An interview with Desautels lecturer Anita Nowak is featured in the 2019 Academia Report on Social Business, an overview compiled by the YY Foundation of the diverse social business activities that take place at academic institutions around the world.
Every semester, McGill University faculty lecturer Anita Nowak challenges her students to come up with projects for her social entrepreneurship and social innovation class based on a theme that she finds particularly timely and relevant.
For this semester, it was helping Syrian refugees integrate into Canadian society.
When Anita Nowak, GrDip 99, studied in the graduate diploma program of Concordia’s Department of Communication Studies, she says “a whole new world of cultural studies opened up to me.”
Upon graduation, she helped launch the Social Economy Initiative (SEI) at McGill’s Desautels Faculty of Management, serving as its integrating director for two years. The SEI was launched to integrate social entrepreneurship and social innovation into the faculty’s teaching, research and outreach.
Many people are offering help to Syrian refugees after they arrive in Quebec, but students are reaching out to refugees while they remain overseas.
... "We're filling that void," said Anita Nowak.
The Mentor-in-Residence at McGill said the image of Alan Kurdi, the young Syrian boy who drowned trying to make it to Turkey, motivated them to reach out overseas.
Read full article: CTV News, January 5, 2016
What is the wider role of business in society? While it has long been acknowledged that big businesses in particular have a part to play – by virtue of their place in society as well as the people directly affected by their supply chains – just how much of a role and in what capacity is the subject of much debate.
A debate much like the one you’re about to read, between Anita Nowak of McGill University’s Desautels School of Management and Frank Wijen of the Rotterdam School of Management at Erasmus University…
Des milliers d'étudiants de partout dans le monde suivent gratuitement le cours en ligne Social Learning for Social Impact, travaillent en équipe et apprennent à réaliser des initiatives sociales qui auront des retombées. C'est la proposition du MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) de groupe, une première à l'Université McGill.
Read full article: LaPresse, November 10, 2015
The Desautels Faculty of Management launched a world’s first on September 16, coining a new word in the process. According to the people who put the course together, “Social Learning for Social Impact” is the very first GROOC (Group MOOC), a new massive open online course that’s designed to foster social collaboration, interaction and learning.
Le 16 septembre prochain, le début des cours se fera en ligne pour les élèves inscrits au premier « GROOC » (pour Group MOOC) de la faculté de gestion Desautels de McGill. À travers un MOOC (massive open online course, ou cours en ligne ouvert à tous) pour groupes, les professeurs derrière le projet, Henry Mintzberg, Leslie Breitner et Anita Nowak , révolutionnent les codes de la classe traditionnelle pour initier une discussion sur l’initiative sociale.
One June 5, four teams were crowned victors of the 2014 McGill Dobson Cup, the annual start-up competition hosted by the Dobson Centre for Entrepreneurship at the Desautels Faculty of Management. The Centre provides resources and support to all entrepreneurs across McGill and Montreal communities.
One year after a runaway train transporting oil plowed through the downtown core of Lac-Mégantic, igniting and razing much of the town’s commercial centre, three McGill University students with a passion for social entrepreneurship have become part of the town’s efforts to rebuild.
