Excellent opportunity for students

Re-source™ Challenge – Improve campus greening, and send three people to the Net Impact Conference for free.

Nestlé Waters and GreenOps, a subsidiary of Waste Management, are looking to the Net Impact network to help them design and implement a pilot recycling strategy on a college campus in January 2010. Teams (up to three members per team) may enter by completing a mini-case, available at www.netimpact.org/resourcechallenge. From these entries, a judging panel will select three teams to compete in a case competition at the 2009 Net Impact Conference (covering registration, air, and hotel expenses). One team will win $5,000 and the opportunity to implement their business plan on campus as a pilot.

Get more information and complete the mini-case at www.netimpact.org/resourcechallenge. Applications are due by October 5. Please email re-source@netimpact.org with any questions.

2010 Walmart Better Living Business Plan Challenge – Win up to $20,000 for your sustainable business idea
Many of you probably remember the 2009 Challenge, where teams from more than 40 schools competed in regional competitions across the country, presenting their business plans for sustainable products or services to a panel of Walmart executives, suppliers, and environmental organizations. This year, Walmart is opening the challenge up to 64 schools. Like last year, the competition will begin with school-level competitions in January, progress to eight regional competitions in February, and culminate in a national competition held in Bentonville, Arkansas in April. In addition to gaining an audience with some of the top business and sustainability leaders in the United States, the winning team will receive $20,000 to invest in their business or product.

To make sure that your school is one of the 64 selected to be part of the 2010 Walmart Better Living Business Challenge, visit www.netimpact.org/walmartchallenge by September 28 and fill out the short application.

Chapter Leaders: note - For the Walmart Challenge, you may want to take the initiative and sign up your school, to ensure that you are one of the 64 schools selected to compete. Then you can get started publicizing the challenge to your members and others on campus. You can even work with an administrator or faculty member to organize the competition on the school-wide level and count it toward one of your chapter events for the year. Please email walmartchallenge@netimpact.org with any questions.

Gates Foundation “Innovative Solutions for Development” call for proposals–Travel to Paris to present your financial solution to poverty reduction
Net Impact is working with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on a call for ideas for “Innovative Solutions for Development.” With the Agence Française de Développement (AFD) and the World Bank, the Gates Foundation will be co-hosting an international Marketplace on Innovative Financial Solutions for Development (MIF), to be held in Paris on March 4-5, 2010. The 2010 MIF will be dedicated to innovative, smart, fine-tuned financial mechanisms for mobilizing, channeling, and spending funds dedicated to development.

A key feature of the MIF will be a competition to garner fresh ideas for financial solutions aimed at reducing poverty and sustainably improving livelihoods through addressing market or government failures. Grants will be awarded for up to five proposals in a two step selection process entrusted to a special jury. In the first phase, approximately 20 finalists will be selected to present at the MIF Conference in Paris (travel and registration will be covered), and the MIF will award up to five grants of up to $100,000 each.

Proposals are welcomed from all development finance innovators, including financial institutions, private-sector companies, social enterprises, non-governmental and civil society organizations, government agencies, foundations, and development organizations. The Gates Foundation specifically reached out to Net Impact to encourage universities and other academic organizations to become involved. Teams of students and/or faculty are encouraged to submit ideas.

To learn more and submit a proposal by November 15, visit www.fininnov.org