Lindsay Saperstone on her GSSE field work in Bolivia, literally getting her hands dirty.

In a few weeks, 20 students in the Global Social and Sustainable Enterprise MBA program at Colorado State University will initiate on average 40 days of field work. This experience is a key differentiator of this MBA program, but also crucial for the students as they work quickly to develop their ventures. Every year, thanks to generous donors, we have an internal grant round to help support the costs of conducting the field work, which often requires quite a bit of international travel. Many teams also run their own crowdfunding campaigns to enable their teams to stay longer and accomplish more while in the field. Here are three teams and their crowdfunding pages – perhaps their unique stories and videos will inspire you to help them reach their goals:

• (B)energy: Bring on the biogas revolution, starting in Ethiopia.
• Chaka Fibers: Fair income for Peruvian alpaca ranchers through improved access to markets.
• Jolt Radio: Incentivizing parents to become educators, starting in Guatemala.

There is also an alumni venture running a campaign that will help them return to India:

• Ascent: Producing high quality iron pills in calendar pill packaging for India’s poorest pregnant women.

Watch for team updates published here over the next 3 months!

-Kat