Wharton’s Free Online Course on Social Entrepreneurship [Teachers Day Special]

Today is Teacher’s day – A day to remember and thank all the teachers and Gurus in your life who have made you what you are. I have been fortunate enough to have teachers (in my school, college and in my professional life) who have undoubtedly made a positive contribution to my life.

However, Internet has by-far been my biggest guru – I have been on Internet since 1996 and hardly a day has gone by since I have not learned something from it’s ocean of knowledge.

Over last few years, MOOCs (Massive Open Online Course) are starting to replace traditional chalk-and-talk teaching. While they are not going mainstream for school teaching, when it comes to professional skill development, MOOCs have started to play a major role in today’s world.

Premium Universities like Stanford, MIT and Harvard and companies like Coursera, Udacity and edX have bought hundreds of professional skill development courses online. With help of these online courses hundreds and thousands have individuals across the world have gained knowledge and skills that would have been impossible for them to achieve without MOOCs.

Today, on occasion of Teacher’s Day, we showcase a course that every entrepreneur around the world should seriously think of taking.

Wharton, World’s best business school, will soon be starting a Free online course on “How to start a social enterprise!”

According to a Wharton Alumnus, Anil Paranjape, who was part of doing some initial work for this course, “Many of the recipes and prescriptions (in this course) of starting a social venture are very similar to those for the regular, totally-for-profit ventures as well, so whether you want to start a social venture or not, you will benefit.  ”

The free “How to start a social enterprise!” course is taught by Ian C. MacMillan, Wharton professor and academic director of the Sol C. Snider Entrepreneurial Center and James Thompson, director of the Wharton Social Entrepreneurship Program, authors of The Social Entrepreneur’s Playbook, who will be joined by Peter Frumkin, professor and faculty director of the Center for High Impact Philanthropy at the University of Pennsylvania.

How To Get Started?

If you are interested in taking this free social entrepreneurship course, you need to the following:

1. Sign up for the free online Social Entrepreneurship Coursera course.
2. Download the free Coursera Edition of The Social Entrepreneur’s Playbook, which covers Phase One: Pressure Test Your Start-Up Idea.
3. Download the free Worksheet Companion to The Social Entrepreneur’s Playbook.

The course is going to be conducted between September 8^th to October 24^th, 2014. You can get more information on this course here.