Summer-loving Jake will finally discover winter when he visits campus on January 24, 2009! Why? Because that is when DigitalBridges2.0 and Middlebury College and Life is good Inc to do LIG's first-ever winter festival and launch a new College tradition in the process: the annual MIDDSnowbuddies Festival Series in the process.

We will join Life is good Inc to establish an annual, student-led exercise in social entrepreneurship and civic engagement that offers local and regional folks an opportunity to have fun together in the middle of winter while they help kids in need. All funds raised by the Festival will be donated to the Life is good Foundation.

The Middlebury Solutions Group (MSG), the only undergraduate venture coaching service among US liberal arts colleges, is six years old and delivering on its mission well beyond our most optimistic expectations.

MSG promises to materially reduce time-to-capital, time-to-market and time-to-job-creation. The numbers say we are delivering on that promise and then some:
FORTY-FOUR = the number of MSG client engagements between 2002 and January 2008
THIRTY-FIVE = the number of those clients who have successfully leveraged off of and used what they learned from the experience, raised funding and are operating and growing today.

Dear DB2.0 Community,

I was disappointed to learn that the VP of marketing at one of our clients companies is leaving his job. He is one of the people I respect most in this business and has also become a friend.

Mike has a wealth of experience in technology marketing, ranging from semiconductors to software. Yet I think his greatest asset is not his vast experience but his incisive mind and the way he applies his marketing know-how. I have watched Mike lead numerous meetings and marketing/branding initiatives, and I have always left the experience hoping to emulate him in his calm and confident style, his ability to ask precisely the right question at precisely the right time, and his firm-yet-nurturing way of pushing subordinates to excel.

“I gave up my entire life for the month... but it was worth it”

MiddCORE 2008 is history, and what a ride it was. To a person, mentors and students alike characterized the experience as transformational. Mentors expressed being reengaged with Middlebury College.

Yes, it was an incredible amount of work for all …. a boot camp for sure: five hours in session and group lunches daily; two group dinners with panels weekly; and an avalanche of homework nightly.

Students unanimously characterized MiddCORE as a boot camp experience, rated it as a “5” on a 1-5 scale and want to see it become a regular offering.

HEAL THE RIFT:

Heal the Rift is a student-run, non-profit organization which aims to promote peace and reconciliation between the Muslim World and the West. HTR was founded by four Middlebury students (including one MiddCORE graduate). Two are from the West and two are from the Muslim World. With $10,000 in seed money from the Davis Foundation Projects for Peace program, these social entrepreneurs have moved their organization from Middlebury to New York City to plan and prepare their inaugural event this summer: a public forum/festival entitled "Heal the Rift 2008".

"HTR 2008" will take place in late July in Washington Square Park and will feature high-profile speakers, musical performers, and Olympic athletes from both worlds. By capturing national, if not global, media attention, HTR 2008 will counter-balance the disproportionate amount of negative images of both sides in the public consciousness. HTR's goal is to alleviate the hysteria and suspicion that has been encouraged on both sides and to definitively prove that the "Clash of Civilizations" is pure illusion. People will finally be able to identify a tangible alternative to fringe elements that have regrettably come to characterize our two civilizations. Large-scale attendance and widespread coverage of HTR 2008 will demonstrate mass rejection of the message of radicals on both sides. It will promote a new atmosphere of optimism in relations between both cultures, and put our differences into perspective.

Hey MiddCore aficionados,

A request: please let those students abroad know how or what they can help with. We are more than willing despite all logistical difficulties.

Also, great job on changing the O to Opportunity... The word Organization always did seem somewhat fishy...

Life down here is great. I´m interning at a local socio-political magazine, working for an entrepreneurial consulting firm called Endeavor (the Uruguay branch, many thanks to Sunny Bates), a Sustainable Study Abroad grant, and hanging out in class. It´s a busy life, but it certainly does not hold a candle to the CORE...

Hello Everyone,

We know that this is a little late, but we have finally decided to put our winnings towards Heifer International. Heifer is an organization that is fighting against world hunger by donating farm animals to poverty-stricken families in the third world. What makes this organization unique is the families give-away the offspring of the animal, so the gift keeps giving. We feel that this is a renewable and worthwhile cause to make a donation.
Heifer has won multiple awards for its work. For example, Heifer won Fast Company's Social Capitalist Award at the highest level, which shows how they are promoting social entrepreneurship throughout the world, which we felt truly fits into the vision of the CORE course. Additionally, we liked how this organization fits in with the Beck’s Prime competition as Heifer focuses on a food related mission. We enjoyed this competition and we are excited about the work that our donation will accomplish.