Creating Social Value Blog / Author: The Institute for Social Innovation

16 Books to Inspire How We Finance the Future

At The Lewis Institute, we’ve been having a lot of deep conversations about financing the future. Here are some excellent books for thinking about the true purpose of capital, understanding the unintended consequences of philanthropy, and exploring new (and sometimes radical) ideas and frameworks for financing. A special shoutout to entrepreneur-in-residence Sara Minard for not…

Teaching Entrepreneurs to Embrace Their Inner Geek

by Ken Accardi MBA’05, healthcare tech entrepreneur & Babson adjunct instructor   When teaching how to transform businesses with digital technology, one of the first things I tell students is that I was raised as a Geek and not as a business person, but that it’s important for them to become Geeks as part of…

Books for Positive Disruptors

Following up on our recommended reading for changemakers and social innovators, here’s a selection from The Lewis Institute bookshelves for people challenging the status quo. Memoirs & Biographies • Mindsets & Inspiration     Memoirs & Biographies Confessions of a Radical Industrialist: Profits, People, Purpose—Doing Business by Respecting the Earth Interface founder Ray Anderson shares…

4 Lessons Learned from Competing with Giants

written by Khanh-Linh Ha ’21   One question for all of the entrepreneurs out there: How many of you would say “no” and walk away from billions of dollars offered for your business? That was exactly what Tân Hiệp Phát (THP), the leading beverage company in Vietnam, did after receiving an acquisition offer at the evaluation…

How Will We Finance Our Future?

When Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, the world’s largest money-management firm, put the challenge to the business community to contribute to society or risk being left out of their portfolio, he struck an important nerve. It’s a critical challenge, but the roadmap has been unclear. Most of us would agree that the traditional models of…

Launching the First Women’s Hackathon in Vietnam

Last spring, Tien Mai ’20 (Babson College Global Scholar and part of the Babson’s 2017 CGI U cohort) not only participated in the Wearables Hackathon, but her team took top honors for their product design. This spring, she approached The Lewis Institute about the Social Innovation Inventureship program—a paid or credit-bearing Fellowship that allows students…