Mission and Vision
The Global Social Benefit Incubator (GSBI) is a strategic initiative of Santa Clara University’s Center for Science, Technology, and Society and the Leavey School of Business. Its intensive two-week on-campus residential program enables successful social benefit entrepreneurs, or SBEs, to scale their projects and achieve sustainability. Many participants havereceived prior recognition through prestigious programs including the Tech Museum Awards—Technology Benefiting Humanity and the World Bank Development Marketplace.
History
 |
Chris Johnson, Karen Coppock (2006)
|
In 2003, the GSBI was launched as a pilot program by Santa Clara University's Center for Science, Technology, and Society and the Leavey School of Business with seven winners of the Global Junior Challenge. From this initial pilot program, spearheaded by cofounders Patrick Guerra, Albert Bruno, and James Koch, it was evident that the discipline of business planning offered tremendous potential benefits to the leaders of social ventures. Moreover, it was evident from this early work that Silicon Valley and Santa Clara’s mission campus in the heart of this dynamic region was perhaps the one place in the world where truly unique resources and shared values could create a transformational program in how to achieve sustainability at scale for organizations with a compelling social mission. From this successful 2003 launch, a “beta” test of the two-week intensive summer residential program was developed and implemented in 2004 with an expanded 15-person class of Tech Award Laureates, Development Marketplace finalists, and Global Junior Challenge winners. Tech Award Laureates represented the largest number of participants in 2004. In 2005, participating organizations encompassed a growing number of World Bank Development Marketplace finalists, as well as Skoll, Schwab, and Ashoka Fellows. While the Tech Awards represented the largest number of GSBI participants again in 2005, award-winning projects from the World Bank’s Development Marketplace represented the largest contingent of admitted organizations for the class of 2006. The number of applicants and the variety of countries represented has consistently increased. Seven SBE leaders participated in that first 2003 session, and 18 leaders from 12 countries came together out of more than 80 applicants to form the class of 2006.
“The GSBI is a flagship program of the Center for Science, Technology, and Society. It is international in scope and reaches out to disadvantaged communities across the world. This reflects the Jesuit values of our University, seen through the prism of the Center’s mission statement: to research and promote the use of science and technology for the common good.”
-Geoffrey C. Bowker, CSTS Executive Director and Regis and Dianne McKenna Professor
“Research and teaching are necessary for any university. Santa Clara recognizes a third-dimension service to communities. GSBI expresses that value and uses knowledge wisely and constructively to fashion a more humane and just society.”
-SCU President Paul Locatelli, S.J.
