By Greg McGowan, News Correspondent

Social entrepreneurship has become a fast-growing field of study that has some students taking keen interest. Business administration professor Dennis Shaughnessy presented Monday on the topic and the opportunities it has to offer as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week.
Social enterprise is a business model that aims to alleviate poverty through growing businesses, providing income and employment opportunities and helping in the community. Shaughnessy, who specializes in entrepreneurship and innovation at Northeastern, said he feels it is necessary to educate college students about social entrepreneurship. To mold entrepreneurs who will make a positive impact upon the world’s poverty problem.
This year marks the second Global Entrepreneurship Week. Northeastern is supporting it with lunch, presentations and workshops. Events started Monday and finish on Thursday.
‘My first goal in social entrepreneurship is to show people to do the right thing in business,’ Shaughnessy said.
Shaughnessy said he recognizes an effective social enterprise as having particular elements such as aiming for impact over profit, being innovation sustainable, and having a commitment to evaluation.
With 5.5 billion people in the world currently considered non-affluent and, of those, noted Shaughnessy said, 1 billion living off of one dollar per day or less, the need for social entrepreneurship is widespread.
Increased interest in this area of study at Northeastern has been highlighted by the fact that participation in the school’s program has grown from 10 students when it started only a few years ago, to about 200 students. To accompany classroom education in the social enterprise program, students go abroad to get hands-on experience in some of the world’s most impoverished areas.
‘The reality is students want to go to developing countries. They want to step into Africa and experience that absolute poverty,’ Shaughnessy said.
Shaughnessy said students have typically had positive reactions in being able to experience first-hand the living conditions in poor areas. While the greatest need for social enterprise is in Africa, Shaughnessy said it can be found in any region of the world. He hopes the program will travel to India in 2011.
A group of more than 20 undergraduate and graduate students as well as interested potential future social entrepreneurs attended the presentation. Shaughnessy accompanied the lecture with testimonials from his students, who shared their abroad experiences. He opened things up to the engaged crowd who had plenty of questions regarding the topic.
‘I wanted to see how business can be helpful rather than in its sometimes greedy capitalist ways,’ said communication studies major Honor Pope-Lance. Pope-Lance, who said she has an interest in business, is looking to apply to the social entrepreneurship program.