Engaged Learning in MBA Programs: Hands-on Microfinance

Today's students in business schools are increasingly passionate about using their skills to change the world. This paper provides an opportunity to gain a vision for how professors may "juice" their classes by integrating management theory with real world problems. There are a growing number of colleges that seek practical and meaningful ways to get students involved in community service. Increasingly university students want the praxis of learning, in other words they seek the conceptual plus the practical. Often, these ideas are referred to as service learning or action research. They usually consist of a couple months of activities during the semester as pro bono consultants to local government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and so forth. The essence of this paper is the establishing of a new start-up venture with students that continues with the involvement of other students in the future, well beyond a given semester. The idea was to create an ongoing micro-enterprise program that would generates superb learning for current students, and build further in the future from one class to another.