2013 Pitch Fest Applications Now Open

Social entrepreneurs on stage at the 2012 Social Innovation Incubator Pitch Fest

The Elevating Impact Summit is a celebration of impact in many forms, and a big part of that is the showcase of new social ventures, concepts, and up-and-coming entrepreneurs. The morning Pitch Fest is an exciting first look at the latest and greatest ideas in social innovation. If you have a social venture that you’re passionate about, don’t miss this opportunity to pitch your concept to a panel of leading impact investors looking for the next big thing!

So, why should you apply to participate in the Pitch Fest?

• Enjoy the full attention of a panel of impact investors who will evaluate your pitch and offer personalized feedback.
• Meet and mingle with other like-minded social entrepreneurs in a collaborative and inspiring environment.
• Link up with the partner, employee, resource, or organization you’ve been searching for to complete your vision.
• Make a name for yourself and your vision! This is your chance to tell your story to a room full of people who are ready to listen. You never know when you’re going to catch the interest of the right person who can help you get to the next level.

SUBMIT YOUR APPLICATION HERE

REQUIREMENTS:

• Applicants must have a social enterprise concept or existing venture, either for-profit or nonprofit, that uses business tools to address a major social or environmental problem.
• You are required to submit a brief video that pitches your concept. Videos need not be “high-tech” or professionally produced. We know that it can be hard to convey an idea that you’re passionate about on a typed application, so this is your opportunity to insert your personality into the pitch. The video will be the most heavily weighted portion of the application, so make it count!
• Applicants must be registered for the event to be considered. Enter PITCHFEST at checkout to receive a special applicant discount when you purchase your ticket.

Want to work on your application offline? Download this Pitch Fest Application Cheat Sheet to help you prepare.

DEADLINE TO SUBMIT AN APPLICATION: May 31st, 11:59PM

Questions? Email us at impactentrepreneurs@pdx.edu.

Impact Award Finalists Announced

We’re excited to announce the finalists for our first annual Impact Awards, recognizing promising and noted changemakers in our region who are seeking bold ways to make a large and lasting difference. Winners will be announced at the Elevating Impact Summit on June 21.

Finalists for the Student Impact Award:

• Ahmed Abidine, Portland State University / Elkarti Morocco
• Glenda Alfaro, Mt. Hood Community College / CGI U Finalist
• Orion Falvey, University of Oregon / Oregon Mobile Medical
• Brian Forrester, Portland State University / Hands-On Philanthropy
• Simon Ngawhika, Portland State University / PSU Net Impact

Finalists for the Impact Entrepreneur Award:

• Shane Endicott, Our United Villages
• Michael “Luni” Libes, Fledge Incubator
• Tim O’Brien, Tropical Salvage
• Adam Reid, KOREducators
• Evan Thomas, SWEETSense, Manna Energy, Portland State University
• Ben West, EcoZoom

Finalists for the Corporate/Nonprofit Impact Intrapreneur Award:

• Catherine Ellingson, New Avenues for Youth
• Mark Holloway, Social Venture Partners Portland
• John Haines, Mercy Corps NW
• Kazi Huque, Grameen Intel
• Doug Stamm, Meyer Memorial Trust

The Elevating Impact Summit will gather hundreds of bold, creative thinkers and action-oriented doers. More than 25 panelists will cover topics including impact investing, education, media and startup life. Aspiring social entrepreneurs will pitch their innovations in a rapid-fire pitch session and the event concludes with a cocktail reception. Don’t miss this opportunity to learn about social entrepreneurship in your community — buy your ticket before May 21 for an early-bird discount.

Tech4Change: Mercy Corps Hosts a Startup Weekend for Social Entrepreneurs

Portland has embraced the Startup Weekend, a 54-hour sprint to design and prototype a new tech startup, with a series of local and regional events. Now Mercy Corps is hosting a first-of-its-kind Startup Weekend for social entrepreneurs at their Portland headquarters this June 7-9, building on their experience running similar events in Iraq, Palestine, and Haiti.

Participants can pitch an idea and form a team to prototype a technology-based social enterprise, or work on a team helping Mercy Corps address some of the world’s biggest challenges. Whether you’re a software developer, graphic designer, social entrepreneur, businessperson or aid practitioner, there’s a place for you at this event. Visit the website to learn more or register.

What: Tech4Change, a social entrepreneurship Startup Weekend hosted by Mercy Corps

When: Friday, June 7 through Sunday, June 9

Where: Mercy Corps global headquarters, 45 SW Ankeny St., Portland OR

How much? $75 (with early-bird discount)

About Mercy Corps:

Mercy Corps is a nonprofit disaster relief and development organization with operations in over 40 countries. Its mission is to alleviate suffering, poverty and oppression by helping people build secure, productive and just communities. Mercy Corps strives to catalyze community-led and market-driven solutions to global poverty issues. Increasingly, Mercy Corps is employing technologies which have the potential to give millions of people new access to financial services and information, enabling them to grow businesses and improve their livelihoods, health and communities. Mercy Corps is also increasingly using startup technologies to streamline operations and meet compliance needs, freeing up human and financial resources to benefit those in need.

About Startup Weekend:

Startup Weekend is a global grassroots movement of active and empowered entrepreneurs who are learning the basics of founding startups and launching successful ventures. It is the largest community of passionate entrepreneurs with over 400 past events in 100 countries around the world in 2011. The nonprofit organization is headquartered in Seattle, Washington but Startup Weekend organizers and facilitators can be found in over 200 cities around the world. From Mongolia to South Africa to London to Brazil, people around the globe are coming together for weekend long workshops to pitch ideas, form teams, and start companies.

All Startup Weekend events follow the same basic model: anyone is welcome to pitch their startup idea and receive feedback from their peers. Teams organically form around the top ideas and then it’s a 54-hour frenzy of business model creation, coding, designing, and market validation. The weekends culminate with presentations in front of local entrepreneurial leaders with another opportunity for critical feedback.

Eric Dawson to Keynote Elevating Impact Summit

What would it look like if, instead of looking at young people as victims or perpetrators, we understood them as problem solvers?

We’re excited to announce that Eric Dawson, creator of the Peace First Prize, will keynote the Elevating Impact Summit on June 21. Eric is an Ashoka Fellow who created Peace First, an organization engaging children in conflict resolution and bullying prevention through such innovative approaches as the Peace Games and Peace First Prize, called a ”Nobel for young people.”

Learn more about the prize in a recent Huffington Post article, watch America Ferrera introduce the concept below, then buy tickets today to see Eric Dawson talk peacemaking and social innovation at the Elevating Impact Summit in Portland, Oregon June 21.

Click Here to Get Tickets

The Women’s Business Summit at Mercy Corps NW

Don’t miss the Women’s Business Summit on Wednesday, June 12 from 9 a.m.—2 p.m. at Mercy Corps.

Hosted by the Women’s Business Center at Mercy Corps NW, home of the Business Foundations courses, the event will focus on the journeys of successful women entrepreneurs in Portland. Learn from women business owners about the challenges they overcame, the resources available to other women entrepreneurs, and how to create an effective work-life balance.

Women business owners are encouraged to reserve a booth to sell their products and services directly at the event. Summit registration is only $20, and a vendor booth costs $35.

Check back soon for a link to the event registration page. For more information, please contact Women’s Business Center Manager Randhi Wilson.

Event Details
What: Women’s Business Summit
When: Wednesday, June 12, 9 a.m.-2 p.m.
Where: Aceh Room, Mercy Corps headquarters, 45 SW Ankeny St., Portland OR
How much? Only $20!

Announcing the Elevating Impact Summit

The Elevating Impact Summit, brought to you by Impact Entrepreneurs at Portland State University, is a celebration of new approaches to generating social impact across business, social, public, and academic sectors. This event features a dynamic day of interactive discussion and learning sessions, inspiring speakers, first-hand accounts from social entrepreneurs and innovators, and opportunities to connect with a diverse audience of business professionals, cutting edge entrepreneurs, thought leaders, and students all working to realize the full potential of business for positive impact.

Sample Topics and Speakers:

• Impact Journalism with Christina Williams, former founding editor of Sustainable Business Oregon
• Resilience Uncensored with Rick Turoczy, founder of PIE, and Franklin Jones, founder of B Line
• Education for Impact with Mark Holloway, executive director of Social Venture Partners Portland
• 2013 Impact Award recipients announced

Stay tuned for keynote speaker announcements!

Friday, June 21
Registration and light breakfast at 9 a.m., event starts at 10 a.m. Cocktail reception at 4 p.m.
Gerding Theater at the Armory

REGISTER NOW for an Early Bird Discount >>

Reflections on the Ashoka U Exchange

By Amelia Pape, Portland State University MBA ’11 and Founder, My Street Grocery

“Life is about finding where your passions meet the world’s greatest needs.”

If ever there were a single sentence that could sum up an event so brimming with energy, inspirational content, and brilliant minds, this may be it. The event is the 2013 Ashoka U Exchange, and the above was only one of the many quotes I scribbled into my notebook in an attempt to absorb every bit of the world’s largest global conference intersecting higher education and social change.

Ashoka U is a program of Ashoka that recognizes leading institutions in social innovation education. The Changemaker Campus designation represents a vision that higher education can become a global driver of social change by providing students with the tools they need to change the world. Last fall, after a rigorous selection process, Portland State University became one of only 19 institutions to receive the Ashoka U Changemaker Campus designation. The Exchange provided a forum for connecting current and potential changemaker campus representatives, Ashoka Fellows and staff, and incredible innovators from across the globe who share Bill Drayton’s vision of an Everyone a Changemaker world.

The University of San Diego provided a warm and sunny welcome.

The agenda was packed to the gills with interactive workshops, presentations, site visits, and even its very own TEDx event, centered around the topic of “Find Your Place in the Universe.” Here we had the pleasure of hearing from a variety of social entrepreneurs, including one very surprising and delightful inventor, Eden Full. Eden is the Founder of Roseicollis Technologies Inc., inventor of the SunSaluter, Ashoka’s Youth Social Entrepreneur of the Year, and among other accolades, only 21 years old. If this isn’t an inspiration to act on your passions, I don’t know what is.

Portland State was lucky to have a number of wonderful representatives at the Exchange. Below are some highlights from PSU team members’ unique perspectives:

Provost Sona Andrews:

One of the conference highlights for me was the session for university presidents and provosts. It provided an opportunity to learn about some trends and initiatives, but most importantly it was a venue for intimate dialog and exchanges of ideas. Phillipp Schmidt from MIT’s media lab gave us the most food for thought. There were certainly differences of options on the future of higher education, but no differences in the role that leaders need to take to be change makers.

And of course the major highlight was Portland State University’s induction into the circle of Changemaker campuses!

Professor Evan Thomas:

Ashoka U was an excellent opportunity to mingle with other aspiring and accomplished social entrepreneurs and students. In particular, the overlap between engineering, innovation, global health and entrepreneurship is clearly taking off at universities around the country.

Cindy Cooper, Impact Entrepreneurs Director:

Cindy Cooper presents Impact Entrepreneurs’ own Social Innovation Incubator at the Exchange

The Ashoka U Exchange was both humbling and a jolt of inspiration. The resounding takeaway for me is that a surge in student demand underpins much of the tremendous growth of social innovation and entrepreneurship offerings in campuses across the U.S. and the world. We’ve experienced this at PSU as well. “There is a cultural shift,” observed Kaitlyn Fitzgerald, a student from Arizona State University who leads their Changemaker Central Student Leadership Team and won a 2013 Cordes Innovation Award at the conference. Students want to put their values and passions to work, and they want their universities to be their bridge to future professions that make a difference.

Getting to hear Ashoka Founder Bill Drayton was also a highlight. He spoke about the shift from a world of repetition to a world of change. In a world of change, we need fluidity and the ability to respond and adapt quickly. One way to do this is through “teams of teams,” as well as teaching empathy, leadership, and innovation to our youth.

There were countless incredible keynotes, including Eric Dawson, an Ashoka Fellow who launched the Peace First Prize for youth, and Marc Freedman who works on the other end of the age spectrum enabling those in the encore generation to launch new, meaningful careers. We hope to bring them and other standout social entrepreneurs to campus soon.

Provost Andrews with Ashoka U Changemaker Campus Director Michèle Leaman and Ashoka Founder Bill Drayton

I also enjoyed the opportunity to spend time with several colleagues in attendance: Provost Andrews accepted our Changemaker Campus Award and impressed the audience describing our culture of social innovation and the Provost’s reTHINK Challenge; professor Kristi Yuthas from the School of Business is researching impact measurement and replication strategies, two topics of huge interest to us at Impact Entrepreneurs; social entrepreneur and engineering professor Evan Thomas has developed monitoring instruments that improve the efficacy of cookstoves, water filters and other tools for international development; our alumna and social entrepreneur poster woman Amelia Pape is exactly why we do what we do; and new friend Jacob Sherman from our Institute for Sustainable Solutions and Undergraduate Research, Engagement and Creative Activities is helping to make PSU’s social innovation and sustainability curricula even more fantastic in the near future.

Memorable moments also included any time I looked outside and saw the Sun and blue skies. The University of San Diego was a fantastic host and inspiration for all of us working to create an “Everyone a Changemaker” campus. With billboards and light post flags welcoming changemakers, a hilarious and compelling student body president (Morgan Schwanke) who wowed everyone with equal parts wit, heart and sensibility, and stories about USD changemakers  everywhere we turned, USD did a wonderful job.

PSU Team: Amelia Pape, Cindy Cooper, Sona Andrews, Jacob Sherman

It’s clear that a gathering of this kind has a profound and personal effect on each attendee. One of my favorite take-aways from the Exchange was the simple notion that our motivation to learn is to connect with others. Though seemingly straightforward, this concept struck me deeply. Why do we seek knowledge? Why do we innovate? Why do we strive to change the world? In some cases, we’re motivated by narcissism, but as Kiva Co-founder and CEO Matt Flannery noted, “the best passion isn’t narcissistic; it’s above yourself.” So, perhaps human connection is the differentiator. When we engage with others, we learn empathy, and through empathy we realize our deepest, most selfless passions. This, I think, is the spirit that drives true social innovation, and the heart of the changemaker world.

Cindy Cooper Wins 40 Under 40 Award

Cindy Cooper, Director of the Impact Entrepreneurs initiative at Portland State University, was recently selected by the Portland Business Journal to join their 40 Under 40 list of the most influential young Portlanders. Cindy is co-founder of the award-winning social enterprise Speak Shop, which connects language tutors in Guatemala to students around the world; founder and director of PSU’s Social Innovation Incubator, selected by Fast Company as one of America’s 51 brilliant urban ideas; and teaches entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship at PSU. After the 40 Under 40 awards, she was kind enough to share some of her tips for other social entrepreneurs.

What words of advice do you wish someone had shared with you when you launched Speak Shop?

Don’t be shy about asking for help.

What do you think is the most interesting new trend in business for social good?

In the past, we often heard about the prototypical social entrepreneur who came into being after experiencing an epiphany and being moved to act to change an injustice, using the best of business and social sectors. It was often a reactive approach: We found them, we lauded them, we learned from them.

We need to continue to meet social entrepreneurs where they are and when they arise, but today we see the opportunity to inspire and teach people how to be innovators for change. We’re becoming more proactive about this. Leading social entrepreneurship supporters like Ashoka are starting earlier, looking at how to develop empathic thinking in children. Organizations like Encore.org are looking later at how the young at heart can choose social entrepreneurship as a rewarding encore career opportunity. We can encourage that process and not wait for serendipitous events to inspire action and great ideas.

What’s a good starting point for someone interested in learning more about social entrepreneurship? 

We have some great go-to readings on our website:
http://www.pdx.edu/impactentrepreneurs/resources

Ashoka is a global leader in this space and has lots of knowledge collected over more than 30 years of work: http://www.ashoka.org

Probably one of the best ways is to talk to someone who’s done it, or attend an event where social entrepreneurs are willing to speak candidly about their experiences.

Upcoming Oregon Angel Investing Conferences

Looking to raise capital from angel investors? The application deadlines for three of the biggest local angel conferences are rapidly approaching, so don’t miss out!

January 9: final deadline for Angel Oregon, offering coaching, visibility, and the chance for both concept and launch-stage companies to compete for up to $400k in funding at the April 17 event. Your application fee also gets you a year-long membership in the Oregon Entrepreneurs Network, one of the region’s foremost entrepreneurship communities.

For entrepreneurs, OEN’s Angel Oregon offers you:

• The chance to compete for an investment award
• Valuable coaching from experienced angel investors and serial entrepreneurs
• Exposure within the greater community
• Further development of your presentation skills
• Help in refining your business plans

January 30: deadline for the Southern Oregon Angel Conference in Jacksonville on April 11. Launch-stage companies are eligible for up to $200k in investment, while concept-stage ventures compete for a startup grant. Applicants are expected to generate economic impact in Southern Oregon.

Who should apply:

• any product or service in any sector, start-up or expansion
• companies from the Pacific Northwest and Northern California
• start-ups, expansions, proof of concepts or prototypes
• companies raising $200,000 to $2 million in capital
• companies with rapid expansion and growth opportunities

February 14: deadline to submit your business plan to the Willamette Angel Conference, to compete for up to $200k at the May 9 event in Corvallis. Applicants receive coaching and valuable experience working with investors on the due diligence process.

Participating in the WAC has benefits that go beyond the opportunity to receive an investment prize.  Many entrepreneurs value the learning experience, the opportunity to better understand their own business model, and the opportunity to see how funding works

It Must Be Crowdfunding Week in Portland

Can’t get enough of crowdfunding? Neither can Portland, apparently. This week, you have no less than three business crowdfunding events, each with a different focus and approach.

On Wednesday, OEN presents a Pub Talk on raising startup capital through Kickstarter. Moderated by Scott Schroeder of Mega Tech, Benjamin Jacobsen of Jacobsen Salt and Casey Hopkins of Elevation Lab will share their crowdfunding campaign stories. 5:15 p.m. at Backspace. $30.

This Friday, we’re joining Nedspace and the Social Venture Society to host “Crowdfunding for Social Entrepreneurs.” Alex Budak, co-founder of StartSomeGood, will talk fundraising as storytelling and tips for running a successful campaign. Anaïs Tuepker, co-founder of Preciva.com, will discuss her successful campaign as a social entrepreneur. 5 p.m. at the PSU School of Business, Room 170. FREE.

And on Saturday, an OTBC crowdfunding workshop will walk you through creating your pitch, developing content, and determining your budget for a successful business crowdfunding campaign. 10 a.m. at OTBC. $325.

Happy crowdfunding!