MG4H4E      One Unit
The Altruistic Entrepreneur Project

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

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    This course crystallises the academic learnings from across the degree programme into an applied experience.  It runs concurrently with course delivery across all modules.  Students will work in groups of four to six people, supported by faculty, to develop an entrepreneurial business proposal for social impact, moving through idea generation, initial design and formal proposal.  The proposal may be a new organisation, or it may be an activity within an existing organisation with explicit social benefit. 

The project creates a space for real world application of students’ learning; development of the project concurrently with programme delivery enables substantive interaction between project work and core skills learning.  The course mirrors the development of the programme overall by requiring students to address questions of context (and relation to state and private actors), questions of strategy and market development, financing, and reporting as well as personal leadership, communications and persuasion.  Projects are designed in the expectation of potential real world implementation, although they will be assessed on coherence and course relevance rather than real-world viability.

Working in a group is an essential component of this course.  Students will be expected to reflect on how their groups form, how they establish principles for working effectively, and how they resolve conflict or disagreement.  Students will be asked explicitly to reflect in their summative essays on the process of selecting an idea and assigning roles. Since so much of a professional life will involve impromptu and non-elective group working, we consider this aspect of the course particularly important.

At the end of the programme each group will pitch their proposition to their peers, programme faculty and invited external experts.  The pitch session is intended to mirror the real experience of seeking investment, board approval or strategic support for a social venture.  This session will form part of the summative assessment of the course.

Teaching will take place over the duration of the programme.  There will be whole cohort teaching sessions of three hours each module, plus tutorial meetings for each project group.

Formative work, through presentations and discussions in tutorial meetings, will be continual for the duration of the programme.  Students will be asked to submit a draft outline of their final summative essay.

Presentation (35%)

Proposal (15%)

Essay (50%)

Assessment will be through a group presentation (35%), group composition of a business model canvas (15%), and an extended essay of 5,000 words at the end of the project (50%).