Last year's NYU/D-Prize winner, Jeunes Braves. Their mission is "to reduce teen pregnancy, child marriage and HIV in Togo through solutions that work". Everyone who’s ever taken a shower has an idea. It’s the person who gets out of the shower, dries off and does something about it who makes a difference.
– Nolan Bushnell, entrepreneur and author of Finding the Next Steve Jobs: How to Find, Keep and Nurture Creative Talent
Taking a cue from Nolan Bushnell, a good idea is quite different from a good plan, and even a good plan is different from a sustainable strategy. Particularly in the social entrepreneurship sphere, it can be challenging to transform ideas into practical and scalable solutions. The challenges with scaling ideas, especially scaling them internationally, are numerous: getting organized, evaluating resources, and dealing with a complicated mission, remote geography or foreign culture are just some of the difficulties organizations face.
Through a partnership between NYU Reynolds and D-Prize, The Opportunity Lab recently guided an extensive group of students from NYU, BRAC, NANYANG and Middlebury Universities through navigating these challenges. We hosted an Unlock Your Network webinar for applicants to this year’s D-Prize Social Venture Competition and assisted them with creating their own Resource Maps empowering them to fully leverage resources they already have in order to make a tangible and sustainable impact.
The NYU Reynolds/D-Prize Social Venture Competition was designed to enable students' efforts to scale sustainable, proven poverty solutions in the developing world. The competition not only provides funding to winners to realize their idea, but also emphasizes the importance of practical and scalable solutions for entrepreneurial endeavors.
We also had the chance to ask Gabe Brodbar, the Executive Director of NYU-Reynolds a few more questions about this opportunity and its impact.
What inspires you most in your work?
Being part of something that is greater than ourselves. To have the opportunity, even in some small way, to help someone along on his/her trajectory to solving big problems, or to help someone give themself permission to be active in this space is incredible. It is an extraordinary privileged position to be in.
How did the NYU Reynolds/D-Prize partnership come to be and why do you feel it is important for the student community?
Truth be told, the credit goes to networking and an NYU Wagner student, Wemimo Abbey. He is a former student and a very active social entrepreneur, and had participated in D-Prize. He facilitated the introduction to NYU and one thing led to another. I was very impressed when I met with the Director of D-Prize, Nicholas Fusso. They are doing such great work and for all the right reasons. It is important because it is truly a force multiplier.
Do you see a shift in the students' mindset toward social enterprise and mission driven initiatives?
Students now, perhaps more than ever, are recognizing the ownership position they must take in making the world a better place. A well thought-out program like the NYU Reynolds/D-Prize consortium plays a tremendous role in helping many people be much more successful in this space. And let’s face it, we all benefit from that.
In which ways do you feel the Unlock Your Network program and the Resource Map will benefit the social entrepreneurs in the program?
Rigor and agency. The mapping tool OppLab has developed is a great way to help students understand the systemic and measured ways in which many aspects of this work must be conducted. There is a thoughtful and graceful process to understanding and activating one’s own network, and the Resource Map has captured it beautifully. It also orients the students to the understanding that they have assets in their own selves they haven't even begun to understand.
It’s a very powerful realization; to suddenly see you have incredible resources to bring to bear. It changes one's whole orientation, and suddenly previously ignored assets are being leveraged to great effect. It’s not even teaching someone to fish. It is helping them recognize that they always knew how.
– Nolan Bushnell, entrepreneur and author of Finding the Next Steve Jobs: How to Find, Keep and Nurture Creative Talent
Taking a cue from Nolan Bushnell, a good idea is quite different from a good plan, and even a good plan is different from a sustainable strategy. Particularly in the social entrepreneurship sphere, it can be challenging to transform ideas into practical and scalable solutions. The challenges with scaling ideas, especially scaling them internationally, are numerous: getting organized, evaluating resources, and dealing with a complicated mission, remote geography or foreign culture are just some of the difficulties organizations face.
Through a partnership between NYU Reynolds and D-Prize, The Opportunity Lab recently guided an extensive group of students from NYU, BRAC, NANYANG and Middlebury Universities through navigating these challenges. We hosted an Unlock Your Network webinar for applicants to this year’s D-Prize Social Venture Competition and assisted them with creating their own Resource Maps empowering them to fully leverage resources they already have in order to make a tangible and sustainable impact.
The NYU Reynolds/D-Prize Social Venture Competition was designed to enable students' efforts to scale sustainable, proven poverty solutions in the developing world. The competition not only provides funding to winners to realize their idea, but also emphasizes the importance of practical and scalable solutions for entrepreneurial endeavors.
We also had the chance to ask Gabe Brodbar, the Executive Director of NYU-Reynolds a few more questions about this opportunity and its impact.
What inspires you most in your work?
Being part of something that is greater than ourselves. To have the opportunity, even in some small way, to help someone along on his/her trajectory to solving big problems, or to help someone give themself permission to be active in this space is incredible. It is an extraordinary privileged position to be in.
How did the NYU Reynolds/D-Prize partnership come to be and why do you feel it is important for the student community?
Truth be told, the credit goes to networking and an NYU Wagner student, Wemimo Abbey. He is a former student and a very active social entrepreneur, and had participated in D-Prize. He facilitated the introduction to NYU and one thing led to another. I was very impressed when I met with the Director of D-Prize, Nicholas Fusso. They are doing such great work and for all the right reasons. It is important because it is truly a force multiplier.
Do you see a shift in the students' mindset toward social enterprise and mission driven initiatives?
Students now, perhaps more than ever, are recognizing the ownership position they must take in making the world a better place. A well thought-out program like the NYU Reynolds/D-Prize consortium plays a tremendous role in helping many people be much more successful in this space. And let’s face it, we all benefit from that.
In which ways do you feel the Unlock Your Network program and the Resource Map will benefit the social entrepreneurs in the program?
Rigor and agency. The mapping tool OppLab has developed is a great way to help students understand the systemic and measured ways in which many aspects of this work must be conducted. There is a thoughtful and graceful process to understanding and activating one’s own network, and the Resource Map has captured it beautifully. It also orients the students to the understanding that they have assets in their own selves they haven't even begun to understand.
It’s a very powerful realization; to suddenly see you have incredible resources to bring to bear. It changes one's whole orientation, and suddenly previously ignored assets are being leveraged to great effect. It’s not even teaching someone to fish. It is helping them recognize that they always knew how.
 | The Opportunity Lab is excited to continue to collaborate with NYU Reynolds on the inspiring work they deliver across all parts of the world. |