Social Innovation Lab to give $1K to social entrepreneurs from local universities

The Social Innovation Lab (SIL) is looking for college-age social entrepreneurs. Fifteen of them, exactly.
Founded in 2011 at the Johns Hopkins University, the lab is an incubator for early-stage startups with a focus on some sort of social mission.
It’s currently accepting applications for its latest cohort of startups, and plans to distribute $1,000 in seed funding to 15 different early-stage companies. Students from Baltimore-area universities are eligible, so long as they have at least one person (undergraduate or graduate student, or a faculty member) affiliated with Johns Hopkins, said Kunal Parikh, executive director of the SIL.
The Social Innovation Lab is now accepting applications from Johns Hopkins University students for its 2013-2014 cohort. Applications are due Sept. 21.
As Parikh told Technically Baltimore earlier this year, putting the mission into business ventures is a natural fit and bound to impact Baltimore for the better.
“Entrepreneurship is about solving a problem. Social entrepreneurship is solving a social problem using business as a tool,” he said.
Since its founding, the Social Innovation Lab “has incubated 20 student-led projects across a range of sectors, from healthcare to medtech, and global health to employment re-entry,” according to the Hopkins Hub.

Startups include a nonprofit health clinic in East Baltimore (Charm City Clinic), a fruit delivery project (Froots & Co.), a mentorship project for teens with a desire and promise to become physicians (MERIT), and a website that allows people who have been diagnosed with curable STDs to send anonymous emails to their partners to let them know that they should get tested (So They Can Know).

Read the full story at the Hub.