I, for one, love free learning opportunities. Especially when conventional arenas for learning about entrepreneurship, such as MBA programs, can be prohibitively expensive. Here are some free online courses and content on entrepreneurship that I found especially helpful:
UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and Novo Ed education, an education technology company, have come together to build Philanthropy University, which provides a free online education on social entrepreneurship and innovation to anyone in the world.
The program offers participants the opportunity to earn a certificate in social sector leadership from Berkeley-Haas. So far, over 100,000 students from all over the world have signed up for the courses. You can find more information and sign up for Philanthropy University online classes here.
Stanford University’s “How to Start a Startup”
Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator, created this class on “How to Start a Startup” at Stanford and made it publicly available on YouTube, in a podcast, and on Y Combinator’s website. In this course, Sam leads us through 20 sessions with the likes of startup experts like Peter Thiel, Aaron Levie, and Reid Hoffman to discuss how to come up with ideas and evaluate them, how to get users and grow, how to do sales and marketing, how to hire, how to raise money, company culture, operations and management, business strategy, and more. I highly recommend listening through this class if you’re interested in launching a startup.
There are quite a few other podcasts and iTunes U courses about social entrepreneurship, which I’ll review a bit later. Please let me know what your favorite free learning opportunities are!
Tools for Social Innovators 