The 4th of July

Happy Independence Day !!!

A different way to be a part of SVC

This is an exciting opportunity to be involved in SVC and develop leadership skills, plus you will get a nice SVC polo shirt and be considered for the student director position for next year. Below is a description of the positions available.

College Rep Coordinator: This position will find and coordinate with college reps across campus. College reps will be SVC's liaison in their college and announce events in their classes.
Faculty Coordinator: This position will work with different faculty members across campus. Faculty members will inform students about events and may also help with workshops in their area of expertise. (This is a great opportunity to network with faculty.)
Events Team (approx 5 people): These individuals will work on different aspects of the events such as planning and scheduling, marketing, finding volunteers, etc.
Website Person: This person will make sure everything is current and accurate on SVC's website.

Google's 10 to the 100 Project

Major corporations are getting more interested in social innovation every day. Google is making social innovation a part of its birthday party. All good ideas are welcome, but they are due by October 20th!

Business Plan Basics Workshop

We had a very informative and well attended workshop last week. Aaron Miller walked us through the "Telenua" sample business plan which is posted on our website. Students came with some great questions on specifics of what to include/not include in a plan. You won't want to miss our next workshop in January on Measuring Social Impact.

Note: At the workshop an Accounting student expressed his desire to join a team. Make sure and add a comment onto the blog if you are looking for or needing teammates. We have a lot of great talent out there.

Boys and Girls Club Lake Wise Project

The Boys and Girls Club of Utah County is looking for a team of BYU students to write and submit a social venture plan on BGCUCs Lake Wise Project. This project has three main focuses:

1. To involve BGCUC teens in the scientific method by conducting a student study with assistance from: Utah State, Utah Valley University, BYU, State of Utah, and the Utah Lake Commission.
   
2. To clean up Utah Lake by removing tangible pollution and introduced species (with special attention to plants).
   
3. To educate Utah County residents by conducting seminars, fundraisers, and outdoor/indoor classrooms. BGCUC students will have the opportunity and privilege to change the minds of Utah County residents that Utah Lake is not a dirty lake, and that it is important resource to all who live near it.
   

Utah Lake is the largest natural freshwater lake west of the Mississippi River. If you'd like to get involved in writing and submitting a plan for the competition, contact:

Kit Wilkinson

Science Director, BGCUC

kitw@bgcutah.org

(801) 361-8218

Simplicity works better

One of the most important lessons in entrepreneurship, social or otherwise, is learning to keep things simple. While it is true that immense value comes from complicated systems--like computers or economies--the trick is making them simple. Making complicated things simple is something everyone needs.

Here is an example of simplicity at its finest. This website will test your vocabulary while helping you learn some new things. All the while you get to add a few grains of rice to another person's meal. It's really fun. (For a fleeting moment I got my vocab score up to 46. What is your best?)



How does it work? The advertisers featured on the page are paying Free Rice to show their ads. The revenue goes to buy rice for the United Nations World Food Program. Simple.

First week report

We had a great kickoff last Wednesday with 100 people joining us to get the SVC off to a great start! (Not too shabby for the first SVC kickoff ever!) Besides orienting people to the competition, we gave away sweatshirts, movie tickets, and an iPod Nano (Product Red edition). The whole event had a lot of great energy and we could see all kinds of great ideas building right there before our eyes.

On Friday, we joined the Student arm of the Economic Self-Reliance Conference for an idea fair. Some of the great ideas people shared included a school for leprosy-affected kids in India, a self-learning instructional tool for education, and an effort by the local Boys and Girls Club to get local youth studying the environmental progress of Utah Lake. We will be posting the great ideas here on the blog for students who are interested in joining the teams for these ideas.