This summer, I interned with the Tamer Center for Social Enterprise at Columbia Business School. Although the center offers a wide range of programs, I mostly engaged in activities of the Tamer Fund for Social Ventures (TFSV). This fund provides seed grants to social ventures that were founded by Columbia University affiliates. I was hoping to be part of this initiative mainly for two reasons:

1. to understand what kind of challenges ventures are facing in the real world, through joining a program that is close to companies; and
2. to see how the Tamer Center could offer support to the ventures to drive their business.

   Although I was lucky enough to join various kinds of projects during my internship, one of the highlights was communication with the ventures. In our portfolio, there are more than 50 ventures that are tackling social problems in different parts of the world and in a variety of fields, such as health care, the environment, and education. To figure out their current situation and the challenges they are facing, I first created a survey and distributed it to the ventures. Looking at the responses, it was very interesting to know the achievements that the ventures have made over the past year and the impacts they have made on communities. At the same time, it turned out that they had a wide range of difficulties to overcome, such as staffing and funding. Although some of them were highly technical, my learnings at Columbia Business School helped me understand their challenges. At CBS, I took an entrepreneurship-related course, in which I built a foundational understanding of a startup business from various perspectives, including finance, people, and culture. Of course, the real challenges the ventures are facing are more complicated and not easy to solve, but this was a precious opportunity for me to connect what I learned in the classroom with the real world.

   The Tamer Center has a broad network of experts and advisors who are willing to support social ventures, leveraging their profound professional experiences. In order to assist with the ventures' problems, I created a report summarizing what the ventures need for their business, which is expected to be shared with the network and create a bridge between the ventures and the advisors to drive the business.

   In addition to this, I was involved with the other activities of TFSV. I maintained internal resources such as an investor database, prepared information to feature the ventures on social media, and facilitated communication with experts to plan workshops in the future. The whole experience offered me a clearer picture of social business, through the lens of social ventures, which I was hoping to gain. Learning the challenges they face was a meaningful opportunity for me, as I believe that these difficulties are something that any size or type of business could have. I look forward to applying what I learned in this internship in my future academic and professional settings.