SFU President’s Faculty Lecture series: How business can alleviate poverty

Sudheer Gupta, an associate professor at Simon Fraser University’s Beedie School of Business, will share details of a study on how entrepreneurs in developing countries are finding innovative ways to solve some of society’s “most wicked problems,” as part of SFU President’s Faculty Lecture series. The lecture will be held at SFU’s Surrey campus on February 27 at 7 p.m.

Gupta collaborated with Infosys Ltd., a global IT services company based in India, to carry out interviews with dozens of “passionate” entrepreneurs in developing countries over a two-year period. In his lecture, he will share how they are finding innovative solutions and creating sustainable businesses without philanthropic support.

“With the majority of these populations lacking many of life’s basic necessities, their examples provide powerful lessons on the interdependence of business and society, and the need to propagate businesses that foster inclusive growth, and shared prosperity,” says Gupta, who is also director of the Jack Austin Centre for Asia Pacific Business Studies.

The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, along with the Jack Austin Centre and the Beedie School, provided support for the study.

Gupta’s research focuses on innovation and development in emerging markets as well as social responsibility, as it relates to global value chains. He connects research to practice by engaging students in projects and collaborating with industry on joint research.

He also engages broadly with communities through regular public seminars and lectures at the Jack Austin Centre, collaborations with the Asia Pacific Centre—including a project focused on understanding foreign direct investment patterns from China to Canada, and as a board member of the Canada India Business Council, mandated to promote better relations and trade between Canada and India.

Gupta came to SFU in 2005 and has taught at the Surrey campus. He is a former faculty member at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Texas, Austin, and HEC Paris.

The event is free. For more information and to register, visit http://at.sfu.ca/BIymfS