The mission of the Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies (known as SEED) is to stimulate, develop, and disseminate research and innovations that enable entrepreneurs, managers, and leaders to alleviate poverty in developing economies. The Institute’s work is based on the belief that a critical route for economic growth is through the creation of new entrepreneurial ventures and by scaling existing enterprises.

The acronym for the Stanford Institute for Innovation in the Developing World is SIIDE, which is pronounced and known informally as SEED. The school believes the Institute has the capacity to help seed real change in developing economies by working jointly with in-country entrepreneurs.

SEED will pursue research, education and dissemination, and applied capacity-building for entrepreneurs. These activities will be integrated and mutually reinforcing. They will enable Stanford to bring considerable resources to bear in the fight to improve the lives of impoverished people around the world. In order to further amplify its impact, SEED will also partner closely with existing organizations that have well established operations abroad.

Data collected on the ground will fuel research that will shape new courses and drive new solutions to problems as diverse as transportation and supply chain logistics, health care needs, or mobile communications. One example of research that has already taken place is a study on textile factory productivity in India by Stanford economists John Roberts and Nick Bloom, which has insights that can help small and mid-sized operations scale their output and impact.
Future research will focus on structural innovations for developing economies (e.g., micro-financing, government policies), human resource and management innovations for developing economies (e.g., developing executives to grow companies, organizational structure), and technology innovations for developing economies (e.g., using low cost, affordable technologies to create value).

The school envisions that in addition to research, students will participate in courses at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, such as Poverty, Entrepreneurship and Development, as well as in on-the-ground, immersive learning through work experience in the field. The school already has pioneered this format, in collaboration with Stanford’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, with courses such as Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability, which has sparked solutions to problems through ongoing ventures including d.light and Embrace. A face-to face and online curriculum will also be developed for in-country entrepreneurs leveraging faculty, alumni, and students through a combination of training, consulting, and mentoring.
The school believes in a two-way flow of information and learning. There are very few settled solutions about how best to alleviate poverty in a wide range of contexts, which means there is opportunity to discover and apply new insights. We expect to learn a great deal from our partners and the entrepreneurs with whom we work. We will disseminate those insights and lessons by building them into courses and applying the expertise of faculty and students with guidance from local experts.

Stanford anticipates that students will participate in field work with startups, NGOs, and other organizations on-the-ground in developing economies. This work will help to build management capacity for growing enterprises in the field. The Institute will partner closely with existing organizations that have established operations abroad.

To amplify its impact on the more than one billion people in the world who live on less than $1.25 a day, SEED will partner with organizations such as Endeavor, which mentors and accelerates the work of high-impact entrepreneurs; Omidyar Network, a philanthropic investment firm that helps scale innovative organizations that catalyze economic, social, and political change; Skoll Foundation, which drives change by investing in social entrepreneurs; and global social enterprise investor Acumen Fund.
In addition, SEED has relationships with International Development Enterprises (IDE), Proximity Designs, and Riders for Health, among others. All have established operations abroad.

Dorothy and Robert King, MBA ’60, made a $100 million gift to establish the Institute. It is among the largest gifts ever made to Stanford University. They have committed an additional $50 million in matching funds to inspire other donors to fuel Stanford University’s commitment to alleviating poverty, bringing the total philanthropic investment to potentially $200 million.
The Kings were inspired after opening their home to international students for home stays. Over the years, they saw first-hand through their personal relationships with those students, the direct connection between education, innovation, and the ability of entrepreneurs to develop nascent ventures into companies that could eventually employ thousands of people in developing economies.

Stanford University has innovation in its DNA. By providing students with education, skills, and problem-solving tools, Stanford has played an integral role in the creation and growth of Silicon Valley. Stanford alumni have founded or helped build many of the world’s best known companies, including Google, Nike, HP, Yahoo, Charles Schwab, and Cisco.
In keeping with Stanford’s rich history and track record, SEED will strive to enable entrepreneurs, leaders and managers in developing economies to create and scale their organizations, with the ultimate objective of improving the lives of employees, people within their communities, and those who purchase or use their products and services.

The GSB has exposed students to educationally productive projects in developing economies for many years through the multidisciplinary Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability course taught by Jim Patell and others. Products initially built within that course, including solar-powered lights, water pumps and drip irrigation, already improve the lives of millions of poor people. The course draws upon collaborations with 18 different partners around the world.

Hau Lee, a supply chain expert and the Thoma Professor of Operations, Information and Technology at the Graduate School of Business, will lead the Institute. A winner of the MBA Distinguished Teaching Award, he recently collaborated with Riders for Health to measure and demonstrate the impact of their work transforming the Gambian and Zambian health care delivery systems through the comprehensive management of national/regional fleets of vehicles. Lee also will head the Institute’s research area.
Jesper Sørensen, the Robert A. and Elizabeth R. Jeffe Professor of Organizational Behavior and the Susan Ford Dorsey Faculty Fellow, will lead the education and dissemination area. Sørensen is a faculty director of the Center for Social Innovation at the Graduate School of Business and teaches Poverty, Entrepreneurship, and Development, among other courses.
Jim Patell, who is the Herbert Hoover Professor of Public and Private Management and the Katherine and David DeWilde Faculty Fellow, with Bill Meehan, the Raccoon Partners Lecturer in Strategic Management and director emeritus of McKinsey & Co., will lead the on-the-ground area. Meehan will primarily focus on supporting existing business leaders to scale and grow their enterprises through a combination of executive education, consulting, mentoring, and online courses. Building on his years of teaching Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability, Patell, a winner of the MBA Distinguished Teaching Award, will manage programs aimed at partnering Stanford students with in-country organizations to develop new products and services. Following a period of coursework and preparation at Stanford, students will provide manpower and management support by working with startups, NGOs, and companies in-country. Students will investigate needs and build solutions with partner entities on the ground.
Nobel laureate A. Michael Spence will chair the Institute’s advisory board, which is now forming. Spence, who is the Philip H. Knight Professor and Dean Emeritus at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, is an authority on global economics in the developing world and is also the William Berkley Professor in Economics and Business at New York University.

SEED is in a startup phase. For now, Stanford Graduate School of Business MBA students and other graduate students will participate through courses such as Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability and Poverty, Entrepreneurship, and Development. Over time, we expect to increase and broaden the number of students who will be able to participate. In the meantime, sign up here to receive SEED email updates.

Eventually, yes. We hope to engage alumni as mentors, but that won’t be until late 2012. Sign up here to express your interest and check the website for updates.

The Institute’s first research forum will be held March 5-6, 2012, at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. It will bring together faculty by invitation only from across Stanford University and elsewhere to share and jointly explore research opportunities in developing economies. To receive information on the forum, please express your interest here and check the website for updates. Faculty members may also contact professor Hau Lee regarding the Institute’s research at lee_hau@gsb.stanford.edu.

Many of the Institute’s activities will require strong partnerships. We will begin reaching out in early 2012 to consider what types of collaborations might be complementary and mutually beneficial. To express an interest in SEED, please sign up here with the name of your organization.

The Graduate School of Business and Stanford more broadly, have been actively involved in mission-driven service within the United States for some time. Through the business school's Public Management Program and Center for Social Innovation, faculty and students have been extremely active over the last 40 years in addressing a wide range of domestic social issues, including those related to poverty alleviation. The Stanford University Haas Center for Public Service supports a number of service, scholarship and community programs in the United States and around the world. The Stanford Center for the Study of Poverty and Inequality is solely focused on the United States.
The Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies is additive – it draws upon new resources and does not take away from important work currently underway at the university related to poverty alleviation and job creation within the United States. It is conceivable that the Institute may support US-based projects from time to time. This year, students in the Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability course did two projects for the White Mountain Apache tribe in Whiteriver, Ariz.