Content
From ecological catastrophes to health crises to violent conflict, the world certainly faces many grand challenges for which traditional developmental strategies have only yielded limited solutions. Many have begun recognizing the need for innovative entrepreneurial solutions to tackle such challenges, and buzz-terms such as “social entrepreneurship” and “sustainable innovation” have become quite common. However, entrepreneurship and innovation can also be blamed for much of the exacerbation of global sustainability crises. This course takes participants into an explorative journey to reflect on some of the “tough, big, questions” on the intersection of entrepreneurship, innovation, digitalization and grand societal and environmental challenges, particularly in already-challenged global contexts outside of stable, wealthy economies. This would include:
- How can (innovative) entrepreneurship be a solution to some of the world’s most daunting challenges amidst institutional fragility and resource scarcity?
- What are some of the negative impacts of technology and entrepreneurship on society and ecology?
- How can entrepreneurs and innovators find a balance between economic, ecologic, social and psychological priorities?
- Is sustainability (in innovation and entrepreneurship) even possible? How and why?
- How does context (e.g. political situation, cultural values, historical trauma) impact and determine the outcomes of and expectations from entrepreneurship and innovation?
The course will be divided into three weekend-long interactive workshops (block seminars) and will draw on multidisciplinary theoretical streams and disciplines (e.g. from psychology, biology, sociology, philosophy, economics and environmental sciences) and will feature numerous case studies from all over the world, aiming to build bridges between micro-level factors and macro-level concepts and reflect on the grey areas between common “black and white” notions (e.g. sustainable vs. unsustainable behaviour, male vs. female businesses, developing vs. developed countries, good vs. bad, and nature vs. nurture).
