On October 25, 2021, first-year students interested in entrepreneurship collected in the Washington University Collab, located in Cortex, to network with local community experts and learn how companies can provide profit-seeking solutions to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals, specifically looking at food security, climate, education, and gender equality. Over 70 students, participants in the Endgame of Entrepreneurship class offered at WashU, connected and collaborated with both experts and fellow students on how to implement these goals into their own business ideas. “Being able to connect, ask questions, and gather information from these local community leaders has been a great experience for these students who are just getting started in entrepreneurship”, said II Luscri, Managing Director of the Skandalaris Center and Assistant Vice Provost for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
Local community experts present included: Alice Layton from Wabbani and the Rupununi Learners Foundation; Joseph Gardner and Chris Mertens from blossom LLC; Justin Idleburg from Idleburg Consultants; Maxine Clark from the Clark-Fox Family Foundation; Meghan Winegard from Generopolis; Patricia Wolff from Meds & Food for Kids; Evgeny Alksandrov from Pilotbird; Carlton Adams from Operation Food Search; Tim Brandt from Oystar; Tucker Krone from Washington University; and Colin Dowling from St. Louis Metro Market. Several of the community experts were also WashU alumni including Colin Dowling, who started the St. Louis Metro Market out of an Introduction to Social Entrepreneurship class offered by WashU in 2012. “From that class, it has blossomed into a large, high-impact business that has been serving the St. Louis community for several years now”, Dowling told the Endgame Class.
The Endgame of Entrepreneurship – Leveraging Capitalism for Good is a class taught by II Luscri and Joe Steensma, a professor with the Brown School at WashU, and is only available to incoming first-year students during the fall semester. Through the course of this semester, students learn how to turn profit motives into solutions to global problems, as well as develop and evolve business ideas and generate impactful business plans. At the end of the semester, each group will present their business idea at the December 6th Skandalaris Center IdeaBounce®. This event will be opened to all the WashU community.