College Online Cources

Speak up. Weigh in. Act out. Such will be the refrain of this column on student involvement.

As students, we are in a unique position to leverage our voices, our passions, our creations, in order to influence a powerful institution for local and international good.

I am writing this biweekly column as a reminder that this is a pivotal moment in our lives when we have access, not only to an incredible education, but also to resources that can help establish or define our futures.

Covering issues as varied as health and activism, this column is intended to raise awareness about the opportunities we have at our disposal as UW students and provide ideas and inspiration for how we can spread our influence as such.

I will begin by covering the UW’s Social Entrepreneurship Club (SEC), an RSO.

SEC seeks to appeal to every variety of majors appearing on campus. What matters here more than the entrepreneurship angle is the social focus. Social entrepreneurship is the latest trend in advancing poverty alleviation, sometimes through for-profit ventures.

Social entrepreneurship often takes the form of microfinancing, which can include lending money to poor women — a group conventionally held to be unreliable in for-profit endeavors.

In fact, SEC acts as an umbrella group for Foster Business School affiliates such as Campus Kiva, and Vittana — organizations dedicated to advancing microfinancing. Denny Luan, a senior in economics and the president of Campus Kiva, is now an officer in SEC.

A characteristic meeting for SEC officers consists of an informal brainstorming session among peers from different departments.

Not your typical business student, informatics junior Chris Mathews was drawn to the group after reading a book called The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, by William Kamkwamba. An autobiography, the book chronicles Kamkwamba’s childhood ambition to build a windmill and propel his family out of poverty.

When Mathews heard about SEC through UW alumnus and former SEC President David Almeida, he quickly jumped at the opportunity to make such small investments count toward a future.

“It’s those sorts of stories I would like to facilitate,” Mathews said of Kamkwamba’s account.

According to the SEC website, the organization aims to “provide students [with] a unique experience, blending education and networking with a hands-on perspective.” Projects include networking events, campaigns and connecting with speakers. Currently, they are arranging an audience with the charity organization Jolkona on the topic of social entrepreneurship.

Social entrepreneurship is often thought of as a win-win, and indeed, it often benefits both big businesses and the impoverished as businesses make profit out of lifting the poor out of poverty. For many, social entrepreneurship is ideal because it works with the wealthy on a large scale and the poor on an intimate scale to lessen the poverty gap.

SEC’s approach is beneficial because it not only brings together students from various backgrounds, but it channels their perspectives in order to tackle the problem of poverty. Since it also works with businesses to advance human rights, it is a collaborative venture to solve a problem of disparities. By making changes on an intimate level — by broaching the departmental and academic-professional divide — SEC fulfills the ideal of campus involvement, even extending that involvement across international borders.

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