeing a successful startup from the inside was a truly unique and rewarding summer experience.

Program for Appropriate Technology in Health

Fabio Katayama
I spent ten weeks this summer interning at PATH (Program for Appropriate Technology in Health), an international non–profit organization with headquarters in Seattle that is aimed to improve health conditions in poor countries by accelerating the development of new medical technologies. There, I worked in the commercialization team for a newly created vaccine delivery system, conducting market/competitor analysis and examining the economic impact of this technology in developing countries' immunization programs. I specifically studied the cases of Brazil, India and South Africa. These analyses were used to refine the product's marketing strategy and helped the Gates Foundation to evaluate the applicability of the technology in other countries. My internship at PATH was an amazing experience and I felt constantly challenged. It was also very rewarding as I knew I was working for a product that could eventually impact the lives of millions of people all over the world.

ProInspire

Kareem Hall
ProInspire is a new nonprofit organization that builds human capital in the nonprofit sector so organizations can effectively achieve their missions. ProInspire is expanding the movement of people working for social impact by recruiting and training business professionals to work for nonprofits. The Social Enterprise Summer Fellowship allowed me to spend my summer working as a Strategic Growth Associate. In this role, I performed strategic growth and industry best practices analysis to deliver strategic recommendations to the CEO. These recommendations covered areas such as sustainable revenue generation, speed of growth, industry scope, and marketing. In addition to delivering strategic growth recommendations, I was able to play a major role in the development of ProInspire's flagship Inspire Fellows program. This program recruits, trains, and supports business professionals who want to build a career in the social sector to spend one year working in an analytical role at a nonprofit organization. To assist with the implementation of the pilot class of the Inspire Fellows program, I collaborated with the CEO to develop the program's training curriculum and facilitate training sessions at the Fellow Orientation Conference. Overall, this summer was an amazing opportunity to gain strategic experience and increase my exposure to the non–profit sector.

Rural China Education Foundation (RCEF)

Jennifer Hsiao
The Rural China Education Foundation (RCEF) is a US nonprofit tackling education reform in rural China. RCEF's mission is to develop student–centered, community–based teaching methods that prepare students for the examination system and for the real world. My summer project helped RCEF rethink several critical questions: 1) What should be the measurable, direct objective of the organization - as opposed to its ultimate goals and ancillary benefits? 2) Given this objective, what should RCEF's short–term, medium–term and long–term targets be? 3) How should programming be aligned to meet these targets? 4) What organizational requirements are required on what timeline in order to meet these targets? By spending time on–site at RCEF's laboratory school in Shanxi province, interviewing teachers and school leaders, interviewing exceptional rural education organizations worldwide and consulting nonprofit strategists, I put together a final strategy recommendation and strategic planning toolkit for RCEF.

Sacramento Mayor's Office, California

Sandeep Acharya
I spent eight weeks this summer working for Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson's office. I focused on helping the Mayor develop ideas to revitalize downtown Sacramento and identify more internship opportunities for city youth. For this work, I conducted policy research and also met with many local developers and business owners. In my spare time, I also volunteered as part of the Mayor's ongoing political campaign to reform the city charter. The internship gave me the unique opportunity to both participate in high level thinking about a number of policy issues and learn about the politics associated with municipal government. I also really enjoyed my exposure to Mayor Johnson, a truly unique person and leader.

Mohit Bathija
I never thought it would be such a valuable experience going in. Actually, I didn't really know what to expect (having never worked in the public sector or even having ever visited Sacramento before). Working with The Office of Mayor Kevin Johnson ("OMKJ") and the City of Sacramento provided me with tremendous learning on so many different levels. I, along with the four other Fellows from HBS, was quite fortunate to have had the opportunity to work on interesting, high–profile projects of great importance to the future of Sacramento. For the first 3–4 weeks, I was focused on getting acclimated to the culture and developing a presentation on the Intermodal transportation facility being designed/built at the "Railyards" portion of downtown. There was some urgency to my work as the Mayor was presenting it at the U.S. Conference of Mayors Institute on City Design meeting in Denver, CO on July 23, 2009. For the last 5–6 weeks, I was focused on my primary project-trying to figure out how to build a new arena for the Sacramento Kings NBA franchise. This was important because the city risks losing the Kings to another city if comprehensive, tangible plans are not developed by March 2010 (the NBA's "file to move" deadline). This was the project I was really looking forward to given my passion for and interest in working in Sports full–time. After working with the Mayor (and the great staff/volunteers), I truly believe in his vision for Sacramento's future and have high hopes for what it can become in the years to come.

Aaron Gray
Given my interest in urban education reform, I was selected to work on Mayor Kevin Johnson's (MKJ) education policy. I was provided with the task of helping to launch an intermediary (STAND UP for Sacramento Schools aka STAND UP) to improve the quality of Sacramento public schools. Specifically, below were some of my particular responsibilities / accomplishments: Established the organization's official non–profit status; Develop the framework for key events with educational stakeholders; Apply for start–up funding; Interview founding staff; Devise distribution plan for white paper on the concept of STAND UP; Craft marketing / branding strategy; Develop detailed, 3–year action plan ; Recommend organizational structure, external partner relationship targets, and operational strategy to MKJ.

HBS provided me with a solid framework with which to approach my summer internship. Its curriculum is filled with rigorous coursework that provides technical and practical training. In addition to the classes that I took that provided an extension of my undergraduate education and professional background in marketing, organizational behavior, finance, strategy, and entrepreneurship, I took a class entitled "Entrepreneurship in Education Reform" (EEF) that was directly related to my summer project. I utilized the knowledge obtained in my strategy and organizational behavior classes to conceptualize a vision and mission for STAND UP and develop a detailed action plan over the next three years. I also incorporated casework from my classes focused on entrepreneurship when thinking about the right founding staff for STAND UP and developing our start–up operational budget. My EEF class taught me how to think about all of the key stakeholders involved in the public education sector. I was able to strategically devise a strategy that would create value for all those involved and further MKJ's goal of providing high quality schools for all of Sacramento's children.

Jeremiah Jackson
I had a fantastic summer working for Mayor Kevin Johnson in Sacramento, CA. I was able to lead projects that were directly related to the Mayor's plan for the city, lead meetings with leaders from throughout the region, speak at meetings on behalf of the Mayor, and have a tangible impact on the city of Sacramento. It was an extremely entrepreneurial environment, despite being imbedded in a political arena. I was given sizeable responsibility at an early stage, and was able to report the results of my work. I spoke at two press conferences and had to field questions from the media. I spoke after Mayor Johnson at an event, giving an 8–minute speech about the film industry, in front of over 130 local art industry leaders as well as reporters from many of the local newspapers. I was also able to meet extremely influential people throughout the summer. To name a few, I met with gubernatorial candidate and current Mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom, NFL Legend Roger Craig, and Kamala Harris, candidate for California Attorney General and current District Attorney of San Francisco.

School Revolution

Scott Given
Through the generous support of the HBS Social Enterprise Initiative, I was able to spend my summer making significant progress on the launch of my nonprofit school turnaround organization, School Revolution. School Revolution seeks to rapidly transform failing urban district schools into extraordinary schools, at which at least 75% of students become proficient in math and English within three years, and thereafter sustain each school's performance over the long–term. During the summer, I was able to accomplish the following key tasks: (1) secure funding to cover expenses during the 2009–2010 academic year; (2) build relationships with numerous foundations that may support our organization in the years ahead; (3) narrow down our potential launch districts to four finalists; (4) drive negotiations with respective leaders in each of these four districts; and (5) learn from leaders of other school turnaround and school management organizations, both through numerous meetings across the country and through a six–week residency at Achievement First, a network of high performing charter schools in New Haven and Brooklyn. In sum, the summer fellowship allowed me to pursue a passion and make critical progress on developing an organization that (hopefully) will impact thousands of underserved children in the years ahead. Further, the time I spent working on School Revolution this summer only served to reconfirm my passion for social enterprise, generally, and my commitment to building this organization no matter what inevitable obstacles I confront in the months and years ahead.

Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, The

Jason Costi
I spent the summer working with Laila Iskander, a social entrepreneur who works with the informal solid waste collectors/recyclers (Zabbaleen) through organizing, institutionalizing and upgrading the traditional waste sector in Cairo. The Zabbaleen have never been incorporated into the city's waste management system in a manner which promotes sustainability, institutionalization, upgrading and recognition.

The goal of my project was to help reorganize and formalize the informal waste collection and waste recycling sector. I advised Laila in the restructuring by reviewing the operating strategy and performing on–site diligence work with small and medium enterprises. Additionally, I reviewed industry strategy and developed individual implementation plans to enhance profitability and achieve long–term sustainability in order to attract new investment.

Sierra Leone–Plymouth Partnership

Yaw Boateng
SL–PP is a small nonprofit organization founded by Jeff Hall (HBS '92) to help end extreme poverty in rural Sierra Leone. The organization aims to achieve this through 3 initiatives in 3 villages of ~5,000 people: microloans for farmers, education for children, quality health & sanitation for all. The hands–on nature of the implementation work allows for interns to have direct impact in this post–conflict region. For example, I co–trained loan officers for the microloan program and, together, gave 200+ group–based small loans worth $20,000+ to benefit over 1000 people.

Mine was an incredibly educative and impactful summer. I learned more about finance and development by spending 3 months living with and working to help some of the world's poorest farmers than from all of my prior work experience — Investment Banking at Merrill Lynch, Consulting at McKinsey, Nonprofit Healthcare work in Tanzania *#8212; combined.

Signal Point Partners

Scott Werry
This summer I had the opportunity to work for Signal Point Partners, a firm focused on early–stage companies in emerging markets that offer basic services through mobile phone networks. I was based in Nairobi, Kenya, and spent the majority of my time developing a pilot project for Signal Point's start–up microfinance organization. The product being built is an innovative mobile savings application that targets low–income Kenyans who currently use informal savings and loan services. If successful, it will provide low–cost and convenient short–term liquidity via mobile phones to residents currently excluded from the traditional banking system. I thoroughly enjoyed my internship and was fortunate as the experience provided an opportunity to form new strategic planning skills as well as conduct business in an emerging market.

Startup Clean Energy Project Development Firm

Christopher McCloskey
I spent my summer at a clean energy project development firm founded in August 2008 by former Department of Energy officials. The founders wanted to use their industry knowledge and previous business experience to promote clean energy. Specifically, they look forward to satisfying the President's "E3" goals of energy security, economic development, and environmental quality. I was pleased to join them as the firm addressed all the problems associated with building renewable energy power plants of unprecedented scale including firm structure, financing options, and site selection. I truly appreciated the opportunity to add value at an organization that isn't in a position to offer a salary.

Strey Khmer

Ulrike Killy
After meeting Mu Sochua, the former Cambodian Minister of Women's Affairs and one of the country's most prominent human rights activists, at HBS, I was so impressed by her dedication to help the poor and her apparent strength as a leader that I immediately decided to work for her and her organization "Strey Khmer". The global financial crisis has hit Cambodia's emerging economy and especially its textile sector very hard. 70,000 young female garment factory workers have lost their jobs and the lack of alternative employment opportunities forces many of them into the booming sex and entertainment industry.

My assignment was to lead a team of five Cambodians and three American volunteers in an effort to develop new employment opportunities for these women. After intensive research and interviews with the affected women, we decided to start the "DEVI Crepe Food Carts" - a micro–franchising business. The women will become franchisees, using micro credit to buy their own, DEVI–branded food cart, and sell crepes with different fillings on the street. We aim to have 100 franchisees after one year.Under my leadership, the team developed the entire concept, including cart and uniform design and product range, conducted extensive market research and test marketing, set up the central franchise organization, defined the roles and responsibilities of the management team, wrote the business plan, compiled highly detailed action plans and helped to raised the first $10,000 in funding. We already produced the prototype for the cart and recruited the first class of franchisees. If everything goes according to plan, the franchisees will start selling in the middle of October - finally giving the women new hope, pride and the opportunity to earn enough money to feed their families.

The entire project was an incredible experience for me and gave my immense opportunities to apply skills from almost every single course I had at HBS – starting from the leadership skills I needed to lead a diverse team from very different cultural backgrounds to assessing the market potential for a new idea or writing a convincing business plan. In addition, the internship also provided me with an entirely new perspective on myself. I had always thought that I need the fixed structures of an established corporation to perform well. This internship now showed me that I actually thrive in a completely unstructured environment, starting something from scratch and bringing the idea to life. After this incredibly rewarding experience, I am sure that I want to start my own business and create meaningful employment for others.

sweetriot

Ravikumar Rajendran
sweetriot is a startup dark chocolate manufacturer, headquartered in New York City. The company was founded with a social mission; its mission statement reads: "To create a more just and celebrated multicultural world for our next generation. My position at sweetriot involved strategy and finance. The first half of my internship was in the strategy function where I worked with the sales managers and the business development team in outlining a strategy to explore international distribution avenues. The focus of the second half of my internship was on finance, where I worked closely with the CFO in building a fully integrated financial model.

TAMTAM (Together Against Malaria)

Lekha Doshi
I spent the summer in Uganda working for TAMTAM. TAMTAM's vision is to solve urgent malaria challenges by distributing bed nets to underserved areas through innovative, cost–effective and scientifically–founded methods and to facilitate operational evaluations with researchers and policymakers to increase the impact of bed net distribution. TAMTAM already had an established presence in Kenya and Malawi prior to the summer, and I was tasked to help launch operations in Uganda. It was an exciting time to be working in the bed net space in Uganda since Uganda had recently received funding from USAID for free bed nets for every household. The focus of the summer was to establish partnerships with underserved local health clinics and hospitals to distribute free bed nets, to conduct operational research to understand the best bed net distribution strategy, and to share the findings with the Ministry of Health as they rolled out their nationwide bed net distribution program. I was tasked with managing one of two distribution and research sites. I had the opportunity to use many of the skills I developed at Harvard Business School. On a daily basis I was negotiating with local suppliers, managing village health teams, and executing distribution techniques. The summer also opened my eyes to the development work that is being done in Africa.

Eric Tung
I spent this past summer supporting the expansion of TAMTAM (Together Against Malaria) into Uganda. TAMTAM was founded with a dual–pronged mission: 1) to distribute free bed nets to underserved areas and 2) to facilitate operational evaluations to improve the impact of bed net distributions. I supported TAMTAM's mission by coordinating our net distribution project in Gulu, Uganda. Activities included finding a bet net provider/distributor, designing the distribution process, collaborating with our local partner, training village health workers who supported our distribution program and executing the distribution. Additionally, I supported TAMTAM's marketing and fundraising efforts. My summer with TAMTAM was a unique opportunity to get TAMTAM's Uganda operations off–the–ground while giving me a better understanding of health care delivery to the Base of the Pyramid consumers in rural settings.

Paul Wang
I spent this summer with a team working to launch TAMTAM (Together Against Malaria) activities in Uganda. TAMTAM's mission is to 1) distribute free bed nets to underserved areas and 2) facilitate operational evaluations to improve the impact of bed net distributions. I was involved all facets of TAMTAM launch activities, including donor relations, bed net procurement, and liaising with Uganda–based policymakers and practitioners involved in malaria. In addition, I helped design the evaluation parameters for two randomized evaluations that will assess the impact of various distribution techniques on end user net usage. Working with TAMTAM was a unique opportunity to explore my development and research interests in an entrepreneurial setting and an experience I will never forget.

Teaching and Learning Laboratory, The

Meredith Liu
My summer fellowship gave me the opportunity to pursue my long–term dream of opening an urban charter school. The school, tentatively title the Infinity Schools Project, is a model that will prepare traditionally underserved students to succeed in college and in the 21st century world. The model differs from both traditional public and other high performing charter schools in that it 1) develops, promotes, and disseminates innovative school–level practices and 2) redesigns the teaching profession to be more challenging, rewarding, and effective. In addition to providing a truly excellent education to the Infinity students, these characteristics allow the school to impact K–12 education at a national level. I spent the summer evaluating potential urban markets, talking to diverse players in the space, and researching and designing this innovative charter school model.

TechoServe

Mallika Ahluwalia
This summer I worked with TechnoServe, a US–based nonprofit organization working internationally in many developing countries. Its mission is to help entrepreneurial men and women in poor rural areas of the developing world to build businesses that create sustainable livelihoods. I was based in Kampala, the capital of Uganda. Specifically, my project was to build an economic model and write a business plan for a farmer's cooperative that would aggregate up to 1000 small banana farmers into a sustainable farmer–owned organization. The work included a field component as I needed to collect data for the economic model from the farmers. I already had a substantial international development background in more traditional non–profit organizations, but this was a wonderful experience to delve more deeply into a new topic area of agribusiness and learn firsthand about the challenges in agriculture for smallholder farmers; it also allowed me to work in a social enterprise that was looking for sustainable solutions that would not depend on future donor funds. The location of the internship also gave me the opportunity to explore the natural beauty of East Africa through personal travel.

Katie Laidlaw
Working at TechnoServe Tanzania provided me with practical, on–the–ground international development exposure and the opportunity to create a strategic assessment of economic opportunities in an under–developed and growing segment of domestic and regional markets. My summer internship focused on Tanzania's horticulture sector — defined as any and all fruits and vegetables - to explore potential opportunities for TechnoServe's engagement. Based in Dar es Salaam, I worked on two primary objectives: (1) to develop an industry strategic plan for horticulture in Tanzania and (2) to provide data analysis for a USAID grant funding proposal. I spent a large part of the summer traveling to villages across the Southern Highlands region in order to collect primary data through interviews with farmers and meetings with government agriculture extension officers. My goal was to understand the drivers and variances in the costs and revenues of production and market pricing. My work focused on identifying and understanding bottlenecks in the value chain between farmers, middle men, processors and the fresh wholesale markets. Ultimately, TechnoServe received grant funding for our proposal to implement this initiative in three target regions in southern Tanzania; it is rewarding to know that my strategic plan will be the blueprint for increasing farmer incomes across the horticulture sector.

Anthony Leitao
This summer I worked with TechnoServe in Mozambique. TechnoServe (TNS) is an NGO present in over 30 countries which seeks business solutions for rural poverty. In Mozambique, one of the poorest nations in the world, TNS's primary goal is to help entrepreneurs and farmers build businesses, increase yields and command higher prices for better products, while simultaneously bringing together industry stakeholders to improve the structural environment for their businesses. My project focused on the development of an industry intervention plan for the goat sector, which TNS and myself hope will generate a new venue of economic development for this poor nation. Through this experience I had the opportunity to meet, discuss and understand the full spectrum of people whose hopes rest on this country's development: from the high government officials, to the small farmers who still live in huts. Moreover, I also learned immensely about the challenges of development in Africa and what different types of organizations do to push it forward. This experience allowed me to use the skills I developed at HBS while expanding my understanding of developing nations.

Two Oceans Aquarium

Jeremy King
With significant support from the Social Enterprise Initiative, I worked for the summer at the Two Oceans Aquarium in Cape Town, South Africa. The aquarium has a unique philosophy, a for–profit institution that contributes over one third of income to a passionate in–house education department, and follows a deeply social mission felt across the entity. The aquarium is one of the top visitor attractions in Cape Town, whilst aiming to create awareness of both ocean and sustainability issues. In particular I led the presentation and valuation of a major new expansion project that will deliver substantially increased revenues and capacity for education, analyzed and instigated improvements to several individual operations (e.g., membership program), assisted divisional directors with leadership issues and worked to improve fundraising for the education program. I also had the opportunity to assist with some of the aquarium's conservation work (e.g., sea turtle rehabilitation) and a wide range of other business issues (e.g., creation of a 'Cape Combo' tourism ticket, hosting a seasonal concert series at the aquarium etc.). This was a highly–rewarding experience that allowed me to test my abilities in many functions far removed from my previous work experience, and to gain an appreciation for the interaction of for–profit and social interests within an entity.

United Nations, The

Jun Takai
My Summer Fellowship experience was great. I spent my time working at the United Nations with the goal of overhauling the organization's recruitment system. The United Nations has been struggling with recruiting talented people and honing their career paths. It took, on average, more than two years to recruit successful candidates, and the recruitment process was an increasing source of complaint from member countries. As a core team member of the Lean Six Sigma project, I conducted benchmarking reviews with other organizations and provided strategic solutions to revamp the system. Overall, this internship was a great opportunity for me to get exposure to the work of the United Nations and to learn more about the operational challenges that an international organization can face.

USAID

Jessica Shannon
This summer I worked at the US Agency for International Development's (USAID) Global Development Alliance, which is the agency's public–private partnership initiative. This office works to team with private sector partners to further the agency's development goals. Within the team, I served as a research associate, performing due diligence on potential partners, assessing the viability of projects, and collecting background data on emerging market industries, challenges, and opportunities. More specifically, I researched potential corporate partners to team with the government on food security and agriculture initiatives in Africa. Additionally, I gathered primary and secondary data on the emerging market investment climate and the inhibitors to institutional investors to develop ideas on how USAID can best team with the private sector to encourage growth in the sector. The internship was a great opportunity to understand how the US government operates and its current initiatives in development.

US Department of Energy–Loan Guarantee Program

Omeed Selbe
The Obama Administration's recent attention on the country's green vehicle technology and battery manufacturing capabilities has lead to the appropriation of monies to support the US Department of Energy to establish the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (ATVM) Loan Program (Section 136 of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007). During the summer of 2009, this program served as the only significant source of project finance for companies pursuing next–generation green auto technology. The Department of Energy was under a great deal of political pressure to accelerate the disbursement $25 Billion in loan guarantees in order to spur economic growth as well as stimulate progressive energy and vehicle technology projects. As a member of the financial analysis team, I focused on the review of automotive battery technology and next–generation plug–in hybrid electric vehicle platforms.

US Department of Energy– Recovery Act Team

Jonathan Doochin
The Recovery Team in the Secretary of Energy's office at the Department of Energy is a fast moving and high impact role. My role in Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy is to help drive job creation through responsible funding of projects across the United States while also working to lay the infrastructure for continued innovation. Helping states to develop energy efficiency and renewable energy plans to launching new energy efficiency initiatives, there is much crucial work that will continue to be done by the Department of Energy over the coming years.

Alexey Rostapshov
This past summer I worked with the Recovery Act team at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). With the passage of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the President and Congress committed to making a down payment of over $32 billion to address America's energy challenges. The DOE portion of the ARRA will be used to upgrade our energy infrastructure, accelerate America's energy independence, and create jobs while investing in cleaner technologies. As a Recovery Act Fellow, I was part of a small team managing the program under the Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Energy on the Recovery Act. My general management role consisted cross–functional responsibilities including financial modeling, drafting communications, process improvement, and developing management and reporting guidelines. This unique opportunity allowed me to directly experience the implementation of policy aimed at developing cleaner technologies, which is ultimately the industry I would like to develop a career in.

US National Park Service/Student Conservation Association

Erin Frackleton
Glen Canyon National Recreation Area is a unit of the National Park Service that encompasses 1.3 million acres of the Colorado River watershed in Northern Arizona and Southern Utah. The park is home to diverse resources including two historic districts, world class hanging gardens, and Rainbow Bridge, the world's largest known natural bridge, but it is best known for Lake Powell, the second largest manmade reservoir in the US. The park's management team is eager to increase the profile of the park's lesser known resources and to diversify the park's visitor base. To help them achieve this goal, I spent the summer working on site with them as part of the NPS' Business Plan Initiative, a program sponsored by the NPS Comptroller with the goal of increasing the application of business management principles to the NPS. In the first phase of my project, I focused on understanding the park's current image, visitation, and marketing communications capabilities. My key finding was that the park will not be able to pursue its marketing and tourism goals until it improves its capacity to communicate with the public. The latter half of the project is focused on working with the park to develop their communications capabilities, both via internal mechanisms like the park website and through stronger partnerships with the local tourism community, and to prioritize the messages that the park's management team wants to communicate to the public.

US Treasury Department

Tamara Heimur
This summer I had the opportunity to work at the US Treasury, in the International Affairs Office of Middle East and North Africa. I worked on a number of different projects, including a private sector development project in Iraq, preparing for Secretary Geithner's trip to the Middle East, and providing analysis on the economies of the North African countries. Given the project variety, I was able to learn a great deal about Treasury's international work as well as how Treasury works with other agencies such as the US State Department, the World Bank and the IFC. I would recommend an internship in Treasury's International Affairs office to students interested in experiencing government work in international economics and development.

Victory Schools/Education Pioneers

Derek Aguirre
I spent ten weeks as a Summer Associate at Victory Schools, an education management company that helps to start and operate charter schools and district turn–around schools in New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago. Stationed at their New York City office, I worked on three meaningful and challenging projects in strategy and development, including a charter renewal application for one of Victory's oldest partner schools, a 501(c)(3) tax exemption application for a new charter school, and a teacher recruitment strategy proposal to improve Victory's capacity to attract talented teachers to its partner schools. My experience at Victory was supplemented by the Education Pioneers fellowship program, providing me with outstanding exposure to the core issues in urban education reform through engaging workshops and networking events throughout the summer. The combination of Education Pioneers and Victory Schools afforded me the opportunity to dig deeply into the education reform movement and explore numerous ways to make an impact in the field.

White House National Economic Council

Sid Shenai
For 11 weeks this summer, I had the privilege of working at the National Economic Council (NEC) in the Executive Office of the President. The NEC has four principal functions: to coordinate policy–making for domestic and international economic issues, to coordinate economic policy advice for the President, to ensure that policy decisions and programs are consistent with the President's economic goals, and to monitor implementation of the President's economic policy agenda. I worked closely with senior Administration officials on financial market, fiscal, regulatory, and technology/innovation policy issues. It was incredibly rewarding to be able to apply the knowledge and skills that I had developed over the previous three years at HBS and HLS to some of the most important economic questions that our country is facing at the moment.

White House Office of Management and Budget, Energy Branch

Mina Hsiang
If business school has taught me anything, it is that to understand how an organization works, you have to follow the cash. Almost no organization is more challenging to understand than the Federal Government, and almost every dollar it spends goes through OMB (The White House Office of Management and Budget). My summer internship at OMB gave me a truly unique perspective and insight into how government operates, and how it effects policy– both in a societal context and in it's interactions with the private business sector. I worked for the Energy Branch– which is currently an area of major Administration and public focus– so things were very busy. I was able to work on several multi–billion dollar loan guarantee deals with private sector companies, with the goal of changing the incentives for business in energy, and eventually adjusting how our whole energy economy works. I also followed the Climate bill as it moved through Congress, got to meet several cabinet–level officials, helped write briefing memos for White House advisors, and worked with senior officials in the Department of Energy on their R&D portfolio. I got to see a wide range of issues, and several ways that the administration is able to address them. I would encourage MBA's to consider working for the government, particularly for a summer; I think having more business people understand government and more government exposure to sympathetic businesspeople will be a good thing for our country. It is also a great opportunity to gain experience working in a setting somewhat like P/E or banking, while having a positive impact on the nation's well–being.

White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

Michael Baldwin
Through the generous support of the HBS Social Enterprise Fellowship, I spent the summer working for the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP). OSTP has a broad mandate to advise the President and others within the Executive Office of the President on the effects of science & technology on domestic and international affairs. OSTP also leads science & technology policy efforts across sectors, agencies, and levels of government. I worked closely with the U.S. Chief Technology Officer and his senior staff, primarily focused on the Obama administration's Open Government Initiative. The Open Government Initiative stems from the President's January 21, 2009 Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government (http://bit.ly/DVta) and aims to make government more transparent, collaborative, and participatory. In working with senior administration officials, I helped to run the groundbreaking online public consultation on open government and advised agencies (e.g., Treasury & Homeland Security) on how to use technology to achieve strategic priorities. As part of the Open Government Initiative, I had the opportunity to distill the public's input and share it on the web in the form of two blog posts that were published on the White House's website (available here: http://bit.ly/PHQ0x & http://bit.ly/Ex3Af).

Wisconsin Governor's Office

Luke Fuszard
The Social Enterprise Fellowship allowed me to work in the Office of Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle this summer. Governor Doyle's office serves more than 5 million residents. By utilizing my public policy and business background, I served as the Governor's expert on education. To address the glaring needs in the City of Milwaukee, the state's largest and poorest performing school district, I researched streamlining the administration and consolidating power under one authority. To qualify for $4 billion in federal stimulus money, I helped craft an Executive Order mandating the completion of a longitudinal data system that allows the state to track the academic performance of every student over the course of their learning. After receiving the approval to design a pay–for–performance program for public school teachers, I worked with the State of Minnesota to share best practices. In addition, I was able to share my findings with the Governor one–on–one. The position certainly proved interesting, giving me valuable insights into my future career goals and providing me with experiences that I need in order to pursue them.

Year Up

Justin Steele
Year Up is a one–year intensive technology and investment operations training program that provides urban young adults with a combination of hands–on skill development and real work experience. In addition to joining a student learning community and serving as an informal mentor/advisor to students throughout the summer, I also worked with Year Up's National Director of Strategic Growth and Impact to articulate the organization's emerging Influence Strategy. This strategy covers efforts outside the direct service program to shift the perceptions and change the behaviors of stakeholders operating in systems external to Year Up. These influence activities included deepening partnerships with Community Colleges, extending policy and advocacy efforts, broadening employer engagement, and experimenting with mobilizing constituencies.

Overall, this summer provided an incredibly opportunity to strengthen my commitment to public education, grow my network of professional and personal contacts and reflect on how lucky I am to be at HBS where the commitment to strong leadership and management extends across sectors.

Zoosa

Mike McGlade
The Harvard Social Enterprise Initiative Summer Fellowship gave me the opportunity to re–launch www.Zoosa.org an improved resource for the social enterprise sector. Our mission is to connect socially responsible professionals and organizations. As the founder & CEO, I aggressively pursued business development opportunities & marketing initiatives while working with our CTO to finalize our strategy & launch Zoosa's new website platform.

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