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社会影响: Market Imperative, Market Opportunity

社会影响:市场势在必行,市场机遇小组

在2017年beplay官网体育巴布森企业家论坛,结束事件是一个标题为“社会影响:市场命令,市场机会”的面板。刘易斯研究所执行董事Cheryl Kiser介绍了会议。

“The theme of the Babson Entrepreneurship Forum is to make an impact. This panel will explore ecosystems that support socially-focused ventures. A startup’s connection to society is a competitive advantage and allows the company to truly improve the state of the world. Every social and global issue today is a business opportunity.本次会议围绕伙伴关系发生以及这些伙伴关系如何有机会推动联合国可持续发展目标。“

Chris Lloyd那Director of Corporate Social Responsibility at Verizon Communications, first spoke about how Verizon partners with higher education and communities.

“Social issues are huge market opportunities. Michael Porter talks about this with the idea of shared value creation. After 2008, as companies look for their place in society, the ability to create value is key. At Verizon, we connect people. In the digital world, that simply meant providing phone service. In today’s mobile world, the intensity of the interactions and partnerships has increased. Our mission is to deliver the promise of the digital world to our partners.”

“我们没有所有的答案 - 未来的企业家。我们想向您学习如何使用技术来增加我们的影响。我们与Lewis Institute和Jennifer Bailey合作,有助于运行IOT为良好的社会创新实验室. We aim to use our technology to create value. Right now, we are working in the education space because when people do not receive a quality education, they do not have a path to economic sustainability. We are working with underserved middle schools nationwide to teach them relevant skills. A lot of the schools have the technology but the teachers don’t know how to integrate it into the curriculum. We provide them with professional STEM education and relevant skills training. A surprising percentage percent of students does not have Internet access, so we gave them devices and access to the Internet. For some families, this is the first time they’ve had their own Internet connection.”

“Our other focus is the Internet of things (IoT). If you can connect anything to the Internet, you can make it smarter. For example, we can add sensors to the road to create “smart asphalt,” therefore creating an enormous data set to help traffic planners understand interactions on certain roads. Most urban planning is based on static models. If we can put a real data set in front of a planner, they can choose the design that makes the most sense. We are here with Babson because there are a million more applications of our technology that we need your creativity to think of. We’re working with Professor Jennifer Bailey to introduce IoT as a solution to social and environmental problems. Babson helps educate the next generation of business & civic leaders, and we view you as our next generation of employees and customers. This partnership is invaluable to Verizon.”

Luiza Aguilar执行董事帕金斯的解决方案,讨论ed the use of IoT to solve a long-term problem.

“Perkins is known for its world-renowned school for the blind, but it also has a small innovation team called Perkins Solutions. We started with a simple problem- many of my blind colleagues could not find their bus stop. Mainstream transportation is critical to connecting a large amount of the population to healthcare, employment, and more. It’s important for everyone to be able to access it. Currently, GPS services on our phones lead us to within 30-50 feet of the destination. To the blind, this is known as the last 30 feet of frustration.”

“We designed a crowdsourced solution to this problem by building a free mobile app called盲人并要求人们参加。观点的用户可以添加地标线索,以帮助那些在前往目的地的过去30英尺上混淆的人。Google允许的珀金斯解决方案的授权与MBTA和名为Raizlabs的本地移动应用程序开发公司合作构建应用程序。该应用程序可以轻松贡献线索,以帮助视力障碍用户找到公交车站,包括预测的总线到达信息,以便他们知道它到来的时候。Blindways提供线索随着用户的步行,帮助他们找到巴士站。例如,当他们通过长凳或知道他们到达车道时,他们会知道他们很接近。“

“我们去年在与MBTA合作的Apple Store中推出了应用程序,并且发布被当地媒体广泛涵盖。MBTA系统中有7,800个巴士站,其中5,300人在我们的应用程序上编目。成千上万的盲人和遭到镜子的人已经下载并使用过盲人。我们的下一步是参与Babson的IOT为良好的社会创新实验室,并继续改进,帮beplay官网体育助盲人找到自己的方式。看到技术被用来解决顽固问题是非常令人兴奋的。“

Jennifer Bailey那Assistant Professor of Technology and Operations Management, and本地润比特,设计与机械教授,谈到跨部门和跨学科合作的重要性。

“善于善于设计和培养社会影响的东西。特别是,培养强大的伙伴关系至关重要。本和我共同教授一个叫做集成产品设计的课程。这个班级已经形成了我对IoT的看法的基础。通过复杂的问题,如联合国可持续发展目标,我们需要扰乱和搜查突破性的互动,以共同创造各种观点的新解决方案。合作是新的竞争优势。参与一个部门的人,无论是私人,私人或社会,通常都没有与其他部门合作。对于所有三个合作来说,它甚至罕见。Blindway App是来自公共部门的社会部门的珀金斯解决方案之间的跨部门协作力量的重要示例,以及来自私营部门的raizlabs。合作很重要,因为没有人有一套解决整个问题的资源。 Half of the challenge comes from understanding the issue. In the case of the BlindWays app, Perkins Solutions took the lead by finding the problem and serving as the face of the product to users. They co-created a solution with Raizlabs, then MBTA joined to make a real impact. Each partner brought complementary resources to the table.Perkins贡献了有关目标社区的信息,谷歌授予750,000美元. Raizlabs contributed expertise and indirectly brought financial capital to the table by offering Perkins Solutions a discount rate for their services. MBTA offered free marketing exposure on its buses and has entirely funded the second phase of the project.”

“Cross-disciplinary collaboration between business, design, and engineering is equally important. We need all three for disruptive breakthrough innovation. In our Integrated Product Design class, we teach Babson, Olin, and MassArt students. They all see the world extremely differently but need to collaborate to make real progress. Be active about incorporating complementary skill sets into the solution. These are the principles on which the IoT Lab is built: Cross-sector and cross-disciplinary collaboration.”

Professor Linder presented several examples of cross-sector partnerships that have come from the Integrated Product Design class, explaining that social ventures are a “team sport” because partnerships are everywhere. Cheryl Kiser closed the session by saying that social innovation can start either with an idea or just with partners you know you want to work with. To truly embody Babson’s mission of creating economic and social value everywhere, cross-sector and cross-disciplinary partnerships are key.