Laura Benoit (MPA), Derek Musial (MBA), and Jeanette Pelizzon (MPA) will be representing the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey competing in this years Hult Prize regional finals to be held in Boston, MA on March 13th and 14th. The team of MIIS graduate students have created an innovative social enterprise that aims to solve this years Hult Prize challenge, posed by former President Bill Clinton, of providing quality early education to ten million children under age six in urban slums by 2020.
The team competed at the Hult @ MIIS campus competition held in November in Irvine auditorium where they presented the first iteration of their idea to a panel of five local judges. After receiving valuable feedback from the judges, the team went back to the drawing board; almost completely revamping their initial idea to submit to the general application for the Boston regionals. Chosen from over 20,000 applicants the teams idea, dubbed TucánTu, is now one step closer to winning USD 1 Million in seed capital. “We have put a lot of time and energy into better understanding the needs of young children and how to best address them in a sustainable manner in the urban slum,” says Pelizzon. Together the team has over eight years of experience working in health, gender equity, agriculture, economic empowerment and education across three continents. This real world experience, combined with the classroom theory provided by MIIS has given these students the tools they need to holistically tackle the problem presented. “We are working to address some of the world’s most complex issues through social entrepreneurship and building upon assets and opportunities that already exist but need to be strengthened and combined to increase impact,” says Benoit, a second year MPA student.
The team has worked to incorporate knowledge through an emergent process during which the idea has evolved through research and conversations with experts in the field including
a primary school teacher turned principal from Mexico City, and Steve Hollingworth CEO of Freedom From Hunger to strengthen their idea. To gain a better understanding of the target population the team hosted a design thinking sessions with their peers. On-going support from the newly formed Center for Social Impact Learning has allowed the team the additional resources they have needed in their bid for the USD 1 million prize.
More about the team:
Jeanette combines practical organization consulting experience with a strong foundation in project management and business development. Most recently she was based in Rwanda, where she worked collaboratively with artisan cooperatives to create financial stability and independence. Her interest lies in finding innovative ways to create economic opportunities for underserved communities.
Laura works to combine business models with human centered design to ensure sustainable, scalable impact. She recently worked with a Guatemalan social enterprise supporting rural artisans and youth education. Her interests focus on using participatory models to increase economic opportunities for the world’s most vulnerable populations to improve gender equity.
Derek works to maximize the social impact of every venture he
joins. His past experience working with social enterprise startups, in
the financial sector and teaching internationally motivates him to work with communities to ensure local development is driven by more than maximizing profits with emphasis on creating social change.