Can entrepreneurs make social impact?

This Thursday, June 19th, at 7pm, the Rockefeller Center will host “Using an Entrepreneurial Mindset to Make Social Impact" in Rocky 003 featuring panelists Jamie Coughlin, Director of New Venture Incubator Programs in the Dartmouth Office of Entrepreneurship & Technology Transfer; Grace Teo, Founder and Co-Chair of Open Style Lab; and Henrik Scheel, Founder and CEO of The Startup Experience, Inc. This panel will discuss how growing emphasis on entrepreneurship around the globe is a promising approach to empower and enable small groups of individuals to make positive social impact. Students and the public are welcome to attend. Refreshments will be served at 6:45pm.

In his inaugural address, President Phil Hanlon announced the foundation of an Innovation Center and New Venture Incubator where Dartmouth students will have access to the resources, connections, experiences, and capital necessary to turn ideas into new business ventures and social enterprises. Initiatives such as these prompt us to imagine Dartmouth students as innovators. Dartmouth has a long tradition of using innovation and entrepreneurial approaches to make its campus and the world a better place.

These days, students are taking it upon themselves every term to start new organizations fulfilling unmet interests on campus, to create startups, and to begin and carry out initiatives like Improve Dartmouth. Through these efforts, members of the Dartmouth community are using the resources at hand to pursue their passions and to make a difference at the same time. We can further learn from the entrepreneurs in this panel and use their combination of business savvy, persistence, opportunity-recognition, and network-building to address some of the most intractable social problems of the world.

Jamie Coughlin is the Director of New Venture Incubator Programs in the Office of Entrepreneurship & Technology Transfer at Dartmouth College. Previously, Jamie was the CEO and Entrepreneur in Residence of the abi Innovation Hub, New Hampshire's oldest business incubator, where he led the successful turn-around and rebranding of this 15 year-old organization into New Hampshire's most active incubator and innovation center. As an entrepreneur, Jamie founded and managed a variety of ventures, including an edu-tech solution focused around audience response systems and an online funding platform for the faith-based market.

Grace Teo is the founder and co-chair of Open Style Lab and a recent graduate of MIT. Open Style Lab is a Summer program that gathers together designers, engineers, and occupational therapists to create clothing for people with disabilities. Through multiple partnerships with fashion labels, rehabilitation networks, and technology companies, she hopes to bring user-centered and universal design principles into apparel design and provide a platform for the health and fashion industry to communicate. Grace is originally from Singapore, where she received her B.Eng. at Nanyang Technological University, before moving to Boston to complete her Health Sciences and Technology PhD at MIT.

Henrik Scheel is a Danish serial entrepreneur, and the CEO & Founder of Startup Experience Inc. While still an engineering student, Henrik founded two companies in IT and Design Thinking. He then worked with the Global Research team at Vestas Wind Systems and became specialized in strategy development and Innovation Management. In 2010 he moved to Silicon Valley where he founded Startup Experience Inc. Through the Startup Experience he has formed partnerships with governments, NGOs, and corporate non-profits in 15+ countries and is striving to transform entrepreneurship education in today's school system.

In addition to participating in the panel, Scheel will be hosting The Startup Experience workshop on June 20-21, a 1.5 day crash course on high-impact entrepreneurship and social innovation. Please click here for more information and to register.

Co-sponsored by: Office of the President, Nelson A. Rockefeller Center, Collis Center for Student Involvement, Dartmouth Athletics, Hopkins Center for the Arts, Office of Entrepreneurship & Technology Transfer, and Office of Pluralism and Leadership