Course overview

The School of Foreign Service Start-Up Studio course helps train and enable top students to create ambitious, entrepreneurial solutions to global challenges. You will work individually or in self-selected teams to identify societal needs and innovative, financially sustainable solutions that fit your long-term passions and life/career goals. 

Working in collaboration with the International Business Diplomacy (IBD) alumni network, you will liaise with individuals inside and outside the university, including other entrepreneurs, engineers, designers, mentors, alums, policy think tanks, potential funders, incubators/studios, regulators and existing institutions (corporate, government, academic, and/or NGO) to move your proposals toward feasible proposals worthy of implementation and investment.

In the course, you will be guided to quickly field-test your ideas, adapt as needed and embrace fast, productive failures that will accelerate your learning and optimize resource allocation. 

Broader, long-term goals of the course include the successful implementation of solutions, the education of global citizen leaders, the further development of Georgetown’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, the strengthening of SFS’ role as the leading institution for innovative answers to global issues and the deepening of its partnerships with top thinkers and institutions around the world.

As part of the course, you will compete to engage in the Global Impact Pitch Competition (GIPC) in the spring. For additional questions, please contact Prof. Dale Murphy or SFS Global Experience Program Director.

Professor information

Professor Dale Murphy teaches in the Landegger Program in International Business Diplomacy (IBD) in the School of Foreign Service (SFS) at Georgetown University. He was the first university-wide Director of Entrepreneurial Programs, starting in 2007, for which he wrote and led a winning $3 million grant proposal to the Kauffman Foundation for Georgetown University. He pioneered the teaching of entrepreneurship within SFS, leading the Colligan-Quinlan Initiative on Entrepreneurship, endowed with $500,000 from two leading SFS alumni in 2002. He leads the SFS Entrepreneurship Initiative with Citi Ventures, sponsor of the annual $20K Global Impact Pitch Competition (GIPC). His students have gone on to found startups ranging from a billion-dollar ‘unicorn’ to an award-winning anti-corruption NGO.

Professor Murphy is an expert in global issues at the juncture of the public and private sectors. His specialties include commercial and social entrepreneurship (with support from the Wallenberg Foundation), and he has worked on international political economy, business-government relations, corporate social responsibility (CSR), business ethics, international relations, democratization and international security. He has led initiatives on the policies and educational practices that support the growth of entrepreneurs in the Middle East (through Harvard University’s Kennedy School affiliate in Dubai), the U.S., Europe, Africa, and South Asia. His students have founded successful for-profit and non-profit ventures around the world.