Professor of Practice Karen Henken Shares the Origins of Social Innovation Boot Camps in Bogotá and a New Partnership with Uniminuto

Professor of Practice Karen Henken (bottom right) at Uniminuto in Bogotá, Colombia.

Colombia is a remarkable society in transition after the peace accord of 2016. As Professor of Practice in Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the Master of Arts in Social Innovation at the Kroc School, I have worked for the last year with Uniminuto, an extraordinary university in Colombia.

Uniminuto provides educational opportunities to students from Colombia’s lowest economic strata through a very innovative cooperative financing model. It is now Colombia’s largest university with over 130,000 students enrolled in over 85 locations across the country. A very high percentage of the students enrolled are women, and the vast majority of students participating are in rural areas and smaller cities where they would otherwise not have access to higher educational opportunities.

Seven years ago, Uniminuto recognized the importance of social innovation as a critical tool to advance social change and sustainable economic development across the country. In 2011, the university established the Social Innovation Park (Parque Científico de Innovación Social, or PCIS) as a pioneering effort to train their faculty and students in key social innovation methodologies and practices.

I was introduced to the work of Uniminuto and PCIS when their Director of Human Resources, Jorge Dario Higuera Berrío was a student of mine in USD’s MBA program in Fall 2015 where I taught a course called Business and Social Innovation. Recognizing the opportunity to bring my skills and experience in social innovation to Uniminuto, I began working with Uniminuto and PCIS to develop training programs called Social Innovation Boot Camps. Our goal was to introduce unique and engaging teaching tools in social innovation including design thinking and the business model canvas so that faculty can incorporate these concepts in the curriculum and community programs they lead. Since 2017, I have delivered three Social Innovation Boot Camps in Bogotá in October 2017 and July 2018 to over 100 faculty and staff from all over Colombia.

These boot camps have been an incredible opportunity for shared learning and exploration of new ways to inspire Colombian students in practical tools for social entrepreneurship and social innovation. We have developed several pilot projects to engage the communities in new and practical ways to create social impact. Amidst all this, I have been inspired by the deep passion and commitment of the Uniminuto faculty and staff to foster positive change in their society as well as the hospitality and warmth of the Colombian team with whom I am privileged to work.

This initial work led to an opportunity for a partnership with Uniminuto and the Kroc School. Our two schools recently jointly applied for and were awarded a grant with the 100,000 Strong in the Americas Innovation Fund. Uniminuto’s students will participate in the Global Social Innovation Challenge next year and Kroc School students will be traveling to Colombia in March 2019 as part of a field based practicum to take our cooperation and shared learning to the next level. We all look forward to continued collaboration and shared learning experiences with our two universities.