economic inequality is a huge issue. A recent study found that the worlds 80 wealthiest individuals own as much as the entire worlds poorest 3.5 billion people. The richest 1 percent of the worlds population control half of the worlds total wealth.15 Many individuals, corporations, charities, and government agencies have projects and programs in place to attempt to tackle this and other important global issues such as sustainability, but there are many opportunities to do more.

A grassroots group of university students (YOU) has decided to work together to do their part in making the world a better place. The students are from many different countries, and several of them met at global conferences, through study abroad experiences, or on various Internet groups. Strategic goals of this group include developing skills for both university students and for needy populations, sharing information on existing products and services that promote economic growth and sustainability, and promoting entrepreneurship. Leaders of this group were reviewing some ideas for projects (all with a significant IT component) that they could do to support their strategic goals:

Global Treps: Many people are familiar with the television show called Shark Tank where entrepreneurs (sometimes called treps) present their business ideas to a group of investors or sharks. Several university, high schools, and even elementary schools throughout the world hold unique versions of a shark tank like event. You believe that creating a nonprofit organization with one central mobile-friendly website/application to assist groups in organizing these types of events would spark even more entrepreneurs throughout the world. You would plan to hold several shark tank like events during the term of the project and create a site and applications to help continue developing more global treps. This site/ application would include the following capabilities:

• Provide guidelines and templates for running a shark tank type of event.

• Accept donations from potential investors targeted toward specific schools or organizations wishing to host an event (similar to the popular www.donorschoose.org site where people can fund teachers requests).

• Accept ideas for needed new products or services.

• Provide the ability for organizations to create their own custom site to solicit local participants and sharks, accept applications, and promote the winners as well as losers.

• Research ideas for a mechanism where a certain percentage of all donations and profits earned by contestants are donated back to the Global Treps organization.

• Provide an online version of the events by showing videos of contestants and live reactions of the sharks while also getting live inputs and donations from viewers.

EXERCISE:

1. Prepare a (i) business case and (ii) project charter for the Global Treps project. Assume that the project will take six months to complete, use many volunteer hours, and cost about $130,000 for hardware, software, travel, and labor. Use the business case and project charter templates provided. Be sure to research information on the television show which have been sparked by the need for more successful entrepreneurs. Also visit DonorsChoose.org to see how that site operates and look into steps for forming a non profit organization.