The University of Calgary’s Haskayne School of Business is launching a new social entrepreneurship centre, thanks to a generous donation.
The $5 million gift from the Trico Charitable Foundation will go towards helping students push the boundary when it comes to business and its positive social impact.
“The motivation of a social enterprise is to solve a social problem, both environmental and social. It could be poverty, it could be something to do with climate change — but the initial drive, the goal is the create change in some area that there’s a problem,” said instructor Houston Peschl, on Wednesday.
He said the donation from Wayne and Eleanor Chiu will change the trajectory of the student experience at the school with exposure to top-level academic and research content.
“What we’re hoping to do with the [Trico Foundation Social Entrepreneurship Centre] is allow the students to experience content that is aligned with the power of business as a force for good as well [as] allow for more research to take place in this area,” he said.
Also announced was a partnership between the Haskayne School and the Trico Charitable Foundation to bring the Social EnterPrize award — a $100,000 biennial competition for Canadian leaders in the field — to Calgary in November 2019.