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Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Innovators Laud Beeck Center Launch

MICHELLE XU/THE HOYA From left to right: Beeck Center Executive Director Sonal Shah, founder of HopeLab and Humanity United Pam Omidyar and Case Foundation co-founder and CEO Jean Case discuss social innovation.
MICHELLE XU/THE HOYA
From left to right: Beeck Center Executive Director Sonal Shah, founder of HopeLab and Humanity United Pam Omidyar and Case Foundation co-founder and CEO Jean Case discuss social innovation.

The Beeck Center for Social Impact and Innovation’s launch Tuesday included speeches and workshops by some of the new center’s key figures, who stressed the center’s global role at the university and the social impact it hopes to achieve.

The activities at the launch included a speech by donors Alberto and Olga María Beeck (SFS ’81), a panel discussion with the center’s Executive Director Sonal Shah, founder of HopeLab and Humanity United and co-founder of the Omidyar Network and Ulupono Initiative Pam Omidyar, and Case Foundation co-founder and CEO Jean Case. Afterward, Singularity University Founding Executive Director Salim Ismail shared his thoughts on technological change and growth in today’s world, and attendees participated in two workshops on design thinking and storytelling.

The day’s events were held in celebration of the $10 million donation given by the Beecks to launch the center, which is located in ICC 100 and will operate under the Office of the Provost.

Former economics professor and Founding Director of the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation Sonal Shah will lead the center as founding executive director.

“The Beeck Center for Social Impact and Innovation enables Georgetown to more quickly anticipate and respond to the ever-evolving and shifting challenges of contemporary society,” University President John J. DeGioia said. “As our world changes, we too must evolve.”

Alberto and Olga María Beeck have a longstanding relationship with the university, beginning with Olga María Beeck’s enrollment in the School of Foreign Service in 1977. She currently serves on the SFS Board of Regents and Board of Visitors, and her husband Alberto Beeck founded and chairs the Georgetown University Latin American Board. The couple are also parents of Georgetown students Leticia (COL ’17) and Matias (COL ’15). Alberto Beeck is director of Virgin Hotels and formerly served as the president of a Peruvian cement production and distribution company, Cementos Pacasmayo.

“We’re very proud to launch a center that will serve as an amplifier of existing initiatives as well as an igniter of new ones at Georgetown and outside of Georgetown,” Alberto Beeck said. “The center will educate by inspiring and preparing students, faculty and global leaders to generate and innovate solution-based change.”

Beeck pointed to the success of GU Impacts, which was founded two years ago to allow students to participate in social impact work in Latin America and Africa and has already had 38 participants. “We have come from an existentialist and individual model that measures the number of people served and hours spent to asking ourselves how we can solve problems and achieve impact in a sustainable and scalable way that measures the improvements in the lives of people around the world,” Alberto Beeck said.

“I want to tell you [the students] this is your center, this is your launchpad for becoming and developing into social change actors, and you will be integral to its success.”

The center hopes to function in line with the Georgetown value of cura personalis. “Our ethos, like the Georgetown ethos, will be to do this with humility and compassion for those we serve. None of this matters if we don’t keep in mind who we are serving,” Shah said. She added that the center will offer skills-based classes for students, experiential opportunities and methods of developing key thought leadership. Pam Omidyar and Jean Case shared insight from their experiences working in social impact and innovation.

Omidyar discussed the necessity for systematic change. “When you move a lever here the whole system works to counteract that, when you’re working multiple levers in the system then you can see change,” she said. Case agreed, emphasizing the importance of a mixed approach. “We’ve divided the sectors so specifically (nonprofit and for-profit), they’re really just tax-regulated entities.

The excitement of those entities coming together is that we’re beginning to break these barriers.” Program Manager for Innovation and New Media Strategy in the Office of the CIO Michael Wang (MSB ’07), who helped develop the Beeck Center and will work there, believes student ideas will be key to the center’s success. “Having an intentional space focused on social impact and innovation will really build a community,” he said. “All the student-driven ideas that we help to empower and scale will impact change.” Students involved in the organization of the launch event were pleased with the results

. “It was a great success. Each attendee I spoke with said how inspiring Pam Omidyar, Jean Case and Salim Ismail’s talks were, and that they wanted to find ways to get involved,” Craig Cassey (COL ‘15), one of the two student organizers of the launch, said. “I look forward to seeing the partnerships [the Beeck Center] will continue to make and the opportunities the center will bring to Georgetown students in the form of impact-focused internships, skill-based workshops and our speaker series.”

SIPS Representative Kyle Rice (SFS ’16), who was also involved in organizing the launch, agreed. “The speakers that the center brought to Fisher Colloquium were engaging and gave some great insight on the current state of social innovation and philanthropy. The workshops were also fun and participants really benefited from attending them,” he said.

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