Watson Institute

The world is increasingly faced with pressing social, economic, and environmental threats, from poverty to climate change. We need a new generation graduating with the skills, mindset and experience to find real solutions to these challenges. Watson is a new model of higher education designed to maximize the impact of the next generation. At Watson, promising young leaders from around the world convene in our Institutes to start and advance ventures aimed at alleviating the world’s most urgent problems. The program consists of: 1) Training: award-winning curriculum taught by the world’s foremost social entrepreneurs focused on venture development such as business modeling, fundraising, and scaling; as well as personal development such as confidence, resilience, grit, and creativity. 2) Mentorship: each scholar is matched up with two mentors from the Watson network of 50+ top practitioners in the social impact space who meet up, mentor, advise scholars on a weekly basis over the course of the semester. 3) Community: a highly vetted group of the world’s top young entrepreneurial talent living together lends itself to cross pollination, emergence of new ideas, philosophies, inspiration, and life-long professional partnerships and friendships. Students can come to Watson for one semester, or for the full degree program and receive an accredited Bachelor's degree in Social Entrepreneurship through our collaboration with Lynn University. Watson has graduated 89 alumni from 36 countries who have raised over $13.5 million and have impacted thousands of people around the world or the ventures they have founded/co-founded.