Babson College in Babson Park, Massachusetts, has announced a $10.8 million grant from the Lewis Charitable Foundation to establish an institute to support teaching, research, and outreach in social entrepreneurship.

The Lewis Institute will work to develop leaders, create knowledge, and grow new enterprises to solve global problems in the areas of education, health care, communications and infrastructure, poverty, economic development, security, sustainability, energy, the environment, and quality of life. Components of the institute will include the Lewis Social Venture Seed Fund, the Alan and Harriet Lewis Endowed Chair in Social Entrepreneurship, the Lewis Institute Social Entrepreneurship Student Initiative Award, and an annual conference focused on emerging social entrepreneurship issues.

"The scale, enormity, and globalization of the problems before us today require entrepreneurial solutions," said Babson College president Leonard Schlesinger.�"At Babson, we know more about entrepreneurship than any other educational institution.�Through the Lewis Institute, we can provide the right tools and talent to test out new thinking, new approaches, and new products and services, helping to tackle the toughest problems the world now faces."