President Clinton launched the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI-U) in 2007 to engage the next generation of leaders on college campuses around the world. As a member of CGI-U, Semester at Sea made a commitment in 2012 to launch a unique social entrepreneurship program with the goal of empowering students toward social change in order to meet the growing challenges of our interdependent world.
To achieve this commitment, Semester at Sea partnered with the Unreasonable Institute and Stanford’s D. School to create the Unreasonable at Sea program during the Spring 2013 voyage. This program brings together 25 entrepreneurs, 25 world-class mentors, corporate learning partners, and 630 college students to foster a unique learning environment onboard the MV Explorer as it sails around the world for 105 days. While onboard and in-country these entrepreneurs will be working to scale their social enterprises and solutions internationally, taking advice from seasoned entrepreneurs, brainstorming with students and engaging with communities as they travel around the world. The Social Entrepreneurship course teaches students how to innovate and design for the world’s most pressing challenges and allows them to work alongside company founders, learning partners and mentors to gain deeper insight into problem solving. Coupled with the Semester at Sea experience of global comparative education, the program provides unparalleled exposure to real problems in the countries and offers new perspectives on finding solutions.
Each year, CGI-U hosts a meeting where students, youth organizations, topic experts, and celebrities come together to discuss and develop innovative solutions to pressing global challenges. Semester at Sea’s commitment was featured in a video that kicked off one of the large sessions during the 2013 CGI-U in St Louis. In addition, four SAS alumni from the Fall 2012 voyage were sponsored as student representatives. Semester at Sea will continue to build on the success of our commitment and stay involved with the cutting edge work of CGI-U and the hundreds of students who attend each year looking to make positive change in the world.
