Q3 2019-2020 Activity Update

The Hoffmann Institute has kept busy during the Global Covid-19 crisis, and we would like to share some of our achievements for this quarter of March 2020 to May 2020.

We inaugurated INSEAD’s Covid-19 Response webinar series talking supply chains and inequalities with Professors Mark Stabile and Prashant Yadav.

As a school, we want to lead by example in our actions, initiatives and research. As a PRME (Principles for Responsible Management Education) signatory, our response was featured on the UN PRME website among other top business schools. As of the end of May, we gathered more than twenty thousand participants for 18 webinars. You may view upcoming and past webinars here.

We interviewed front line practitioners to understand how businesses could help in the response.

The Firms’ duty of care, providing medically-verified information to employees, and finding ways to support health systems were some of the things highlighted during these discussions. The valuable insights from all four conversations were summarised in this INSEAD Knowledge piece. We also discussed with our patron, and Chairman of our Advisory Board, Andre Hoffmann, about the relevance of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and what business as a force for good means amidst the global covid-19 crisis.

We joined conversations on Covid-19 and Africa with Positive Planet International, on social INTRApreneurship with Yunus Social Business, on Environmental leadership with Les Echos Responsible Engagement Club, and on the role of Boards in times of crisis with the INSEAD Global Leadership Series.

To discuss the pandemic’s economic and social impacts on the African continent, we participated in a Positive Planet International webinar alongside notably Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Denis Mukwege, and President of Positive Planet International, Jacques Attali. The full recording of the session is available here in French.

We took part in a webinar on intrapreneurship with Yunus Social Business, which highlighted the importance of purpose and sustainability in this time of crisis. The event emphasised on building resilient businesses of the future, capable of solving the global challenges we face.

The Hoffmann Institute supported the second edition of the Club Les Echos - Engagement Responsable with Faurecia CEO Patrick Koller and Suez COO Jean-Marc Boursier to discuss environmental leadership, supporting energy transition and how to preserve the planet.

Barbara Kux (MBA 84J) shared her views from the supervisory board in light of Covid-19 during a webinar that was part of an online series organised by the INSEAD Global Leaders Series Club.

On the student-front, we partnered with the INSEAD COVID-19 innovation competition offering both financial and logistical support.

This student-led initiative, whose founding principle is to turn a Force Majeure into a Force for Good, invited students to form teams to build innovative solutions and tackle the challenges posed during the COVID-19 pandemic, its aftermath, or for the prevention of a similar global health pandemic.

We partnered with the new Product Management in the Digital World class where students developed solutions to amplify the Hoffmann Institute impact.

Students were given the task of creating innovative digital solutions to maximise some of the Hoffmann Institute’s efforts, and had to brainstorm and create prototypes in about six weeks. With inputs from Art Center College of Design exchange students, and experienced Google engineers, the students got to work in Professor Manuel Sosa’s class. We are now looking at ways to implement several of these innovative solutions into INSEAD’s operations.

We celebrated Earth Day’s 50^th anniversary with the results of the Community Impact Challenge.

We marked the Earth Day by realising the potential of INSEAD’s global community. Wanting to turn individual actions into a collective movement with global impact, 2,340 INSEAD alumni, students, faculty and staff from 90 countries signed on to be part of the movement to reduce single-use plastics from our homes and offices. Find out how we did, and explore the data analysis performed by BCG.

With the theme of climate action for Earth Day 2020, we reflected on the impact of this threat, and also on our efforts of sustainability thus far.

We became a member of the United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI) through which INSEAD can share and join forces with 1400 other academic institutions promoting the SDGs.

Some of INSEAD’s recent results from the first Community Impact Challenge were featured on the UNAI website. We will continue to contribute to the UNAI principles by sharing ideas, innovations and solutions with the diverse UNAI network.

We welcomed the first thousand members of our Business and Society LinkedIn page

Thanks to the online community that has been following us, and continues to stay engaged as we bring you our updates regularly!

That is all for this quarter, but do follow us on social media to stay updated! Until then, stay safe and SDG Smart and see you soon!

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