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ABOUT THE CHALLENGE The Fowler Global Social Innovation Challenge (Fowler GSIC) is a multi-round social venture competition that invites students to engage with one or more of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals by developing a sustainable social venture. With a network of over 2,500 students from 17 countries over the world, the Challenge has distributed more than $600,000 to seed the most promising ventures global ventures. Now a collaboration between the University of San Diego and St. Thomas, the final round of the Challenge is hosted on an alternating basis by both Universities.
AWARDS Two groups of four finalist teams will pitch concurrently in separate pitch rooms for the following prizes: Winner (Room A & B): $3,000 Runner-up (Room A & B): $2,000 Best Presenter (Room A & B): $500 In addition to an all-expenses-paid trip to San Diego for the Global Finals, the two leading teams in the St.Thomas finals will have the chance to compete for a share of an additional seed funding pool of $75,000 at the June Global Finals.
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THANK YOU, RON & ALEXIS FOWLER The Fowler Global Social Innovation Challenge is named in recognition of alumnus Ron Fowler ‘66, Chairman and CEO of Liquid Investments Inc., whose generous gifts to the University of St. Thomas have made this competition and collaboration with the University of San Diego (USD) possible. We are immensely grateful to Ron and his wife Alexis for their continued generosity and passion for student entrepreneurs around the world. The Fowlers have a deep commitment to higher education. The Fowler College of Business at San Diego State University was named for him and his wife after a significant challenge gift to the university. Ron was also a primary financial contributor and chaired the successful campaign to create the Entrepreneurial Management Center at SDSU. Ron was the chair of the Board of Trustees at the University of San Diego and was recently a member of the Board of Trustees at the University of St. Thomas. The Fowlers have also provided exceptional levels of leadership support to St. Thomas and USD in the areas of student scholarships, entrepreneurship programs and athletics. An avid sports enthusiast, Ron is a former co-owner and executive chairman of the San Diego Padres. He was the founding chair of the San Diego International Sports Council, chair of the San Diego Super Bowl Task Force and of the 2003 Super Bowl Host Committee. In 2009, he was named a Distinguished American by the National Football Foundation. As a community and civic leader, Ron received the 2012 First Chairman’s Award from the San Diego County Board of Supervisors. He was named Big Brothers/Big Sisters of San Diego County’s Person of the Year in 2012. In 2008, he received the John F. Cade Award from the University of St. Thomas’ Opus College of Business, recognizing his spirit of entrepreneurship and ethics in the way he conducts business. Ron also received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the University of St.Thomas in 2014 for his leadership and service to his alma mater, the community and his field of work.
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SCHEDULE
12:00 PM
Check-in
Schulze Hall Atrium
12:15 PM
Judge Orientation
Schulze Hall Auditorium
12:40 PM
Welcome
Schulze Hall Auditorium
1:00 PM
Finalist Pitches
Schulze Hall Auditorium
2:30 PM
Judge Deliberations
Schulze Hall Room 120 & 127
3:15 PM
Awards Ceremony
Schulze Hall Auditorium
3:45 PM
Pictures & Reception
Schulze Hall Atrium
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PITCH ROOM ASSIGNMENTS
PITCH ROOM A Teams CleanAir Local4Local AfterPak UWell
Schulze Auditorium (SCH 120)
1:00 1:22 1:44 2:06
PM PM PM PM
PITCH ROOM B Teams Food to People West Metro SALT ECON
Judges Kevin Bennett Susan Johnson Brad von Bank
Schulze Hall Room 127 (SCH 127)
1:00 1:22 1:44 2:06
PM PM PM PM
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Judges Kenya McKnight Ahad Adair Mosley Katie Kalkman Mark Zesbaugh
FINALIST JUDGES Senior Program Officer, Twin Cities Racial Equity, GHR Foundation Kevin Bennett is the senior program officer and program lead for GHR Foundation’s Twin Cities Racial Equity initiative. He brings a wealth of experience, expertise, compassion, and commitment to develop the program’s initial strategy, oversee a focused grantmaking approach, and provide strategic direction and engagement to community partnerships that address racial wealth and opportunity gaps.
KEVIN BENNETT
Most recently, Kevin served as chief equity and impact officer for Ascension Catholic Academy and Church of the Minneapolis, St. Paul Archdiocese. He provided leadership in creating and sustaining culture (ways of being - living, leading, and serving), anchored in humanity and faith, to provide equitable opportunities and outcomes for those most marginalized and underestimated in our communities. Kevin holds graduate degrees in Educational Leadership from Loyola University of Chicago and Hamline University, and a bachelor’s degree from Drake University in Sociology.
CEO, Magellan Medical Services Susan Johnson is CEO of Magellan Medical Technology Consultants, Inc. Magellan Medical partners with leaders of MedTech companies to develop and implement successful commercialization solutions for innovative medical technology. Fueled by her clinical experience as an open-heart ICU nurse and MedTech industry experience, she launched Magellan Medical Technology Consultants while pursuing her MBA.
SUSAN JOHNSON
The company brings together employee teams that understand the healthcare ecosystem and MedTech industry from the inside out. Magellan’s multinational reach provides consulting services to Fortune 100 companies such as Medtronic, Olympus, Boston Scientific, 3M as well as mid-size and emerging companies. Today, her company fearlessly faces the industry’s complex challenges of commercializing innovative technology to impact their clients, clinicians and most importantly patients. Johnson is also leading an emerging organic dog treat company, Luca’s and The Five Girls which is comprised of five fifteen-year-old girls who started their business when they were ten years old. Their organic high protein dog treats originally sold on the street corner, pop up stores and farmers markets are now available in grocery stores. Johnson serves on numerous boards, was awarded Corporate Report's Business Competition Plan of the Year and University of St. Thomas' Practicing Entrepreneur Award. Susan holds an MBA in Venture Management, B.S. degrees in Financial Management, Marketing, Business administration and from the University of St. Thomas, and a RN nursing diploma from Lutheran Deaconess/Augsburg College.
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FINALIST JUDGES President & CEO, Pillsbury United Communities Pillsbury United Communities is a pioneering community impact agency guided by a vision for thriving communities where every person has personal, social, and economic power. A passionate change-maker and relentless strategic innovator, Adair seeks radical and inclusive solutions to the community’s most urgent needs, cocreated with people most affected. Adair’s bold strategic framework for Pillsbury United, adopted in 2019, moved the agency’s focus upstream to building infrastructure and collaborations that address multi-dimensional social issues at the population level.
ADAIR MOSLEY
In 2019, Adair was selected to represent the Twin Cities region at Harvard Business School’s Young American Leaders Program. He’s been named one of Grist’s 50 Fixers—”individuals cooking up the boldest solutions to humanity’s biggest challenges”—and received the Local Legend Award from the General Mills Foundation for the embodiment of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision and legacy. Adair attended the University of Minnesota and the University of Michigan’s Executive Leadership Institute. He was an American Express Leadership Fellow in 2014 and earned a certificate in Human Centered Design at Stanford’s d.school. Co-Founder of Rêve Consulting Brad von Bank is the Co-Founder of Rêve Consulting, a strategy and service design firm and Rêve Academy, a non-profit that provides pathways to digital careers for low-income, BIPOC students. It has served over 10,000 students in the last decade including the creation of a social innovation event for high school students called Rêve Revival. He was the Founding Partner of Roomera, a virtual reality platform focused on accelerating innovation. Brad has worked with some of the world’s most respected companies and higher education institutions on building innovation, strategy and design capabilities.
BRAD VON BANK
Prior to starting Rêve with his wife, Brad was an executive at Target and GE leading various innovation efforts focused on launching new products and services in the marketplace. Brad is a 1995 graduate of the University of St. Thomas, with a degree in International Business – Marketing and German. He currently serves on the Alumni Board as well as the Advisory Board for the Dougherty Family College.
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FINALIST JUDGES President, Entrepreneurial 180, LLC Mark Zesbaugh is President of Entrepreneurial 180 LLC, a company that focuses on providing advisory services and investment capital to entrepreneurial and growth-based companies to accelerate overall growth and profitability. He currently works with and has ownership in a portfolio of companies operating in diverse market sectors.
MARK ZESBAUGH
Prior to his current role, Mr. Zesbaugh spent over 30 years working in the life insurance industry. He most recently served as President and CEO of Security Life Insurance Company, a national life and health insurance carrier focused on ancillary insurance products. Before this role he advised various NY based equity firms on insurance acquisition opportunities and started a Bermuda-based reinsurance operation. From 1990 – 2007, Mr. Zesbaugh spent 17 years at Allianz Life Insurance, a large national insurance carrier focused on retirement-oriented insurance products, where he held numerous leadership positions including CEO in the last five years. Mr. Zesbaugh sits on numerous for-profit and not-for-profits boards, including serving as trustee of his alma mater the University of St. Thomas since 2002. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst and a Certified Public Accountant.
Founder and CEO of the Black Women’s Wealth Alliance (BWWA) Kenya Ahad is CEO and Founder of BWWA, a social enterprise that focuses on improving the economic stability and prosperity of historical black women career and entrepreneurial professionals. Under her leadership, BWWA has served more than 4,000 black women across Minnesota to date, investing over $740,000 in small capacity grants.
KENYA MCKNIGHT AHAD
A resident of North Minneapolis for 35 years, McKnight started her career as a public and charter school educator. Since 2007, she has served in key leadership roles across the economic development sector in metro Minnesota, including on community development boards, commissions, and related initiatives. She also has extensive experience as a direct business service provider, facilitating lending and technical support to more than 400 micro businesses, leading business legal & marketing clinics, as well as a youth entrepreneurship programs. Well-known in the region and community, McKnight was a 2009 candidate for the 5th Ward Minneapolis City Council seat and the first African American in Minnesota to serve as a Met Council appointee to the Transportation Advisory Board. On that Advisory Board, she operated as a regional equity leader focused on transportation policy, finance, planning, research, and community engagement from local to national levels.
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FINALIST JUDGES Executive Director, Impact Hub Minneapolis Katie Kalkman is a social entrepreneur and currently the Executive Director at Impact Hub. She is passionate about leveraging naturalborn talents to design and reach new goals. She has helped hundreds of people build businesses or take on entrepreneurial risks inside organizations. She brings over a decade of experience in delivering business outcomes through business development, client relationship management, consultative selling, marketing and strategic planning.
KATIE KALKMAN
Katie started her passion for social entrepreneurship as a student at the College of St. Benedict. She co-founded a successful social business as part of the Entrepreneurial Scholars Program and hasn't stopped since then. Since 2005, she has been a part of six startups including; Collegeville Carpets, GH Comfortable Homes, LLC, Northern Toboggan and Company, Folk School Warroad and Impact Hub MSP. She has worked with entrepreneurs in China, Hong Kong, Silicon Valley and the Twin Cities. She is dedicated to helping social entrepreneurs succeed because she knows the risks and rewards of thinking big.
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MEET THE 2022 COHORT AFTERPAK
Merate Sahle '24 (Entrepreneurship, International Business) AfterPak is an eCommerce platform that aims to connect US consumers with the communities that are impacted by the materials they recycle. AfterPak aims to directly address three of the United Nation's Sustainability Development Goals - Goals 11, 12, and 13. Let us work together in making your packaging become more than just trash.
CLEANAIR
Erik Anderson '22 (Entrepreneurship, Real Estate) Ben Frey '22 (Physics, Computer Science, Entrepreneurship) CleanAir aims to provide necessary water vapor quality testing methods and a clean cooking system alternative, enabling access to sanitary cooking and living environments while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. We plan to accomplish this mission by manufacturing novel miniature water vapor sensor systems and distributing low-cost fuel-efficient cookstoves, financed through carbon credit sales, providing a safe and sanitary alternative cooking method to conventional open-fire cooking.
WEST METRO SOLUTIONS
John Costello '25 (Entrepreneurship)
West Metro Solutions LLC is a reused online office furniture store. Since our launch, in May of 2020, we have successfully kept 150,000 pounds of office furniture from the landfill and have provided furniture solutions for over 30 businesses across the Midwest.
ECON
Delila Gonyea '23 (Entrepreneurship and Sustainability) Erik Anderson '22 (Entrepreneurship, Real Estate) Xander Smaby '22 (Finance and Entrepreneurship) The ECON Habitat Project is a housing development company, that works in tandem with the government to provide renewable ecofriendly low-income housing to those who need it. Our mission is to kill two birds with one stone by doing our part in solving the housing crisis while cleaning up port cities and the waste that occurs with sea-freight shipping containers. We transform used shipping containers that may have only seen one journey across the ocean and turn them into beautiful modern designed houses.
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MEET THE 2022 COHORT
LOCAL4LOCAL
Hao Taing '22 (General Management) Jamie Tjornehoj '22 (Journalism, Business Administration) Local4Local is a youth-run food drive initiative that sustains jobs to cyclo drivers and provides key necessities to Cambodians in need. The nonprofit organization was launched in April 2021 by Hao Taing (‘22) and has reinvested nearly all donations received ($70,000) to help those in need. Local4Local is aimed at diminishing the struggles associated with homelessness and poverty while uplifting Cambodia’s creative community.
SALT
Shereen Bance '23 (Catholic Studies) Strategic Alliances Leading Transformation (SALT) provides critical and practical processes to assist D&I managers, human resource professionals, and organizations in the pursuit of diverse talent acquisition. SALT will accommodate inclusion initiatives that build relationships and create jobs for people with disabilities. SALT helps clients remove barriers and invite people with disabilities into the corporate culture of encounter.
Carter Rieckhoff '24 (Entrepreneurship) Chloe Ginkel '24 (Entrepreneurship)
UWELL
UWell is a comprehensive app for university students that offers resources, education, and connection unique to their specific mental health needs. It focuses on deep personalization and building mental wellness into the daily lives of college students.
FOOD TO PEOPLE
Will Pitner '22 (Entrepreneurship) Food to People is a unique food recovery system that takes perfectly viable food from university kitchens, and properly redistributes it to local homeless shelters, food shelves, low-income neighborhoods, and hungry children in our community. Food to People operates food trucks that maintain food at the proper health standards, and funds the operation by socially-involved corporations looking to make an impact on the local communities.
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OUR GLOBAL NETWORK
PARTNER UNIVERSITIES
The Social Innovation Challenge was launched in 2011 out of the Center for Peace and Commerce, a joint initiative of the University of San Diego’s School of Business and the Kroc School of Peace Studies. SIC was designed to inspire university students to tackle humanity’s pressing problems through social innovation and entrepreneurship. In 2014, the SIC grew to include local universities in San Diego, and in 2016 to include the Tijuana, Mexico region. In 2018, the SIC was expanded again to include student teams from universities around the world becoming the Global Social Innovation Challenge.
In 2019, the University of San Diego and the University of St. Thomas received a generous gift from Ron and Alexis Fowler inspiring them to launch a joint collaboration on the Challenge. By working together, the new partnership amplifies the Fowler Global Social Innovation Challenge to improve the quality and quantity of entrepreneurial opportunities, expand national and international reach, and continue to build a global movement based on people, planet, prosperity, peace, and partnership.
BIG IDEAS,
BOLD SOLUTIONS. 13 | FOWLER GLOBAL SOCIAL INNOVATION CHALLENGE
OUR GLOBAL NETWORK 2022 PARTICIPATING UNIVERSITIES Thirty-four universities from 17 countries will convene for the Global Finals hosted by the University of San Diego. Ashesi University Australian Babson College Banking University CETYS Universidad Corporacion Universitaria Minuto de Dios CUIB Cameroon Davis College, Akilah De La Salle University Dmytro Motornyi Tavria State Agrotechnological University Duke University National Economics University (NEU) Ewha Womans University Heritage Christian College Instituto de Estudios Superiores de Administración The ICT University
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Loyola Marymount University North Carolina State University Rollins College San Diego State University SP Jain St. Olaf College Tecnológico de Monterrey University of Texas at Austin UC San Diego Universidad del Pacífico Universidad Francisco de Vitoria Universidad Popular Autonoma del Estado Puebla Université de Sherbrooke University of Kentucky University of Oxford University of Professional Studies Accra University of San Diego University of St. Thomas
NOTES
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