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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Innovative Finance: Hacking finance to change the world by University of Cape Town

4.7
stars
132 ratings

About the Course

To address global poverty - do we really not have enough resources or do we not have the right tools to allocate our resources? The tools of finance, when applied correctly, can be an enabler of social and environmental outcomes. This course is designed to give you the ability to build innovative financing strategies that work towards outcomes such as financial inclusion, access to energy, and access to education. The innovative finance process has five key components. It starts with identifying the outcomes you are looking to achieve and next moves on to due diligencing your issue area using techniques like design thinking to make sure you are designing with the end user. Next, you must map all of the resources available for your outcome and then discover opportunities to augment these through business model innovation, multi-stakeholder partnerships, and innovative financial structures. Finally, the last step is to put all of these pieces together to design an innovating financing strategy. Each week dives into a component of the process using examples and real case studies from social entrepreneurs, non-profits, development funders, impact investors, governments, foundations, and more. Over five weeks you’ll learn about new types of revenue creation, financing approaches, business models, and partnerships. By the end of the course, you’ll have the ability to hack finance for social change....

Top reviews

DE

Mar 30, 2021

The course helped me understand innovative ways of financing and provided me with the tools and skills to further develop and apply in my professional career.

MM

May 18, 2020

This course fulfilled my expectations on learning some finance aspects to reach funds for a social enterprise I am heading for. Totally recommended!

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1 - 25 of 51 Reviews for Innovative Finance: Hacking finance to change the world

By David K

•

Sep 14, 2020

This course is just ok. There's somewhat of a deception running through that we're supposed to take it on faith that the cases we studied were successful based on the techniques or approaches we studied. While I liked all the interviews with the social projects, not a minute was spent on showing us the hard data of the results of all the real-life projects we studied. Did they get financed? At what levels? What were the outputs/outcomes? What return did investors get?

Some critical thinking skills development would have been appreciated to make this course more practical.

What are some of the ways to measure social impact? I know it was clearly stated that there's no standardized method but presenting some ways would have been helpful.

Annie is an enthusiastic and clear speaker but her flailing hand/arm gestures are really annoying.

I liked the assignments. They were a tad painful but well worth it to apply the course content and to engage us.

Overall, this is merely an introductory class at best to the subject. Not sure if there's a whole lot to apply to a job or career other than general awareness of the topic and possible sources of funding outside the traditional sources. Thanks!

By María I R R

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Jun 10, 2020

Great course, with quality video materials and clear and practical case studies. It's a great introduction to key concepts in innovative finance.

By AAYUSH M

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Feb 28, 2020

Nice course for understanding the social responsibility as a tool to enhance the financing activities in the current scenerio.

By Kevin P

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Mar 26, 2018

Really enjoyed the course, very interesting content and very practical and relevant. Made it easier to understand the concepts with the constant real life case studies and constantly being showed how they can be applied in real situations in an array of different areas.

Lecturers are really easy to understand and very good.

Overall really happy to have signed up and done the course, will certainly look for more courses offered by the same University/Team in the future.

By Diana T A

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Jun 15, 2020

The course was very well planned and tailored specifically to the topic of innovating financing for social enterprises. I enjoyed the weekly lectures that were professionally produced with succinct and direct-to-the-point information. The resources shared every week were also specific to the goal of the week's learning objectives and deep-dived into areas mentioned during lectures. Great course! I'd consider the University of Cape Town for other courses as well :)

By Ka L L

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Aug 29, 2019

An intensive overview of all innovative finance products suitable for learners from different levels. Thanks for interactive arrangement of professors who gave deep insights about innovative finance from simple concepts and guest speakers showcased their development process of innovative finance products. Practical and inspiring!

It is my first coursera experience and it really inspires me to go further for studies.

By Pat

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Jan 22, 2018

An excellent course to get you started in funding of social initiatives! Due to the project-based learning it is suited for learners of all levels and backgrounds - I can reassure the course will naturally draw your interest, which makes it a really light and unique learning experience.

By Ishara M

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Sep 9, 2019

This course provided a great foundation in innovative finance where core concepts were explained really well and this was supplemented with real-world examples in the form of the interesting case studies. Great work and thank you!

By Vandana T

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May 11, 2020

Was a very informative course. Worth the time spent doing the various assignments. Good content and easy to understand. The case studies give a very good insight into the various possibilities with innovative financing.

By Link y S

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May 23, 2021

It was a very deep experience and learning through agility and focus. The course is so descriptive and minimum difficulty, thanks to my core mentor Aunnie Patton Power and My 2nd Mentor Tsakane Ngoepe

and all mentors.

By Md. R N

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Apr 11, 2019

I really like this course. This course is very useful for person like me who has few ideas but don't know how to get finance and start their dream projects. I highly recommend this course for potential entrepreneurs

By Guillaume G

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May 29, 2018

Great course. The case studies are really good and the step by step design application process is really effective. I now have a something to work with before approaching the government of Maharashtra.

By Dieter E

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Mar 31, 2021

The course helped me understand innovative ways of financing and provided me with the tools and skills to further develop and apply in my professional career.

By Macarena

•

May 19, 2020

This course fulfilled my expectations on learning some finance aspects to reach funds for a social enterprise I am heading for. Totally recommended!

By joseph m

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Aug 29, 2022

The course was a real eye opener in the field of social impact and how to fund the project. very insightful indeed. thank you Coursera and UCT.

By Bianca

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Jun 15, 2020

this was a really great course full of usefull information which i can use for so many things in the business and finance sector.

By Thulani M

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Jun 16, 2020

An amazing course that should be on every business/economics/finance curriculum in this day and age, especially post COVID-19

By Ntuthuko M M

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Nov 17, 2021

I highly recommend the course as it give a much broader understanding in terms of social investment and impact measurement.

By Kelsey L

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Oct 18, 2018

I loved this course! I learned so much about innovative financing and strategy formation around social entrepreneurship.

By Monica M

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Oct 5, 2020

Excellent presenters and content! The case studies were great for concretising concepts.

Engaged peers! Thanks all!

By Md. R I S

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Aug 28, 2020

Very much structured and precise contents. Learned a lot of new concepts. I'm grateful to the team. Thank you!

By Simeon A

•

Nov 3, 2023

Excellent and practical delivery of lessons to help learners grasp the core content in a relatable manner.

By Michellene B

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Jan 9, 2018

I thoroughly enjoyed it, great content and graphics. Thank you for sharing the the knowledge and insight

By Camilo E G

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May 30, 2022

Very well made, I learned a lot about innovative financial models and strategies. highly recommended.

By Mike L

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Sep 27, 2019

Excellent course with good case studies, reference materials and active learners participation.