This year’s event marks our 13th annual Social Enterprise Conference at Harvard. The conference is jointly produced by the Harvard Business School (HBS) and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government (HKS). Since its inception, our conference has been entirely student run. The student team responsible for producing the event has grown with the size of the conference, and this year includes 3 Co-Chairs, 23 Directors, more than 30 Panel Managers and over 50 volunteers.
In past years the Social Enterprise Conference has brought more than 100 speakers to Harvard for this event, including Willy Foote (Founder & CEO, Root Capital), Robert S. Harrison (CEO, Clinton Global Initiative), Cheryl Dorsey (President, Echoing Green), Linda Rottenberg (Co-Founder and CEO, Endeavor), William Drayton (CEO, Ashoka: Innovators for the Public) and Sonal Shah (Head of the White House Domestic Policy Council’s Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation). Our team is hard at work to bring together an incredible slate of speakers for our 4 keynote addresses, 25 panels and 9 workshops in 2012. We are committed to delivering content that is cutting edge and reflects a diversity of perspectives on Social Enterprise.
In 2009 the Social Enterprise Conference were named by Forbes.com as one of the “Top 12 most influential and exclusive executive gatherings”, an honor we shared with the World Economic Forum at Davos, TED, and the Clinton Global Initiative. It was the only student-run event to make the list, and believe this demonstrates the commitment of students at HBS and HKS to making a difference in the world.
In 2010, we added a Saturday component to the Social Enterprise Conference in order to increase opportunities for networking and conservation. In 2011, we expanded our 2-day event to include more cutting-edge workshops and panels. For this year’s conference, we are excited to continue our 2-day program, and we have added new formats to make our content and networking events more engaging and interactive.
We are excited to bring you the 2012 Social Enterprise Conference and to continue the tradition of conversation, learning and inspiration.
Conference Hound