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DtM Designer Will Harris a StartingBloc Fellow

Mon 18 Jun 2012
StartingBloc
DtM Designer, Will Harris, recently became a StartingBloc fellow, after attending the 5 day StartingBloc Boston Institute. It was an incredibly transformative experience, bringing an inspiring group of young individuals together and connecting them with a great network of social entrepreneurs. The institute was divided into five different sections with different speakers for each topic.

As a part of the institute fellowship candidates were placed into teams and given a business case study to solve, this year sponsored by ReWork. Throughout the five days candidates met in their teams and work on creating compelling pitches aimed at solving the specific problems laid out by ReWork. Will’s team was selected as one of the six finalists and ended up winning the Social Innovation Competition, leading to the whole team receiving free tickets to the October All Fellows Conference in Chicago. All in all it was an amazing experience that has lead to lifelong friendships, and connections in the social sector that have already begun to reap rewards for Design that Matters.

StartingBloc Team

DtM Designer Will Harris, and his StartingBloc Social Innovation Challenge Team working on their pitch

Day 1: Off the Bloc
Scott Sherman, Executive Director,Transformative Action Institute

Day 2: Intrapreneurship
Beyond CSR to Social Innovation: A Roadmap towards Greater Impact
Anne Kelly, Co-Director of Policy, Ceres
Cheryl Kiser, Managing Director, The Lewis Initiative at Babson College
Michael Levett, President, Citizens Democracy Corps

Day 3: Social Entrepreneurship
Social Enterprise :: From Passion to Sustainability
Mitchell Wade, Director, StartingBloc

Hyper Consumption to Collaborative Consumption
Craig Shapiro, Founder & CEO, Collaborative Fund

Day 4: Cross-sector Partnerships
The Wealth of Knowledge in the Room
Sarah Bishop, Acting CEO, StartingBloc

Social Innovation Design
Cheryl Heller, Founder, Heller Communication Design

Day 5: Sustainability
Smash Fear
Ted Gonder (BOS ’11), Moneythink

Lasting Change
Mitchell Wade, Director, StartingBloc

StratingBloc Team

The winning StartingBloc Social Innovation Challenge Team memebers, (left to right) Alex Cantrell, Brittany Young, Meghan Coleman, Will Harris, Katie Broadbent, Daniel Kent, Team Mentor Jayson Uppal, and Ngozi Nezianya

ABOUT STARTINGBLOC

Since 2005, StartingBloc has been training the next generation of leaders on how to do well and do good.

Through the StartingBloc Fellowship, we select the brightest young leaders and provide them with access to the resources they need to address the most pressing global challenges of our time. The most critical resource that our Fellows gain access to is a tight-knit community of social innovators based across the country and the world.

The StartingBloc Fellowship begins with the Institute for Social Innovation. This transformative experience includes a survey of social innovation, an innovative case-study competition and sessions with industry leaders.

Upon completing the Institute, new Fellows join our global network of 1,500 StartingBloc Fellows from 54 countries and 221 universities. Over the years, StartingBloc Fellows have launched their own organizations and continue to create social impact in various sectors across the world.

Learn more about StartingBloc

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