Sustainability master’s program takes on poverty

Nandini McClurg has an admirable plan when she returns to her native Gujarat, India: tackle poverty. McClurg is one of 21 students in Colorado State University’s Global Social and Sustainable Enterprise master's degree program working with nongovernmental and business organizations to solve problems of poverty, environmental degradation, and poor health in such countries as Peru, India, Zambia, and Mexico.

The GSSE program, launched in 2007 through the CSU College of Business, teaches students entrepreneurial, sustainable approaches to address global poverty, health, and environmental challenges. The students’ work ultimately could help some of the world's 4 billion people who live on less than $3 a day create their own sustainable solutions and businesses.

Enterprising entrepreneurs

A major goal of the M.S.B.A. program is to teach students the entrepreneurial process, says Carl Hammerdorfer, director of the GSSE program. "This is an emerging sector of business opportunity."

Students in the GSSE program form enterprise teams to create and sustain international business development opportunities with a triple bottom-line goal: enhance the lives of people, improve the condition of the planet, and build profitable and sustainable business enterprises.

The student enterprise teams are working with organizations around the world in such areas as clean technology, green building, and small business development, says Hammerdorfer.

One team spent 18 days of CSU's winter break in Bangladesh investigating the creation of a farmer's cooperative with the non-profit International Development Enterprises, which has helped poor farmers in developing countries for 25 years. Another student enterprise called PowerMundo traveled to Peru in January to connect clean-energy entrepreneurs with people in the developing world who want access to the new technology.

High-hope process

The student founders of PowerMundo — who collectively speak 11 languages and have worked in 20 countries on five continents — have high hopes for success. Their enterprise acts as a clearinghouse to connect isolated communities with companies or organizations that provide solutions to meet basic human needs such as clean indoor air and reliable electricity.

While in Peru, PowerMundo student-entrepreneurs researched the market and distribution possibilities for clean cookstoves, household energy, and solar-lighting products. The students visited with top governmental officials and worked with world aid organizations. They also promoted CSU technology spinoffs such as AVA Solar, which makes affordable solar cells, and Envirofit International, which designs and builds cleaner-burning cookstoves and two-stroke engines for taxis in the developing world.

Cookstoves trump SUVs

PowerMundo team member Sule Amadu left his job as a teacher in Ghana to learn more about mechanical engineering, which eventually led him to the GSSE program. His ultimate goal is to work as the PowerMundo representative in Ghana where the poorest people are being left behind by the government, he says.

In Ghana, Amadu designed his own clean-burning cookstove, so he knew he was in the right place when he first arrived in Fort Collins in 2006. On that trip, he toured CSU's Engines and Energy Conversion Laboratory, the nation's largest independent engine laboratory, where Envirofit is based.

"I thought I'd see all these SUVs," says Amadu, who now works in the engines lab. "To my surprise, I saw cookstoves."