University of Denver
PAE-18: Positive Sustainability Investments

The Daniels College of Business is committed to providing our students with a significant international experience. One type of experience is with program/project work in which students have a chance to engage in a significant project that will take place over a period of time, requiring multiple student visits with each one having a set of goals that build to a final conclusion over several years. This requires each different student group to build on the previous groups’ progress. The first project of this type was in Durress, Albania helping to build a sustainable community in Keneta, one of the poorest areas of the city. The sustainability model used the Millennium Development Goals as an organizing framework. Students were graduate students in International Studies or Daniels College of Business. We partnered with two of the most prominent universities in Albania who supplied students from their business, social studies, and engineering programs to provide the ability to have cross cultural interdisciplinary teams of students taking on projects and conducting community service while in Albania.

In order to understand the context for development and how policy and business intersect, we first visited NY and the United Nations. We also arranged a meeting with Deutsche Bank’s microfinance division because of the growing importance of microfinance in developing countries and in achieving sustainable solutions to poverty and environmental degradation. We met with the Director of DB’s Microfinance Division (Asad Mamood) which controlled a $75 million fund for loans to Microfinance Institutions around the world. After his presentation and Q&A with the students, I told him about our program and our schools commitment to issues of ethics, sustainable development and corporate social responsibility. He was impressed with the student’s knowledge and enthusiasm and the direction of our program.

He asked us if we would be interested in being Deutsche Bank’s educational partner in the Microfinance Fund. We have been working with them for several years now and are their sole educational partner. Our student’s take two courses—one in Social Entrepreneurship and Microfinance and another in The Microfinance Project. In the latter, they are given one or more “live” projects to evaluate loan applications or loan performances of MFIs seeking funds from DB. Students interact with DB officers and their project papers are part of the final evaluation process. This year our students are also doing due diligence research on site of the loan applicants. Currently, over Spring break, they are in Cambodia doing research.