By Javier Creus, founder and director of Ideas for Change. (Original publication in Spanish)

Over a period of four months of work, the teams from Esade and Ideas for Change, accompanied by alumni and experts in the fields of education and impact business, worked closely to create an educational proposal that looked to the future and provided new value to young entrepreneurs with a transformative spirit.

Leaders with vision and commitment. Professionals capable of creating regenerative business projects that are viable in the long term. Committed profiles projecting imaginative solutions to the challenges of humanity. These are the values that, lately, companies and organizations have been seeking to tackle and direct their challenges in an increasingly changing and complex environment. But where do these leaders emerge from? Is there a career path that prepares tomorrow's executives? Where can young people with impact-driven entrepreneurial vocation go?

The so-called Greta (Thunberg) generation has shown a wave of active and committed young people in promoting changes that create the world they want to live in. On the other side of the coin, however, is the high pressure to succeed that the current system instills, an element that complicates these future plans. In light of this perspective, it becomes necessary to create an educational framework that supports these future professionals. And, above all, to do so from a perspective that allows not only training their head (head), but also discovering the emotional potentials (heart) and manual creation talents (hand) that will enable them to take action.

To respond to these challenges, the ‘Bachelor in Transformational Business and Social Impact’ from Esade has been established, a pioneering qualification in which Ideas for Change collaborated in its initial conceptualization, offering young people with entrepreneurial vocation and social commitment the necessary skills to design innovative business models that address societal challenges and contribute to the common good.

A work plan based on research and joint effort

The embryo of this new program is based on the methodology Pentagrowth for the design of disruptive business models. Throughout the four months of work, the teams from Esade and Ideas for Change developed an educational proposal that looked to the future and provided new value to young entrepreneurs with a transformative spirit.

The work plan was organized as follows:

1. Anticipate: To get started, we needed to move the clock forward to detect the trends driving the educational, business, and entrepreneurial environment. We developed a research process on educational demands and young people's concerns that allowed us to identify the key competencies future leaders must have.

2. Decompose: Next, we mapped the "golden nuggets" of the organization, that is, the internal capabilities that Esade already possessed, to enhance them from a new perspective. Through a series of interviews with staff members, academics, and students, we discovered interesting assets already in place, such as the existence of a fab lab for rapid prototyping or a fusion point for Design Thinking. Furthermore, we discovered that the organization's unique pillars (the commitment to Socratic dialogue or Jesuit values that encourage personal development) already promoted an advanced exploration of the new educational direction.

3. Explore: Next, we implemented a mapping of up to 35 educational proposals, both national and international, projecting beyond the educational ecosystem and inspiring future perspectives in the fields of entrepreneurship, humanities, and engineering. For this, we conducted nearly 40 interviews with students from leading academic programs such as Minerva Schools at KGI, LEINN (Leadership Entrepreneurship and Innovation) from Mondragón University (MTA), Kaos Pilot, or Fab Academy, among others. All of them provided qualitative insights to the analysis we were undertaking.

4. Combine: Finally, we conducted three collaborative contrast workshops that allowed us to test our hypothesis and enrich our analysis. We carried out these sessions with Esade alumni, organizational professionals, and external experts in education and impact. All reinforced our analysis process and allowed us to combine those internal nuggets we had found at Esade with the external levers that emerged from our research.

A curriculum that goes beyond memorizing concepts

The result was the conceptualization of the first training oriented towards the creation and transformation of models of business with triple value: for the planet, for the social and for the organizations. Indeed, the program is structured around three major pillars of knowledge that were designed in collaboration with the university program based in San Francisco Minerva Project and the B Lab foundation, which serves the community of B Corp companies and seeks to accompany students from a holistic perspective:

1. Cognitive learning: Through active techniques such as creative thinking, students will develop basic transversal skills to learn to learn and to unlearn, rooted in humanism and emotional intelligence.

2. Reflection and personal development: Students will be invited to discover their motivation with the support of methods such as Socratic dialogue or liberal arts in diverse cultural, social, economic, and technological environments. The result will be the development of solutions in a collaborative environment, just as happens in the real world.

3. Real action: Through a predominantly practical approach and teamwork, students will acquire knowledge on how to design a website, how to prototype a physical object through design thinking and digital fabrication, or how to design a disruptive business model through the Pentagrowth methodology. They will do so within the framework of real business ecosystems in the EsadeCreapolis innovation park and the Esade Innovation Boulevard. They will also accumulate real experience and develop a network of professional relationships during their training, facilitating their future career development.

Upon completing the program, students will have the option to create their own impact startup ready to go to market and receive funding, or take up positions as CIO (Chief Innovation Officer) or leadership roles in organizations, entities, or bodies seeking social impact and socioeconomic development.

A holistic view that goes beyond the curriculum

The ‘Bachelor in Transformational Business and Social Impact’ from Esade is born to revolutionize the educational ecosystem from its very conception. It is one of the first trainings aimed at preparing purpose-driven entrepreneurs change makers, which contributes to the advancement of traditional business schools. In parallel, it applies a holistic vision that goes beyond the development of cognitive knowledge, an approach destined to transform generalist universities. Even more: the new degree aims to provide students with a portfolio of projects and a network of professional contacts that offer opportunities extending far beyond a single line of curriculum, enhancing the value of formal higher education in general.

Overall, this new qualification represents a unique opportunity for the development of talent and the promotion of conscious organizations. Are you ready for change?