The DO School
The DO School is an international educational platform offering various educational and executive programs that focus on entrepreneurial, intrapreneurial, and innovation skills to both young entrepreneurs and established organizations.
A central tenet in all programs is the outcome-focused DO School Method, whose four phases endow learners with the resources to conceive, test, refine, and implement idea. By combining a hands-on approach with blended-learning sessions, the institution aims to promote social impact and good business. The organization’s own DO Lab is dedicated to designing new and experimental educational formats to run at the DO School or as part of their clients’ training programs.
As of 2016, the institution operates in four different continents with premises in Berlin and Hamburg, Germany as well as New York City, United States.
Programs
The DO School offers different training programs for emerging social entrepreneurs as well as established organizations. The programs vary in length, focus and target group.
Entrepreneurship for Good Program
The DO School’s Entrepreneurship for Good Program empowers social entrepreneurs to launch their own social ventures. Students (known as Fellows in the context of the Entrepreneurship for Good Program) spend 10 weeks on a DO School campus completing a Challenge set by an organization while working through a curriculum built around the DO School Method for creating and implementing innovation. Previous challengers have included, among others, Messe Berlin and H&M Germany. Challenges focus on areas central to good business and innovation, e.g. sustainability, professional development or bottom billion business. By the end of the 10-week period, the Fellows present a solution to the given Challenge that should be ready to implement. In addition, they should have refined their venture idea and business plan. In the following 10 months of the program, Fellows work on setting up their social enterprises in their home countries, with guidance and support from the DO School team. The school currently accepts up to 80 students per year over four different programs.
Innovation Program
The Innovation Program is a three-week, on-campus program which invites aspiring social entrepreneurs to work on an innovation Challenge set by an organization. Using the DO School Method, Challenge participants co-create a concrete, hands-on solution, with or without involvement from the organizations’ employees. Unlike the Entrepreneurship for Good Program, this compact Challenge format does not involve a venture component during which participants work on launching their own start-up.
DO Camp
The DO Camp is an intensive 5-day workshop during which participants learn to use the DO School Method to take them from ideation to implementation. As of 2016, DO Camps have been announced for New York City, Phnom Penh and Singapore
Intrapreneurship Program
The Intrapreneurship Program is a four-month training program for organizations and their employees. It combines theoretical training sessions with practical work an internal Challenge set by that organization. The Intrapreneurship Program aims to teach employees the entrepreneurial and innovation skills they need to drive innovation within their companies while they simultaneously work on devising a concrete solution to the Challenge.
University Programs
Leading for Impact
Leading for Impact is offered to university students committed to the topic of social impact. The two-phase Program trains students in self-development and entrepreneurial skill. The first edition of Leading for Impact was offered exclusively to University of Oxford students by Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at the Saïd Business School and the DO School. As of 2016, Leading for Impact has also branched out to Tsinghua University in China.
Innovate NYC
Innovate NYC brings together students from 10 universities in New York City. For the program’s first edition, which runs from January 2016 to July 2016, students are asked to find concrete answers to the city’s shortage of workspaces for start-ups and entrepreneurs. Beyond that, the aim of the program consists in equipping students with transferable skills in entrepreneurship and innovation as well as to increase retention rates for at-risk students. The program is offered in collaboration with the Center for Economic Transformation at NYCEDC.
Partners
The DO School holds partnerships with a variety of organizations.
Amongst the DO School’s partners are Newman's Own Foundation, H&M Germany, Messe Berlin, Covestro and the Westerwelle Foundation.