Social impact – Page 5 – Hunt Institute for Engineering & Humanity

August 31, 2020February 28, 2022

Beta COVID-19 Relief Map

Map in Dallas COVID-19 relief map services to help with food, community services, shelter, and more

In Spring of this year, the Hunt Institute’s Map 4 Good project evolved into Map InDallas, an organizational expansion that included the addition of a stakeholder Advisory Committee led by Dr. Eva Csaky and implemented with the guidance of Dr. James Olivier. Weeks later, the then-emerging COVID-19 pandemic shifted the focus to how best to use the existing plans and infrastructure to serve the Dallas community. The beta of the COVID Relief Map was launched by Map InDallas team in the middle of the Summer semester to stay true to the original goal of the project: connecting individuals in need to free service providers in the Dallas area. They continue to refine the data and help improve the categorization.

Various fellows, staff, and students have contributed to this project’s evolution but none have developed the map itself like Liam Lowsley-Williams, an undergraduate student working in web development and programming in the Hunt Institute and as a teacher’s assistant for the computer science department.

Regarding Liam’s motivation for this project, he said, “What drives my motivation is the fact that I can utilize my abilities in software engineering to make a beneficial impact on those who are suffering from COVID-19. We are certainly going through a rough time and I am proud to have the ability to do my part and give back.”

Focusing especially on the resources needed by the victims of the pandemic’s side effects, the aspiring beta COVID Relief Map seeks to helps users identify key service providers located near them like food pantries, community service locations, homeless shelters, and family counseling facilities. As the platform develops, users will be able to utilize a search function to navigate through the available resources or a filter function to limit the visible options to the specific service they are looking for. Once the user has located the service they would like to use, the COVID Relief Map will display an address and phone number to put clients in direct contact with the services they would like to use. It is projected all features of the COVID Relief Map will be functional by the end of the year.

While the map may have shifted slightly from its original conception, the team’s plans for the future remain the same. Aspiring upcoming digital features for the COVID Relief Map include search and sort based on eligibility criteria, turn by turn direction, and contact methods within the map itself. Additionally, the team is working on other mediums of the map to make it more accessible. It is currently available online, but the team hopes to have non-digital copies posted in strategic locations like public libraries and on mobile devices.

To read more about the Hunt Institute’s work to develop future-focused solutions to some of the world’s biggest problems, please click here. For the latest news on the Hunt Institute, follow our social media accounts on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. We invite you to listen to our Podcast called Sages & Seekers. If you are considering engaging with the institute, you can donate, or sign-up for our newsletter by emailing huntinstitute@smu.edu.

August 18, 2020February 28, 2022

Youth Up Next!

Over the coming weeks, the Hunt Institute Digest will feature various members of the Inclusive Economy Consortium (IEC) Leadership Council, and the important work they are doing in the Dallas community. This week, we feature Candice Bledsoe, PhD., Executive Director of Action Research Center & Founder of the Collective. This Global Development Lab project focused more specifically on the Action Research Center’s Young Social Innovators & Social Entrepreneurs Program to create a young entrepreneurial toolkit called Youth Up Next. The Young Social Innovators & Social Entrepreneurs program is designed to foster creativity, innovation, and social entrepreneurship in Dallas/Ft Worth Area. Furthermore, it is to enhance student’s leadership abilities through exposure to and practice with a broad array of leadership tools and concepts that emphasize self and group awareness, interpersonal communication and insightful analysis of resources and systems.

Youth Up Next is a toolkit designed to help student be change agents. Undergraduate Research Assistant Cambria Lewis is the project leader over the toolkit that offers turnkey solutions to the next generation. “The toolkit includes valuable information that is needed to for them to use social entrepreneurship as strategy to make change, “ says Lewis. The Assistant Director of the Hunt Institute and Portfolio Manager of the Global Development Lab, Corrie Harris says, “From stories of student entrepreneurs working with SMU’s Office of Engaged Learning to funding models for social entrepreneurs, the Youth Up Next toolkit is a great resource for young people.”

“Creativity and innovation are a major component of social entrepreneurship. As I continue to support the underrepresented, I believe that students can play major role as change agents. They are very creative, innovative, and smart. The Youth Up Next toolkit plays a major role in providing resources to help these young social innovators and social entrepreneurs make change in their communities,” says Dr. Candice Bledsoe.

As a Fellow in the Hunt Institute, Dr. Bledsoe helps shape the communication in the Institute’s various initiatives like the Social Enterprise. She teaches, “Storytelling and being a change agent go hand in hand.” As the executive director of the Action Research Center, she believes that it is essential to equip young change agents with tools to be successful. The center promotes personal development, academic excellence, and social change. They equip students, parents, teachers, and community leaders with the knowledge and skills to become change agents. Due to COVID-19, Dr. Bledsoe and the Action Research Center had to pivot to reach their students, teachers, and community leaders. After a decade of having the Cutting Edge Youth Summit conference, this year the Virtual Cutting Edge Youth Summit reached their stakeholders online.

To read more about the Hunt Institute’s work to develop future-focused solutions to some of the world’s biggest problems, please click here. For the latest news on the Hunt Institute, follow our social media accounts on LinkedIn,Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. We invite you to listen to our Podcast called Sages & Seekers. If you are considering engaging with the institute, you can donate, or sign-up for our newsletter by emailing huntinstitute@smu.edu

August 10, 2020February 28, 2022

The Importance of Social Enterprises

If social enterprises are on the rise, should corporations address societal issues?

A year ago, the Business Roundtable, an association of CEOs from major American companies, issued a statement redefining the purpose of a corporation as serving all stakeholders and no longer just delivering value to shareholders. Harvard Business Review argued that one reason for this shift was because a profit-maximizing focus does not incentivize businesses to tackle the many challenges facing the world today like climate change, inequality, resource scarcity, and so forth. Even prior to this statement, a 2018 Deloitte study cited a trend towards enterprises increasing their focus on social impact.

Of course, today, the world is faced with an even more pressing challenge, the coronavirus pandemic. “This crisis has only sharpened the need for the work of social enterprises by laying bare the cracks in our systems, from healthcare to employment disparities, to upended education and gutted livelihoods,” says the SKOLL Foundation. Now, in the wake of the pandemic, is the time to solidify this idea that corporations don’t exist solely to serve their shareholders. The World Economic Forum shares that, “We can now explore an entrepreneurial way of life where enterprise can help communities across the globe solve socio-economic problems while being true to market forces. Maybe it is time for individual enterprise and collective purpose to work in harmony.”

Over the course of the last 5 months, we have seen many examples of established corporations as well as smaller-scale social enterprises taking this purpose to heart and doing their part to combat the pandemic. A couple of specific examples…

T-Mobile was ranked by JUST Capital and Forbes as 5^th out of the 100 largest U.S. corporations for their response. In addition to more paid time off and a relaxed attendance policy for their employees, the company was part of an effort to provide hospitals across the nation with 40,000 phone chargers.
In Colombia, Fundación Capital, a nonprofit social enterprise, updated its virtual assistant to provide reliable information about the pandemic and tips for managing personal finances during a time of crisis.

As the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stated, “Now more than ever, as big decisions are made about our future, companies need to address environmental, social and governance risks holistically and move beyond business-as-usual.”

To read more about the Hunt Institute’s work to develop future-focused solutions to some of the world’s biggest problems, please click here. For the latest news on the Hunt Institute, follow our social media accounts on LinkedIn,Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. We invite you to listen to our Podcast called Sages & Seekers. If you are considering engaging with the institute, you can donate, or sign-up for our newsletter by emailing huntinstitute@smu.edu

August 3, 2020February 28, 2022

Where Engineering and Chemistry Intersect for Global Impact

During these uncertain times, the Hunt Institute for Engineering and Humanity’s Global Development Lab has been hard at work this summer. Fellows, faculty, and industry professionals collaborate to create meaningful solutions to promote a resilient humanity. While supporting our community the Global Development addresses the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and challenges. One collaborative interdisciplinary team is lead by two Fellows, Dr. David Son and Dr. Paul Krueger. Their project is a joint chemical and engineering approach to develop a degradable plastic to address the environmental issues of plastic waste. It is comprised of two lab teams and a team in the Hunt Institute. Featured in the image to the left was the team in the Spring of 2020 semester. Over the Summer semester, Sami Streb joined Dr. Krueger’s lab team and Taylor Grace as the undergraduate project manager.

Currently, many biodegradable products in the market are bio-based, produced from nature (plants, animals, or microorganisms). For example, they may contain products such as polysaccharides, proteins, and lipids. However, this approach faces challenges due to high cost, weaker performance, and overlooked environmental issues. Several degradable plastics have proven to break down faster under specific environmental conditions. Although, it may not actually reflect the normal environment, but it may not be effectively degradable under natural conditions. Many biodegradable plastics tend to need particular waste management methods which are not always widely available. These challenges pose a gap in the market due to the composition and degradation abilities.

As a result, Dr. Son and Dr. Krueger plan to investigate various prototype plastics with predictable degradation and mechanical properties, specifically useful in applications for alleviating plastic waste. These characteristics are significant advances to biodegradable products currently leading the market. With the ability to control the plastic’s properties, they can impart certain desirable properties to the material or give predictable properties to the final plastic material.

In order to make the largest impact in the current biodegradable plastic industry, a potential deliverable for their research could be to pursue a single-use PPE similar to what is typically used due to the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. Specifically, the project is researching the production of a degradable mask frame with adequate seal to the face, as seen in N95 respirator masks. Typically, plastic can take ~ a thousand years to degrade in a landfill where degradable plastic (or PPLs) can degrade in ~ one year. Certain plastics can be designed to begin degrading when introduced to a certain property like salt water. The teams are exploring a variety of options. One area of interest is the inevitable increase of medical waste due to the rise in single-use face coverings and analyzing the shortage of single-use respirator masks in health care facilities due to the direct interactions with infected patients. This is in alignment with the UNSDG Goal 3, “To ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages.” It will also address Goal 14, “To conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas, and marine resources” due to the degradable nature of the frame.

Stay tuned to the Hunt Institute Digest to read more about this project and other projects in the Global Development Lab.

To read more about the Hunt Institute’s work to develop future-focused solutions to some of the world’s biggest problems, please click here. For the latest news on the Hunt Institute, follow our social media accounts on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. We invite you to listen to our Podcast called Sages & Seekers. If you are considering engaging with the institute, you can donate, or sign-up for our newsletter by emailing huntinstitute@smu.edu.

August 3, 2020February 28, 2022

Common Challenges Faced by Social Entrepreneurs

Social entrepreneurs are key to directly addressing social needs in under-resourced communities. But early-stage social enterprises face momentous obstacles. The single largest obstacle is, of course, access to funding. As the Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors points out, “For philanthropists accustomed to more traditional grantees, funding social enterprises can feel like entering uncharted territory. Donors might find themselves intrigued by the potential for change, and yet, at the same time, unsure of what to expect in a field where the unexpected is the norm.” In the 2019 Halcyon Social Enterprise Ecosystems report, almost 20% of the 624 social entrepreneurs interviewed stated that they self-financed their enterprise or relied on the support of family and friends.

Another challenge that social enterprises face is measuring their social impact. According to a 2008 report from the Center for Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship (CASE), “Impact assessment is still a crude and inexact science.” The fact that it is difficult to quantify a social enterprise’s value creation only exacerbates the first challenge of receiving funding because potential investors are looking for evidence that their investment will indeed affect change.

The above obstacles lead to yet another common problem faced by social entrepreneurs: the ability to scale. CASE identified in its research that, “There is a huge gap between early stage, seed funder money and later stage, multi- million funding.” Many investors are interested in funding the next big idea rather than investing in the expansion of an established social enterprise. Moreover, the Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship identifies that constraints in supply chain, restraining government policies, or lack of partnership opportunities can limit the ability of a social enterprise to expand.

The objective of the Hunt Institute’s (HI) Social Enterprise Program (SEP) is to support social entrepreneurs in overcoming these obstacles in order to accelerate their social value creation. HI’s SEP provides early-stage social enterprises with a program and toolbox designed to empower them to obtain funding as well as access to a multidisciplinary network of experts and business mentors.

To learn more about the Social Enterprise Program, visit smu.edu/socialenterprise. For more case studies and examples, stay tuned to the Hunt Institute Digest.

July 28, 2020September 17, 2020

Social Entrepreneurs: Stories of Resilience

SOCIAL ENTERPRISES INNOVATING IN RESPONSE TO COVID-19: It goes without saying that the coronavirus pandemic has significantly impacted businesses and social entrepreneurs around the world. We have collected three stories of resilience about innovative social enterprises that have successfully adapted their business models during this time of crisis. The worst of times can bring out the trueness of character. For these social enterprises, that character is evidenced in finding ways to give and impact people’s lives irregardless of the obstacles in their way.

Our first example is Restorative Farms which is a part of the Hunt Institute’s Social Enterprise Program. Restorative Farms effectively transitioned the focus of their operations to selling Victory GroBoxes. With the profits from the GroBoxes, Restorative Farms is able to continue accelerating its mission – to foster a vibrant and viable community-based urban farm system in South Dallas, a community that needs better access to fresh food and employment opportunities. Restorative Farms dedicates 10% of GroBox revenue to provide boxes for community members in need. To date, Restorative Farms has supplied 52 Victory GroBoxes, full of fresh produce, to the South Dallas community.

Secondly, we focus on PichaEats, a catering company based in Malaysia whose mission is to empower refugees by training them as professional chefs so that they can earn a living and support their families with dignity. With in-person events no longer taking place, PichaEats had to figure out another way for the chefs’ meals to reach the community. Through the ZaZa Movement, PichaEats chefs were able to cook from home and deliver meals to front-line workers and those who had lost their jobs. To date, the organization has distributed almost 15,000 meals.

Finally, we share the story of Change Please, a UK-based social enterprise that supports people out of homelessness by training them to become baristas and providing them with a job at one of the organization’s coffee shops. In addition to paying for the baristas’ wages, the profits from the coffee shops also go towards paying for housing and counseling. In the wake of the lockdown, Change Please, with the support of corporate partners, moved their operations to hospitals, serving free coffee to front-line workers. Although the organization is unable to operate as usual, this innovative change allowed the baristas to continue working and receiving a living wage.

To learn more about the Hunt Institute’s Social Enterprise Program, visit smu.edu/socialenterprise. For more case studies and examples, stay tuned to the Hunt Institute Digest.

July 21, 2020February 28, 2022

Filling the Gap for Seismic Protection

Peru is located in a seismic zone where the South American Plate moves toward the sea over the Nazca Plate causing earthquakes as a result of the thrust faulting on the interface of the two plates. According to Volcano Discovery, Peru endured 81 quakes in May of 2020. With the exception of an occasional break in seismic energy, Peruvians live with earthquakes as a daily condition. Dr. Nicos Makris, Hunt Institute Fellow, has been leading a research team of collaborators and students at SMU’s Lyle School of Engineering as well as internationally, to address this pressing issue. Their project in the Global Development Lab (GDL) focuses on seismic protection solutions for confined masonry urban housing. The in-country partner is Dr. Marcial Blondet who has dedicated over thirty years to researching the effects of seismic activity on masonry and adobe construction in Peru.

All projects in the GDL address the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This effort directly targets SDG #11 which seeks to ensure that growth in housing and urban development is safe, equitable, and environmentally conscious. UN Target 11.5 highlights the importance of this effort as it sets the target to “significantly reduce the number of deaths and the number of people affected and substantially decrease the direct economic losses relative to global gross domestic product caused by disasters…with a focus on protecting the poor and people in vulnerable situations” (1).

Kostas Kalfas (Ph.D. student and researcher), Corrie A. Harris (Portfolio Manager), JuliaGrace Walker (Undergraduate Project Manager), Sam Borton (Undergraduate Research Analysis), and Dr. Nicos Makris.

Even middle-class urban residents in Peru’s urban environment often reside in poorly constructed confined masonry houses which, in the case of a severe earthquakes, are at the risk of suffering serious damage. Professional construction is expensive and beyond reach for the majority of Peruvians. For this reason, the seismic protection market is increasingly narrowing its focus to low-cost solutions. One of the goals of this project has been to evaluate existing low-cost solutions accessible for most Peruvians (2). Finding that even “low-cost” solutions are out of reach for most Peruvians, Dr. Makris makes an alternate proposition. Rocking isolation offers great potential as an innovative and economical alternative for seismic protection, but it has yet to be implemented as low-cost housing reinforcement. Makris’ emerging system of seismic protection could address the pressing need for affordable seismic protection of existing masonry structures.

Sam Borton, Hunt Institute Undergraduate Research Analyst, made a significant contribution to this post with his market analysis of low-cost seismic protection. The complete analysis will be released in a future post. Stay tuned to read more!

About the Sustainable Development Goals – United Nations Sustainable Development. (n.d.). Retrieved 2020, from https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/
Blondet, M., & Loaiza, C. (2020). Vulnerabilidad Sísmica de las Construcciones en el Perú: Informe Preliminar. Lecture presented in Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú: Departamento de Ingeniería.

July 15, 2020September 17, 2020

What is Social Entrepreneurship?

Hunt Institute's Social Enterprise Program

In his article “The Meaning of Social Entrepreneurship”, Greg Dees, co-founder of Duke Fuqua’s Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship (CASE), defines social entrepreneurs as “change agents in the social sector”.

Furthermore, he outlines 5 characteristics that social entrepreneurs exhibit:

“Adopting a mission to create and sustain social value (not just private value),
Recognizing and relentlessly pursuing new opportunities to serve that mission,
Engaging in a process of continuous innovation, adaptation, and learning,
Acting boldly without being limited by resources currently in hand, and
Exhibiting a heightened sense of accountability to the constituencies served and for the outcomes created.”

The above elements often take the shape of a social enterprise, an organization that is pursuing a social or environmental mission using business methods. Social enterprises are catalytic innovators who produce disruptive innovations. These organizations are key to directly addressing social needs in under-resourced communities using entrepreneurial strategies. The objective of the Hunt Institute’s Social Enterprise Program (SEP) is to support innovative, early-stage social entrepreneurs in overcoming common obstacles and accelerating the societal impact of their social enterprises.

Social entrepreneurs can also act as change agents within large organizations, corporations, government or nonprofits. These social intrapreneurs pursue innovation, change, and impact within their ecosystem. As an example, Kazi Huque and Narayan Sundararajan, colleagues at Intel, partnered with Muhammad Yunus of Grameen Bank to create Grameen Intel Social Business LTD. Now branded as Technology for Social Impact, the organization exists to find affordable technological solutions to improve the lives of people in developing parts of the world.

The graphic featured in this post, from Suzanne Smith of Social Impact Architects, is helpful in distinguishing between the common terms used within the social impact space. Click here to read Suzanne’s blog to learn more. Stay tuned to the Hunt Institute Digest to learn more about our Social Enterprise, case studies of social entrepreneurs, and other examples.

July 7, 2020February 28, 2022

Owen Lynch, Ph.D., Co-Founder of Restorative Farms

Dallas has one of the largest food deserts in the country and is also one of the most-at-risk cities for food supply disruption. This makes Dallas the perfect location to launch a coalition like Restorative Farms which was co-founded by Dr. Owen Lynch, a Hunt Institute Senior Fellow and SMU professor. Restorative Farms was started in 2017, but it is based on a cumulation of ten years of research on food deserts, food swamps, and urban Agri-Systems—some of which was done in partnership with the Hunt Institute, which focuses on Sustainable Food Systems as one of its three key areas.

Hatcher Station Training Farm and Community Garden (HSTFCG)

Since its founding in 2017, Restorative Farms has launched a seedling farm at the MLK Community Center in South Dallas and the Hatcher Station Training Farm and Community Garden (HSTFCG) in Spring of 2020. At the heart of both the MLK Seedling Farm and Hatcher Station Training Farm is Master Gardener Tyrone Day, who is from the community and manages the farm.

The objective of Restorative Farms is to be a self- sustaining nonprofit farm that will not only grow local food, but train and grow local urban farming professionals. The MLK Seedling Farm produced 20,000 seedlings per year as of Spring 2019 and that number is projected to reach 40,000 by 2020. These seedlings, combined with the training that will be offered at Hatcher Farms, will ultimately provide the resources and training needed for people in South Dallas to start community gardens and keep them up and running. Hatcher Farms and the MLK Seedling Farm are just Restorative Farms first steps in bringing Dallas closer to having a sustainable local food system.

To read more about Owen and Restorative Farms, visit the website at restorativefarms.com . To learn more about the Hunt Institute’s Social Enterprise Program, visit smu.edu/socialenterprise. Check the Hunt Institute Digest next week to meet another amazing entrepreneur.

To read more about the Hunt Institute’s work to develop future-focused solutions to some of the world’s biggest problems, please click here. For the latest news on the Hunt Institute, follow our social media accounts on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. We invite you to listen to our Podcast called Sages & Seekers. If you are considering engaging with the institute, you can donate, or sign-up for our newsletter by emailing huntinstitute@smu.edu.