On Friday, May 18th, from dawn until dusk, 75 HBS alumni gathered in Google’s Community Space overlooking the San Francisco Bay to “hack” an issue causing growing anxiety all around us: the future of work. As we all witness on an almost daily basis, the world of work is constantly changing at an ever-increasing pace. Technological breakthroughs are upending traditional work everywhere—from grocery store self-checkout stands to software automating bookkeeping—and causing both displacement and new opportunities for workers. Many see it as an inevitable brewing storm.  [...]

Over the course of its inception two years ago, the Social Enterprise Initiative’s Alumni for Impact program has focused on connecting alumni within geographies and within subsectors of the social sector (the impact investing alumni group is an example) as well as developing platforms that enable knowledge sharing from faculty to alumni and from alumni to alumni (in the form of our quarterly newsletter, this blog, alumni webinars, and HBX). [...]

Social Enterprise, founded in 1993, was the first established Initiative at Harvard Business School. SEI came to later serve as a model for the School to address topics that sit at the intersection of business and society and do not fit neatly within traditional academic disciplines. Today, there are a total of eight Initiatives at HBS that cover a range of topics from sectors of the economy to societal issues. [...]

For 30 years, HBS Association of Northern California’s Community Partners has mobilized more than 800 Bay Area alumni to help over 300 non-profit organizations through pro bono consulting engagements and brainstorming sessions. – from the Exploratorium, to #YesWeCode, to the San Francisco Mayor’s Office of Civic Innovation. Recently, HBS Community Partners has witnessed HBS Association of Northern California Community Partners has recently witnessed widespread alumni interest in volunteering their business skills and expertise not just to non-profits, but also to local government. [...]

As outlined in a recent post about Alumni for Impact’s first year, approximately 12% of all HBS alumni are working in the social sector (i.e., nonprofit sector, the public sector, or for-profit business with a social mission). Over the course of the last year, we have crisscrossed the United States and met with hundreds of these alumni, each of them committed to creating a positive impact in their communities and in the world. Their activities range from starting an impact investing fund to help agriculture businesses in India, to creating a platform for more effective and transparent community dialogue, to helping schools develop better tools for teaching elementary schoolchildren math. [...]