Course Description
This course examines the ways in which societal problems affect the lives of young persons or communities at large. What are the challenges faced by the young people or communities at large living in Myanmar? What actions can individuals and organizations take to help young people or communities at large better meet these challenges?
Course Learning Outcomes
- Examine the causes and consequences of societal problems affecting the communities and/or youth.
- Compare the roles of families, governments, businesses, and nonprofits in tackling the societal problems
- Develop the knowledge, skills, and courage to take concrete action to reduce the societal problems.
- Design and develop project to address social problems
Class Format
The course is divided into lectures and lab sessions. There will be thirteen lab sessions over the course of the semester. These meetings will be used to practice using the conceptual tools introduced in the lectures and to explore the readings in more depth.
During the final lab sessions, students will give their Challenge Project Presentations. Their group members will assign a score to each member based on a rubric provided by the instructor. The highest and lowest scores will be dropped. The Challenge Project Showcase will happen in the last final lab session, the three groups with the highest scores (given by each member, experts and MYEO team) will have a chance to participate further with the partner of MYEO with a chance to win SGD 20,000 and further learning support to grow the students’ project into reality. .
Students are encouraged to use laptops, tablets, and/or smartphones for the lectures as well as the good old paper, pencil and colored sticky notes. It is expected that the students do the readings and self learnings before coming into the class. There will be participation marks given for the students during the lectures.
Required Texts
The following two books are required reading for everyone in the course. Please read these as early in the semester as possible.
Suggested readings
- Gelobter, M. (2015). Lean Startups for Social Change: The Revolutionary Path to Big Impact
Assessment
Note: To simplify the grading process, please submit the assignment link (google drive link) via the chatbot. Title the documents in the following notation: “STUDENTID.FIRSTNAME.ASSIGNMENTTYPE.” For instance, if I was turning in my first business model canvas, the name of my document would be “007.JAMES.BMC1.”
Late assignments will be penalized 10% for every day past the due date. If you have difficulties such as security related issues and personal or immediate family health problems, please reach out and contact the instructors. Otherwise, the penalty for late submissions will be upheld.
Challenge Project Toolbox
Students will acquire the same conceptual tools used in the top venture labs and incubators around the world. The main tool is the “business model canvas,” a tool used to unbundle the key components that make a business model (Osterwalder & Pigneur 2010). We are using a version of the BMC that has been adapted for the course (Credit – PDNG Course 2013). The other tools help us examine the key assumptions embedded in each component of the BMC. With these concepts at your disposal, you will be much better prepared to take your idea from the classroom to your school, community, startup, or other educational organization.
Expectations for each assignment will be discussed in the weekly lectures. If unclear or need support, please reach out to the instructors.
Challenge Project Portfolio
The centerpiece of this course is the Challenge Project. The Challenge Project is to be completed by students working in teams of three to four students each. Under exceptional circumstances, smaller teams may be allowed. The objectives of the Challenge Project are for students to achieve an in-depth understanding of a particular problem facing the community and to develop the confidence and courage to take concrete actions to address this problem.
The problem you choose is entirely up to your group. It can be a problem within your own community. It can be a problem having to do with financing some worthy organization you admire–or even starting an organization that is worth admiring. We also have several ideas for ventures that we are more than happy to share. Some examples of good Challenge Projects are:
1. designing a good or service for the poor/the displaced/the dropped out youths;
2. orchestrating a campaign to raise awareness about a certain issue such as Gender based violence/Right to education/ Anti-malaria campaign;
3. creating or participating in an event which raises money to fight poverty/to increase literacy/to have access to clean water;
This list is meant to serve as a guide—if you have another project you would like to pursue, discuss it with one of the course instructors. You can get some inspiring ideas by reading things like the Fixes Blog at the NY Times, or by websites of foundations like Schwab and Skoll. In our ELI alumni, youth community leaders have come up with a wide range of ideas, such as tutoring low-income displaced children in their communities.
If this seems intimidating, don’t worry. We will provide examples of excellent Challenge Projects in MYEO’s communities. The Challenge Project does not require a ton of work, but it does require a steady effort throughout the course.
Active Planning Portfolio
The Active Planning Portfolio contains evidence of the work you have done throughout the course to generate a better model for addressing poverty and inequality. The most important components are the annotated BMCs. The annotations on the BMC should provide evidence that you are testing the hypotheses embedded in each component of your BMC.
Annotations can include notes on readings, meetings, outlines, brainstorms, mind-maps, strategies, prototypes, and so forth. Entries might include:
- This article I read this week makes me doubt whether we can connect with primary students via traditional Channels…
- This week I had a meeting with a NGO leader who might become a Key Partner.
- This week I asked people what would happen if I charged fees for drop-in daycare for single moms…
When assessing this part of the portfolio, I will have the following questions in mind:
- Has the student attempted to test the riskiest assumptions in every component of the BMC?
- How do subsequent BMCs use this learning?
The other parts of the section includes all of the other tools you have used to generate and validate your new model.
Presentation
During the last sessions (the exact logistics to be determined), groups will give ten minute presentations to their tutorial groups. There will be a total of three presentations without the Challenge Showcase presentation.
The presentation should describe your Challenge Project briefly and clearly. Make sure to arrive at class ten minutes early to set up your presentation. Your peers will have a rubric to judge you based both on the style and substance of your presentation and on the merits of your Challenge Project.
For the portfolio, students should include any materials used for their presentation (slides, handouts, etc.).
Reflection Paper
The final paper should be used to consolidate the main lessons learned during the course of the Challenge Project. What were the strengths of your project? What mistakes did you make? What things did you get right? What would you do differently next time? This paper should also be used as a venue for relating the Challenge Project to the reading we examine in class.
Challenge Project Showcase
We believe that this class can be the impetus for sustainable, scalable, high-impact initiatives. All students selected for the Challenge Project Showcase will be awarded a Challenge Project Prize. Winners will receive automatic endorsement from the teaching team for applications to various funding schemes, such as the social enterprise incubator in Singapore with a chance to win SGD 20,000.
Academic dishonesty and plagiarism
Academic dishonesty includes any effort to falsify your academic record. The opportunity to study for a university level course with focus on innovation is something most people will never have. Thus, please cherish the opportunity with honesty and academic integrity.
Attendance
Attendance is required. Three absences or partial absences may result in failure of the course. If you are sleeping in class, we also consider you to be absent. (If you are sleeping, we will wake you up and ask you to leave. This includes not responding to the classroom participation activities, not showing reactions via zoom, nor responding to questions that are explicitly told to the students to answer for attendance records).
We are often privileged to have highly accomplished guest speakers visiting us. It is important that you not only attend class, but pay attention (and appear to be paying attention) to each speaker and ask questions when appropriate. If a speaker has a bad experience, she or he will be unlikely to return for future classes.
Study Load (one month intensive training)
| Activity | Number of Hours |
| Lectures | 24 (4 weeks x 3 times x 2 hours) |
| Lab sessions | 6 (4 weeks x 1 times x 1.5 hours) |
| Out of class experience | 10 (4 weeks x 2.5 hours) |
| Reading and self study | 50 (4 weeks x 12.5 hours) |
| Challenge Project Portfolio | 36 (4 weeks x 8 hours) |
| Total | 126 |
Study Load (two months innovation service learning)
| Activity | Number of Hours |
| Lectures/Guest speakers | 18 (9 weeks x 1 times x 2 hours) |
| Lab sessions | 18 (9 weeks x 1 times x 2 hours) |
| Out of class experience | 18 (9 weeks x 2 hours) |
| Reading and self study | 36 (9 weeks x 4 hours) |
| Challenge Project Portfolio | 180 (9 weeks x 20 hours) |
| Total | 270 |