Young Entrepreneurs Gather at Igniting Innovation Summit

Aspiring social entrepreneurs from around the world convened Saturday at the fifth annual Igniting Innovation Summit at Harvard to discuss the importance of pursuing sustainable social change.

The conference, organized by a team of Harvard undergraduates, drew 450 attendees from Harvard, nearby Boston-area colleges, and universities across the country.

The event helped students think about the practical concerns that do-gooders face as they strive to change the world.

“I didn’t realize until I came here that there’s this really big conflict between having a passion to enact social change and then also making it sustainable like a business model should be,” attendee Zeynep G. Ertugay ’19 said. “I think learning about how to bring those two things together is the core of social entrepreneurship, and coming here really helped me realize that.”

The conference featured three keynote speeches, 10 panel discussions, a performance by “socially-conscious, community-minded” hip-hop and soul band Afro D All Starz, and an Innovation Showcase in which representatives from 18 successful social ventures presented their projects.

Five teams of high school entrepreneurs, identified as “global trailblazers” by the Village to Raise a Child program, also presented their ideas to a packed room.

“The purpose is to show people that there are people your age, or even younger than you, who are doing awesome things and pursuing something they are passionate about, and they’re actually creating an impact,” said Hamna M. Nazir ’17, one of the co-directors of the conference and an inactive Crimson news editor.

Nazir and her co-director Cindy Niu ’16 said the conference aimed to educate attendees about sustainable, scalable social change and to motivate them to pursue the causes they hold dear.

Nazir said, “I think that especially at Harvard, that’s something that we’re excited [about]: that right now you can take the lessons you learn in school and apply them elsewhere.”