Who can join?

The GC² is open to:

1. Students pursuing a degree (undergraduate or postgraduate) in any subject from any university in the world can form teams with a minimum of 2 students. . Students in the team can come from different universities.
2. Professionals willing to coach students (at least 2 hours per month) or provide feedback to the student team projects as a mentor.
3. Companies, networks or NGOs can involve their employees by providing coaching and/or services to the teams.
4. Universities and academics can participate by promoting it amongst students, coaching teams and connecting the challenge to courses through creating social business projects.
5. Investors can provide their experience in evaluating the highest potential projects.
6. Media in any form can advertise the challenge and finalists to various stakeholders.

What is the theme?

Projects can be submitted to the GC² under one open theme: “Develop a solution to a social or environmental problem that either improves existing approaches or is radically new.”

For inspiration we encourage you to read the themes of our social partners here.

How do I join?

Students, professionals, organizations and universities are invited to go to http://www.beta.senstation.org/gc , read the information and apply through our partnering platform f6s. Students are encouraged to start working on developing their ideas as early as possible, as you will be asked to answer important questions, and create social media accounts. Investors and media organizations, please send us an e-mail indicating your interest in engaging in the challenge: gc2(at)beta.senstation.org. At the end of the year we will make the selection of all projects and partners.

Benefits for student teams

There are unique benefits for student teams in each stage. During the first stage, you’ll go through a process that will help you create and develop your idea and engage with a complex problem in new ways to understand the root causes. In the second stage you will engage with world-class coaches who will help you refine your idea and develop your business plan in a structured way. You will also learn how to create a crowd-funding video, participate in a conference, and in the final stage gather initial seed capital to make your idea a reality. The finalists will join the SENStation network and their projects will be evaluated by experts. Thus, while only the ideas with the highest potential will make it to the final stage, all teams will benefit by having guidance and support, access to great resources through our partners, and will have gone through the foundational steps real social entrepreneurs often go through. There is not just one winner; all 8 finalists are winners and will have the support to make their ideas a reality.

How much does it cost?

STUDENTS

Nothing! Students can apply for free. We will however take a small and reasonable percentage (approximately 7% including transaction costs) of what is gathered during the final crowd-funding stage. This revenue will be solely invested back into SENStation to grow the project further and support more student teams in the future.

OTHER STAKEHOLDERS

Given our mission to foster cooperation and collaboration there is no cost to participate in the challenge. If you would like to support the work we’re doing and help us grow we would love to hear from you and greatly appreciate any donations that will be invested into SENStation to grow the accelerator.

Click here: link

How do teams move through the stages?

1. In the initial Creation stage we will select up to 20 projects looking at

• Team Spirit and Capabilities
• Triple Bottom Line
• Scalability and Replicability
• Wow-effect and Innovativeness

We will also look at your social media accounts to learn more about your projects and motivation.

2. In the Action stage voting will be organized and the 8 teams with the highest potential will go through. SENStation reserves the rights to also add additional participants.

3. All 8 final projects will be evaluated by a panel of experts and based on these evaluations the 3 projects with the highest potential will be further featured..

What happens with my idea once I put it online?

After receiving applications we will put these ideas (problem and opportunites) on the SENStation platform in order to share it with the community and help you develop it with mentors, coaches and receive feedback from our community. You will of course stay the leaders and owners of your idea.

At SENStation, we reserve the right to use your project image(s) for communication and marketing purposes (see GC² regulations). We do so, because it helps us represent both your project and our platform in a more effective way, with increasing benefits for both.

It is our experience that in the social enterprise world, where the challenges are often so enormous and complex, the benefits of sharing your basic idea far outweigh the risks. We have found that some of  the most important elements for your project to succeed are a strongly structured and developed concept, a well-balanced team and support from coaches and mentors to leapfrog and bypass typical mistakes that are made and thus enable well-executed implementation. We work in a collaborative community, where people are motivated by solving critical global challenges affecting us all, not greater personal wealth. Therefore, at SENStation, we will always encourage being as open as is reasonable about your plans and ideas, to enable others to give you the greatest possible chance to your ideas a true success.

Who will have access to my idea?

IDEATION STAGE:

Your application will be evaluated by SENStation and representatives from some of its partners. If your application is not selected you will have a chance to add it to the common Impact Accelerator Network pool, so that you can join other programmes.

CREATION STAGE:

The basic information of the idea will be shared on www.SENStation.org. Your project will be developed by you, your coaches and mentors. SENStation will be able to request an update on developments of your idea. At the end of this stage we will share parts of your business plans with our community as was done in the previous events. The purpose of this is to give exposure to the great work you have been doing, not to provide others with the know-how to implement your idea! You can check the other ideas online to see what kind of information is shared, but this year we will share just problem, opportunity, video and some information about the team.

ACTION STAGE:

You will prepare a presentation of 10 slides which will be shared with an expert panel.

What is the SENS24 conference?

On March 24^th, 2013, SENStation held its first SENS24 online conference on Social Entrepreneurship. The conference was a 24-hour online event, with inspiring social entrepreneurs sharing their experiences. SENS24 covered a broad range of topics, but focused on exploring what it takes to build a successful social enterprise. You are encouraged to watch all the videos under the conference menu link.

On March 23rd, 2014, SENStation will organize its second conference. During this conference, we will ask action stage teams to deliver a short presentation sharing the problems they have chosen to tackle and their unique solutions..