More reasons to enroll early: Save $250 on tuition + 50% off your deposit. Enroll by Oct 31.
Design a sustainable venture around a global challenge in this 2-week program for high school students on Georgetown University’s campus.
One of our most popular courses in 2026, based on enrollment.
Course Description
Choose a global problem that matters to you, then work out how a business or nonprofit could respond. Purpose needs a practical plan.
In this course you will use the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals to examine leadership, business, and social impact. Cases, discussion, guest speakers, and hands-on exercises show how organizations connect strategy with community needs.
Choose a goal, research it, and turn meaningful data into an infographic that explains why it deserves attention. Explore mission, market context, operations, funding, and executive summaries. Each decision asks you to weigh limited resources against competing priorities.
Bring your ideas together in a sustainable business or nonprofit plan. Define the problem and solution, outline implementation, and build five-year projections for revenue, expenses, cash flow, and potential investor returns. Present the proposal and answer questions about feasibility and leadership. The work gives your concern about an issue a plan others can examine.
This two-week course takes place at Georgetown University. The course is available to residential and commuter students. The program is developed by Georgetown University and offered in partnership with Summer Discovery.
What You Will Do
• Connect the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals to business challenges
• Research one global goal and create a data-based infographic
• Analyze how organizations address social and environmental needs
• Draft an executive summary and operating approach
• Build five-year revenue, expense, and cash-flow projections
• Present a sustainable business or nonprofit plan
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the course, students will be able to:
• Explain how selected Sustainable Development Goals relate to organizational strategy
• Develop a practical venture plan with impact and financial considerations
• Present and defend a sustainable business or nonprofit proposal
You’ll leave with your infographic, venture plan, and a certificate of completion.
Why Global Leadership Skills Matter
Global leadership requires students to connect values with execution. The Sustainable Development Goals provide a common vocabulary for issues such as health, education, inequality, climate, and economic opportunity, while business planning tests whether a proposed response is specific and workable.
Research, data communication, and financial projections help students move beyond broad intentions. They learn to define stakeholders, allocate resources, explain tradeoffs, and measure progress. These skills support leadership in business, nonprofits, government, international affairs, and community organizations.
Who Should Attend?
For students who have completed 9th, 10th, 11th, or 12th grade.
If you care about a global issue and want to go beyond describing the problem, this course lets you work through a possible response. Business, sustainability, leadership, and nonprofit interests meet in decisions about people, money, and impact. You’ll collaborate on planning, work with data, and use basic spreadsheet and presentation tools. Explaining financial assumptions is part of showing how your idea could work.
Recommended by More Than 4 out of 5 Students
Based on students surveyed in 2026 about Summer Discovery High School programs at Georgetown University campus.
Your Summer at Georgetown University
The Global Leadership course takes place on Georgetown University’s campus in Washington, D.C., where embassies, international organizations, nonprofits, businesses, and public institutions operate within the same city. That proximity gives students a concrete setting for examining how leaders balance competing interests, communicate across differences, and turn broad goals into decisions with real consequences.
Students learn alongside peers with similar interests, navigate a new environment, and gain independence through everyday choices and responsibilities. Time outside class helps them experience the broader rhythm of university life while considering which issues, communities, and possible directions hold their attention. For families, the program offers a combination of substantive academic exploration, personal growth, and clearer insight into whether leadership, policy, international affairs, business, or social impact may deserve deeper study.
After successfully finishing this course, you will be awarded a certification completion for your accomplishment.
*This is a preview, not what you will receive