By Jack Barber ’16, Co-Founder of Mainely Burgers. If someone had told me three years ago that my brother, Max, and I would be running our business Mainely Burgers full-time, I would have told them that they were crazy. During my senior year at Babson, I was razor focused on getting a job in finance.…
“Business is all about relationships,” the CEO said. We were not in a classroom or theater listening to a man in a suit. We were seated around a sun-drenched table in the Blank Center co-working space listening to a back-to-the-land hippie farmer who thirty years ago started CROPP (Cooperative Regions of Organic Producer Pools), parent…
For two years, Food Sol has been in recipe development for our Community Table, a design that weekly brings together food entrepreneurs and students of food to exchange resources and ideas. It became popular at Babson pretty quickly, which led to a question: How would it do in other contexts and communities where the entrepreneurial…
My breakthrough read of 2014 was written in 2004, but “Structural Holes and Good Ideas” has done more to validate my wacky way of operating in the world than anything else. Author Ron Burt explores the neighborhood of social capital occupied by “between-group brokers… the people who stand near the holes in a social structure.”…
Food Sol’s first Community Table Boston last Thursday was a huge hit. For a conversation on entrepreneurial opportunities in Boston urban agriculture, folks turned out from Tufts, BU, Harvard Law School, Babson, Wellesley College, the Mayor’s Office, City Growers, and Shape Up Somerville to participate. Local marketer and farmers’ market maven Myrna Greenfield wrote about…
By Bradley Googins & Philip Mirvis A monthly installment from two of The Lewis Institute’s Social Innovation Fellows: Bradley Googins and Philip Mirvis. Our prior blog took us on a tour of innovations in sustainable food and farming in the U.S. Here the foodies’ tour continues with what’s new in these regards in Europe, Asia,…
“That’s what all entrepreneurs need: you need to open up the conversation, not be afraid to share your problems, so that you can overcome them.” – Pranav Chaudhry (’14) on the Quick Service Incubator When Gail Simmons kicked off her Residency at Babson in April, this celebration included a Quick Service Incubator. The Quick Service…
By Bradley Googins & Philip Mirvis A monthly installment from two of The Lewis Institute’s Social Innovation Fellows: Bradley Googins and Philip Mirvis. Judging from the popularity of reality TV chef competitions on Hell’s Kitchen, infotainment shows about food production (The Chew), preparation (Kitchen Nightmares) and consumption (Anthony Bourdain), and cooking tips from America’s Test…
When Raphael Leonard (B’13) walked into my office in late April, he hadn’t broken his leg yet. Food Sol was fresh on his radar screen. He’d just learned of us from Lewis Institute ugrad scholar Lindsey Tarr. “I’m passionate about innovations in food production and delivery systems,” he told me. Graduation was just a few…
What gets us out of bed every morning here at The Lewis Institute is a driving desire to use entrepreneurship to change the world for the better. We believe that Entrepreneurial Thought & Action® is one of the best assets the world has to tackle societal issues, and want to put these tools into the…