Course Descriptions

Designing an Innovative Business Model (1 credit)

Instructor: Dr.Yuwei Shi, Dean, Graduate School of International Policy and Management, Monterey Institute

Participants learn about the key elements of a business model and their underlying logics for business success or failure. They learn how to use the business model framework to evaluate a business and generate insights for its improvement, as well as to create and design a new business from scratch. The course content is integrative and practical, particularly for social and commercial startups. The delivery of the content is highly interactive.

Introduction to Social Enterprise and Impact Investing (1 credit)

Instructor: Ross Baird, Executive Director, Village Capital

The growth of the social enterprise space depends on the quality of the entrepreneurs and the activity of the investors. This course will outline the landscape of enterprises in emerging markets, as well as the active impact investors in the space.

Throughout the Frontier Market Scouts program, scouts will learn best practices for due diligence, making investments, and investee support, as well as learn how to evaluate, promote, and assist enterprises in their own activity.  This course is intended to provide a practical overview of the “impact investing/ “social enterprise” industry, including key investors, entrepreneurs, and stakeholders; the origin and development of the industry; a survey of the industry’s activities in the present day; and key speakers with hands-on experience investing and building ventures in emerging markets.  The course also gives students hands-on experience with impact investing through two case studies: an impact investment fund’s investment committee, as well as a description of the Unitus story, which outlines the evolution of one of the world’s most active impact investors through the growth of microfinance and beyond. 

Scouting and Developing a Winning Social Venture (1 credit)

Instructor: Ross Baird, Executive Director, Village Capital

Participants will get a first-hand look at how impact investors find, evaluate, select in, and support portfolio companies in emerging markets. Participants will conduct a hands-on case study that gives them a behind-the-scenes look at an impact investor's investment committee. In addition, participants will get to play the role of the entrepreneur as they go through a "Village Capital" program, a social enterprise accelerator that uses peer support and evaluation to grow seed-stage enterprises. At the end of the program, participants will be well placed to help identify and evaluate social enterprises for impact investors as well as play a role in helping build companies.

Scaling High-Impact Social Enterprise (1 credit)

Instructor: Simon Desjardins, Director, Access to Energy, Shell Foundation

This course will focus on key challenges and methods in scaling a social enterprise from seed stage to growth —from a funder’s perspective. The course will address blended capital (public/private/grant), corporate partnerships, hiring and team-building strategies, partner selection methods, and will draw from case studies of leading emerging market enterprises, including Husk Power Systems, d.light design, IntelleGrow, and GroFin.

Managing Social Enterprise Operations in Emerging Markets (1 credit)

Instructor: David Kyle, Calvert Foundation

Building successful operating companies in developing countries calls for laying a professional groundwork from the start. Entrepreneurial assumptions need to be validated, low cost expense structures confirmed, and business models clearly explained both to prospective investors. Most important of all is assembling the right team of young professionals who are motivated by the same social impact goals as the founder. While building a profitable enterprise is the centerpiece of this work, this goal is never far away from maximizing social impact which remains the prime motivator for starting the company in the first place. Frontier Market Scouts will learn best practices for starting new companies from conception to first profit.

Diligence Process and Decision in Impact Investment (1 credit)

Instructor: Miguel Granier, Founder and Director of Invested Development

This course will cover the key techniques used to assess, value and invest in seed-stage impact investments. With little or no financial history, limited market data and unproven business models, seed-stage firms present one of the greatest challenges for impact investors. Learn how experienced investors distinguish need from demand, projections from probabilities and desire from commitment.