As George Bernard Shaw once said, ”The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in adapting the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man [& woman].”
This quote inspired a group of brilliant young men who recently graduated from University of Colorado. From this, The Unreasonable Institute was born in Boulder, Colorado, dubbed here on HeidiCuppari.com for the first time as“SocEnt Valley.” (the new center for social & sustainable entrepreneurship & enterprise!).
I’ve had the pleasure of meeting a few of these young, passionate social entrepreneurs. I’m blown away by their innovation and drive. They have created an incredibly interesting model. They have assembled an list of advisors, veterans and thought leaders in this industry as well, which includes my partner and President of w1sd0m, Greg Berry.
See below for notes and actions to take from Teju Ravilochan. I reposted them here because I believe in them and what they’re doing, and want to support them by spreading the word…
“The Background. We announced to the world that we were searching for young entrepreneurs with ventures that could effectively address social and environmental problems while financially sustainable and globally scalable to millions of people. The response was incredible! And now, after receiving 284 applications from 45 countries, we’ve developed an unusual way to involve the world in selecting the 25 entrepreneurs we’ll bring to the Unreasonable Institute while admitting them free of charge, testing their entrepreneurial ability, and covering our costs of operations. It’s an online platform called the Unreasonable Finalist Marketplace and you can learn everything you need to know about it from watching this 1-minute and 12 second YouTube video, to the tune of AC/DC’s Back in Black (if you’d like more background on the Unreasonable Institute, feel free to scroll down to the very bottom of this email and read the section entitled “The Background on the Unreasonable Institute.” Otherwise, read on…)
2 Simple Requests. Every entrepreneur on the marketplace must rally the support of hundreds of people from across the globe. This is your chance to have your say! If you can spare 10-20 minutes:
- Head to our online Finalist Marketplace and vote with your dollars ($10, $50, however much you like within the current $250 max) for an entrepreneur you believe will change the course of history. The fate of our finalists, and of the lives they will affect, rests in your hands.
- Tell 5 people you know about our marketplace. Whether or not you can contribute financially to any of the entrepreneurs on the marketplace, perhaps the single most important way to support our finalists without spending a dollar or more than 5 minutes of your time is to tell 5 people you know about the opportunity to back these young, high-impact entrepreneurs. I’ll even make it easy for you: You can copy and paste details below into the relevant channels.
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- Send an Email: Send our YouTube video to 5 of your friends.
- Copy and paste this message to your Twitter Account: These 33 entrepreneurs could change the world. You decide which 25 attend the Unreasonable Institute http://ow.ly/149cu
- Copy and paste this message to your Facebook Account: These 33 entrepreneurs could change the world. You decide which 25 will receive the training, mentorship, and seed capital they need to launch at the Unreasonable Institute: http://ow.ly/149cu
Background on The Unreasonable Institute:
We select and bring together (attract & unite) 25 young social entrepreneurs (Unreasonable Fellows) from across the globe for a 10-week summer institute in Boulder, Colorado. During these 10 weeks, we incubate their ideas by providing them rigorous entrepreneurial skill training, legal advice, prototype consulting, web hosting and development services, and mentorship from 50 proven entrepreneurs and investors like the co-founder of Google.org and an entrepreneur who has lifted over 19 million people out of poverty. (Note from Heidi.. He’s talking about Paul Polak, Founder of IDE, the organization I’m raising funds for. See my projects page) After bringing their ideas from an idea stage to a prototype stage / investable stage (giving their ideas legs), we provide them access to at least $150,000 in seed capital and the chance to pitch to over 200 investors and enlightened philanthropists (finance) and support them with a global network to give their ideas wings. Our goal is to incubate & finance 25 social ventures a year that will each effectively address a major global issue (e.g. poverty, environmental degradation, slavery), become financially self-sustaining within a year, scale beyond the country of origin within 3 years, and ultimately reach at least 1 million people.