Originally posted on Medium.
Postpartum hemorrhage (PPH) is the number one cause of maternal deaths, in particular areas without adequate maternal care facilities and kills over 90,000 women globally every year. This means that every six minutes a woman dies of PPH. InPress Technologies has developed an easy-to-use device aimed to eradicate maternal death caused by PPH that does not require surgery.
Nigeria currently faces a staggering 17 million unit housing deficit. Only half of the population has access to a power supply, two-thirds to clean water and only a third to improved sanitation. Comprehensive Design Services (CDS) is tackling the housing deficit in sub-Saharan Africa by building eco-friendly homes. The housing units are bio-climatically designed to be 70 percent energy-efficient, self-cooling, solar-powered, and water sufficient.
These two enterprises are part of the latest group of the 15 social entrepreneurs (or SEs) to graduate from Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship’s Global Social Benefit Institute (GSBI®) Online class. Despite the diversity amongst the social enterprises, this cohort was unique in that 7 of the 15 social enterprises, including the two mentioned above, focused on Women Rising, meaning the social enterprise was working to benefit women or the social enterprise was woman-led. That’s almost half of the cohort!
Miller Center exists to unify the Santa Clara University campus to the rest of the world by combining innovation and entrepreneurship. Our goal is to help social entrepreneurs help more people; by aiding these entrepreneurs to become investment-ready for financial capital, they can scale their impact. The GSBI distinguishes itself from other capacity development organizations for social enterprises through the quality and depth of its mentoring. GSBI mentors, who are successful Silicon Valley executives, volunteer to work one-on-one with a single social enterprise every week for the duration of the program.
The GSBI Online program focuses specifically on early-stage enterprises, helping them create their business plans and develop or refine their impact models. The program’s curriculum is broken into topic modules such as social impact model, value proposition, marketing and sales, cost structure and revenue streams, and financing plans. Social enterprises and entrepreneurs can expect to come out of the online program with a validated and refined business model, and with a path to prepare to scale in the future. Furthermore, upon completion of the six-month program, social entrepreneurs will have a compelling pitch, a slide deck for investor presentations and valuable connections.
These 15 presentations from GSBI Online Summer 2016 Cohort 7 represent the best, brightest, and most passionate group of social entrepreneurs who are working to positively impact lives.
As can be seen from these presentations, the social enterprises are as diverse as they are compelling in their drive to positively impact lives and represent the culmination of the work each of them does to validate their business models.
Interested impact investors and foundations can also view Cohort 7’s investor profiles on the Miller Center website which highlight the entrepreneurs’ work, their impact, growth plans and financing needs.
Check out the current GSBI Online cohort. Applications for our upcoming GSBI cohorts are now open and all interested social enterprises are encouraged to apply. For more information contact us at gsbi@scu.edu.
