Competing at Wharton to make a social impact

Wharton students are building businesses that give back to the community.

On Friday April 12, the Wharton Social Impact and Private Equity and Venture Capitalist clubs announced the team 1DocWay as the winner of the first annual Social Venture Business Plan Competition. The competition asks students to create a business idea which addresses a global social issue.

1DocWay, comprised of first year Wharton MBA student Samir Malik, Wharton and Engineering graduate Danish Munir and College graduate Mubeen Malik, is a business that acts as an online doctor’s office to connect hospitals to underserved patient populations, such as those who live in rural areas and the elderly.

The winners of the competition received a $3,000 grand prize.

Twenty business plans were submitted in total, and six finalists were selected based on their financial plans, which detail the budget of the projects and how the money will be allocated, along with demonstrated social impact. The finalists included the teams Energize the Chain, Toilets for People, the Social Loan Company, Social Enrichment Partnership Card and Bridging Communities Fund.

According to competition coordinator and Wharton MBA student Jeanne Chen, the idea for the event stemmed from the Wharton Business Plan Competition, an annual seven-month-long competition which recently received $1.65 million from Wharton graduates.

“This [competition] is really the idea that social enterprises are and should be a different track than an average business plan competition,” Chen said. “There isn’t that much support to help social startups to grow. There’s a lot more focus on conventional startups.”

The competition was part of the Social Impact Week organized by Wharton MBA students. The Penn community was invited to celebrate and learn about social impact through a variety of events, including lunches with professors and lectures by guest speakers.

Chen hopes that the winner of the competition will carry out their business plan, but added that the real goal was to spread awareness about social impact.

“This is one opportunity to get people to do something about [social impact] instead of just talking about it,” she said. “We’d love to see this become an institutionalized annual event. We’d love to see this continue and really become part of the annual Wharton landscape.”

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