Social Entrepreneurship Boot Camp application period now open

PETIT JEAN MOUNTAIN — The Winthrop Rockefeller Institute, the Clinton School of Public Service, the Arkansas Regional Innovation Hub and the University of Arkansas Office of Entrepreneurship have announced a Social Entrepreneurship Boot Camp, to be held July 17-19, at the institute on Petit Jean Mountain. Applications for the boot camp will be accepted through Jan. 31 and can be found at www.rockefellerinstitute.org/SEbootcamp.

The boot camp will provide training for new and aspiring social entrepreneurs, focusing on such topics as business skills, legal issues, scalability, measuring impact, ethics and benefit corporations. Participants will also receive one-on-one mentoring from established business leaders and social-enterprise experts.

Those interested in participating may submit an application through the website. Applicants are encouraged to apply in teams, though individual applications will be accepted. Applications will be judged by representatives from each partner organization, and the selectees for the boot camp will be notified by March 30. The selected attendees will be required to complete a “lean canvas,” a particularly accessible model for describing and organizing business ventures. Each team/ participant’s lean canvas will be developed throughout the boot camp, and the end result will be a solid business plan for each social enterprise.

Steve Clark, founder of Propak Logistics and co-founder of Rockfish and Noble Impact, will serve as the boot camp’s keynote speaker. Also confirmed to serve as a speaker and mentor is Trish Flanagan, founder of Picasolar and Show Me Solar Power, and co-founder of Noble Impact.

“In Arkansas and around the world, young people are gravitating toward social entrepreneurship as a pathway to pursue the aspirations of their generation,” Clark said.

The boot camp follows in the success of the 2013 panel discussion on social entrepreneurship developed by the institute and the Clinton School.

“This concept of doing well by doing good, of businesses designed to have a positive social impact, has the potential to be an important part of our state’s future,” said Marta Loyd, executive director of the institute. “Our partners bring immense practical experience and intellectual resources to the table. With their help, we look forward to the new enterprises that will surely be launched as a result of this program.”

The mission of the University of Arkansas’ Office of Entrepreneurship is to catalyze entrepreneurial activities and innovation across the university and throughout the state in order to build Arkansas’ knowledge-based economy. Established in 2011, the Office of Entrepreneurship has led commercialization retreats for faculty from the research universities in the state, supported student and faculty commercialization activities, integrated University of Arkansas research with demand-driven innovation needs in the state through the IGNITE program, and hosted several social-entrepreneurship events.

University of Arkansas students have led the world in national and international business-plan competitions since 2009, winning almost twice as many competitions as the next closest competitor. Students have won over $2.3 million in prize money, established 13 high-growth businesses and raised almost $30 million to build their companies. Visit entrepreneurship.uark.edu for more information.

The Arkansas Regional Innovation Hub ( www.arhub.org) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing innovative and entrepreneurial activity in Arkansas by creating a collaborative ecosystem and pipelines that mobilize the resources, programs and educational opportunities necessary to develop, attract and retain talent and to build the state’s economy.