CURRICULUM

Applying Business Skills for Social Impact, MGT 250B
Students work in teams to apply their business skills to address real-life business challenges of community-based and nonprofit organizations. Through these projects, students have the opportunity to strengthen their business project management skills; gain experience in solving real-world, unstructured problems; and connect with community and agency leaders. Community-based organizations benefit from the skills and knowledge of students through their final recommendations addressing the identified business challenge. Participating agencies are located throughout Israel.

The summer program is worth six credits, three credits for the Business, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship in Israel course, and three credits for the Social Impact course. The Entrepreneurship course incorporates the book Start-Up Nation, among others, and includes visits to many of the people and companies mentioned in the book during the trip to Tel Aviv. The Social Impact course places students on inter-disciplinary teams to help solve real business projects for Israeli nonprofits.

Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis will grant the course credit. Transcripts will be sent to the your home institution at the conclusion of the program.

Beyond the Classroom
The academic program is experiential in nature with projects and assignments that contain significant out-of-classroom components to allow you to directly apply your classroom knowledge to the real world. Additionally, learning occurs through opportunities to interact with Israeli students and attendance at a weekly speaker’s series featuring a wide variety of business professionals.

Supplemental activities are coordinated and planned by the student services support staff at IDC and supported by the Nadav Foundation. Activities will include, but are not limited to, weekend excursions, cultural activities, and immersive activities with IDC faculty and staff.

Sample Speakers and Site Visits

• U.S. Embassy
• Tel Aviv Stock Exchange
• Intel Israel
• Google Israel
• Better Place (switchable battery electric car company)
• Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd.
• Saul Singer, co-author of Start-Up Nation
• Eugene Kandel, economic advisor to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
• IBM Israel
• Western Wall
• The cities of Haifa, Yokneam, and Megiddo

Orientation Programming
You will receive pre-departure information electronically. Once you arrive in Israel there will be an onsite orientation to educate you about the academic program, program resources, and Israel in general.

Cultural Immersion
We prepare you for your trip abroad with instruction on the founding of the state of Israel, immigrant patterns and their contributions to the founding of the state, and how the history of the state and its evolution impact business.

There will be on-going sessions throughout the summer to provide you with the chance to learn about Israel in a more in-depth manner. These sessions will include excursions to various museums and historical sites guided by IDC faculty or staff, such as visiting the Diaspora Museum and sites mentioned in the Bible.