Leveraging Social Entrepreneurship with Science, Technology and Innovation

Full course description

This course offers an in-depth understanding of social entrepreneurship and how it is intrinsically linked with innovation. We look at how the social entrepreneur or social enterprise is important for the overall innovation system. The course explores the various venues of how science and technology can be leveraged for the social entrepreneur as well as for the social enterprise by studying a wide range of real cases. The course focuses on emerging science and technology trends and the role of public policy.

In the first week, the stage is set with innovation theory. The various types of technological innovation will be covered, as well as non- technological disruptive and inclusive and/or social innovation. From the perspective of innovation theory, the Schumpeterian regime Mark I and Mark II will be introduced, and we will discuss and interpret what it means for the business entrepreneur in this context using different case studies. We will explore how these findings can be applied to social entrepreneurship.

During the second week, we will take a step from the social entrepreneurship and turn to the social enterprise. The focus will be on industry characteristics and sectoral dimension. Special attention will be given to specific cases of social enterprises in ICT and Biotech industries, such as Fairphone and Mosameat.

The third week will focus on the potential and impact of emerging technologies for social entrepreneurship. These are technologies such as blockchain that open up enormous new opportunities for the social entrepreneur in the global value chain. Similarly, it will be examined how Artificial Intelligence, the bio-economy, nanotechnology, Big Data and Deep Data, and Internet of Things (IoT) are changing the face of social entrepreneurship.

The fourth week turns to Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and explains the role of IPR for social entrepreneurship. This will range from patenting to Free/Libre Open Source, linking it to the sharing economy, and new issues such as joint ownership and blockchain. Concluding the course, policy challenges related to social entrepreneurship and IPR are discussed. During the course, social entrepreneurs will be invited to highlight connections between the material covered and their actual application. In terms of skills building, this course aims to equip students to understand the potential of emerging technologies and identify possible IPR pathways for social entrepreneurship projects.