Shining Hope, winner of the 2010 competition

Applications for Dell’s Social Innovation Competition are due February 14th. In conjunction with the University of Texas at Austin, Dell is giving away more than $100,000 in cash prizes to university (undergraduate and graduate) students from around the world with fresh ideas to solve social or environmental problems.

What’s great about this project is that Dell and UT are encouraging students to submit their ideas no matter where they are in the process. If your idea doesn’t include a business plan and you don’t quite know how to scale it or make it financially viable yet, don’t despair. You won’t win first place but you could be one of 30 students selected to receive mentoring and support to improve your idea’s chances of future success.

If you’re not a student, you can browse and vote up others’ ideas here. Be sure to check out the dates, deadlines and official rules over at the Dell Social Innovation website.

Know someone who’s about to receive a diploma, isn’t quite sure how they’re going to use their new degree to change the world, and is in the thick of a job search (or about to be)? Consider giving the graduate a shiny hard copy of the Idealist Guide to Nonprofit Careers!

Staff photo – we love seeing the book in stores!

If you go to college or grad school with the intention of becoming a doctor, an accountant, or a lawyer, it’s fairly clear-cut what you have to do: there are certain associations to join, certain conferences to attend, and certain courses that simply can’t be skipped. But if you want to earn a paycheck while addressing climate change, fighting for human rights, or working on other critical issues, and you think you might want to explore the nonprofit sector…well, the path can be a little more cloudy depending on what information you’ve been able to access so far.

These free books offer useful advice, strategies, and resources for those sorts of people. Written by the staff of Idealist.org and other experts, the books are available in two flavors (one edition for first-time job seekers, the other for sector switchers) and available as free PDFs. But now, if you want a gift for someone to unwrap, you can buy the printed versions from Hundreds of Heads books in independent bookshops or from Amazon, Borders, or Barnes & Noble.

Learn more about how to own (or gift!) a copy of The Idealist Guide to Nonprofit Careers for First-Time Job Seekers or The Idealist Guide to Nonprofit Careers for Sector Switchers.

Congratulations to the Class of 2010!

[This blog entry appeared on an older version of Idealist; any broken links are a result of having re-launched our site in Fall 2010.]

By Flickr user gabofr (Creative Commons)

Microfinance, a model well known for helping out small business owners throughout the world, is now being applied to student loans.

One such initiative, called Vittana (which I learned about through the TBD newsletter), has a premise like Kiva’s—people anywhere in the world can lend any amount they want ($25 is suggested) to the recipient of their choice, and the loan recipient eventually pays back the interest-free loan in full. In the case of Vittana, all of the loan recipients are students, studying a range of subjects from English to law to accounting. Right now, the students are all in Nicaragua, Paraguay, and Peru, where Vittana works with local microlending organizations to select loan recipients and distribute funds.

Another site, UniThrive, is experimenting with the microlending model at Harvard University, where they’ve set up a system for alumni to lend to students, interest-free. And if alumni wish to go beyond financial investment, they can choose to offer career advice and other forms of assistance to students. UniThrive hopes to expand to other schools soon, after its trial period at Harvard.

[This blog entry appeared on an older version of Idealist; any broken links are a result of having re-launched our site in Fall 2010.]