The University of California at Berkeley's 10th annual Global Social Venture Competition (GSVC) awarded $45,000 to social ventures that provide public benefit.

The competition recognized and provided funding for sustainable brick building, drug anti-counterfeit solutions, recycled solar mirrors from unexpected sources, and therapeutic video games.

Founded in 1999 by five Berkeley students, the competition achieved a record high of over 300 plans from more than 100 universities worldwide. Each participating team from accredited universities is required to have at least one MBA student serving on its management team. The GSVC looks for ventures that focus on triple bottom line results, which implies not only financial, but also social profit.

The winner of the $25,000 top prize was the EcoFaeBrick team, hailing from the Prasetiya Mulya Business School in Indonesia. EcoFaeBrick will be producing bricks from cow dung, rather than firewood and clay. Their business plan is intended to reduce rural construction costs in developing areas of Indonesia.

In a speedily developing area such as Godean and Sayegan, where EcoFaeBrick has chosen to concentrate its efforts, cow dung is plentiful due to the high concentration of cattle farming. The accessibility and availability of dung would allow for the potential production of methane biogas to power kilns which would be used to produce the bricks, highlighting the sustainability of this venture.

mPedigree Logistics, from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth University, received second prize ($10,000) for their work towards anti-counterfeit drug solutions with pharmaceutical companies. They have developed a mobile-device-based application that will authenticate drugs in an increasingly hostile environment, as the WHO estimates up to 30 percent of drugs sold in developing countries either have little to no active ingredients or could be dangerously spiked with other chemicals.

Last but far from least, SolarCycle from George Washington University’s School of Business has brought to light an innovation that will produce cheap reflective material from used plastic bags and the interior of metalized chip bags. This material would then be used as a mirror-replacement for solar energy applications; the low production cost allowing it to be effectively deployed in developing countries. The third prize winner ($5,000) could bring about the potential transformation of trash problems in low-income urban Africa to solar-powered cooking and water pasteurization.

The GSVC also has a Social Impact Assessment prize to recognize the team that best demonstrates their project’s social impact in financial terms. This $5,000 prize went to BrightMind Labs from the University of Auckland (NZ), who are working to create electronic games to be used as a tool to meet psychological needs. Its first product is a game intended to teach autistic children to recognize and respond to emotions, and plans to expand to confront issues such as depression, anxiety and post traumatic stress disorder.

Sustainable enterprise continues to be encouraged by new funding from many sources. The GSVC is promoting a new way of thinking to focus on cost-effective solutions and also consider the triple bottom line. This is one of the guidelines of the Natural Step Framework: to work to better meet human needs.