Georgia Tech is the newest partner of the Global Social Venture Competition, in which students throughout the country are eligible to compete. Participating teams must have a business plan that shows potential for financial return on investment in addition to social and/or environmental benefits.

In becoming a partner in the Global Social Venture Competition, Georgia Tech has joined a growing list of prestigious universities, including Columbia Business School and London Business School. Tech is serving as the Regional Outreach Partner for the Southeast region.

Since its founding in 1999 by students at the University of California at Berkeley, GSVC has grown to become a truly global endeavor with business school partnerships in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Despite this global reach, however, the competition's reach was absent from the Southeast prior to Tech's involvement. While students from the region were eligible to compete, their networking, mentoring, and exposure opportunities were limited by the lack of a nearby partner university.

“Georgia Tech’s involvement is exciting because it will help more students from the Southeast turn their social entrepreneurship ideas into solid business plans,” says Brian Edgerton, a second-year MBA student at Tech and president of the Institute's Net Impact chapter who is serving as GSVC MBA student ambassador. “We will expand the competition's global community of students, judges, and mentors to help teams create sustainable, profitable, socially conscious businesses.”

As the competition kicks off this spring, Georgia Tech’s Institute for Leadership and Entrepreneurship will provide administrative and faculty support, but Edgerton and his Net IMPACT team will be the organizing force behind the preliminary stages.

During each round of the competition, social entrepreneurs will present the social, financial, and environmental values of their business, gaining valuable feedback from and exposure to some of the greatest minds in social innovation.

Participating teams must have at least one primary member who is enrolled in a graduate school or who is a recent alum of a grad school, and ventures must be less than three years old.

The deadline for teams to submit business plans was February 22. The finals will be April 12 at the University of California at Berkeley.