Through an experimental class at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business that tries to use social media for the public good, a trio of students posted a video to YouTube this spring promoting an organization that hopes to save the lives of millions of prematurely born babies in India and other developing nations by creating an innovative, low-cost baby incubator—and now the video has gone viral, reports the San Jose Mercury News. A version of the students’ video on behalf of the nonprofit organization Embrace will soon be appearing on digital billboards across India, after it was noticed on YouTube by the CEO of India’s first interactive digital billboard company. That instant digital connection from Palo Alto to Mumbai—unthinkable before the era of YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter—is the focus of “The Power of Social Technology,” a new class that Stanford business professor Jennifer Aaker was inspired to teach after watching one of her students launch an effort on the internet to find South Asian bone marrow donors for two friends who were critically ill with leukemia. Enlisting an all-star cast to help teach the course, ranging from entertainer and Twitter apostle MC Hammer to executives with Pixar and the international micro loans organization Kiva, Aaker is trying to make the point that a company can earn a profit and help social change, and that platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube can be powerful tools for that change…
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