Brown is partnering with the Dell Social Innovation Competition, the leading global student social venture competition, to offer a fellowship to sixteen promising semi-finalists in the Competition. The Semi-Finalist Fellowship is a nine-month program that allows those student semi-finalists to hone their ideas and improve their plans to launch innovative social ventures. The Fellowship will support entrepreneurs with funding to work on their venture during the summer to explore the validity (or flaws) in the assumptions about the applicability and potential for impact of their venture. The fellows will also benefit from utilizing the experiences of the other fellows to foster a vibrant culture of peer learning and support through a five-day Social Entrepreneurship Institute. The Institute will be held at Brown on August 15-19, 2011. In addition, fellows will be provided a rigorous curriculum to synthesize the ideas and experiences about their venture into a formal venture plan that will guide their work toward a launch and compete more effectively for funding from the DSIC and other sources. The program builds on the Swearer Center's extensive experience in building student fellowship programs and communities to advance innovative and effective student initiatives, leadership, and learning.