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Sands Institute for Lifelong Learning

Darden's Sands Institute for Lifelong Learning transforms learning through business education innovation, unprecedented faculty support and development, and world-class educational facilities.

Will You Shape (or Be Shaped By) the Future of AI, Blockchain and the Metaverse?

What place do AI, blockchain and the metaverse hold in the future of business? Where does one start to answer such a huge question? Professors Tim Laseter and Dennie Kim offer framing to help forward-thinking business leaders navigate the digital assets of the present and future.

EMPROPAZ: Financial Inclusion in a Refugee Crisis

To ensure that refugees are able to rebuild their lives in dignity and safety, complex challenges must be addressed. By providing microfinancing opportunities, as well as business and self-care education, EMPROPAZ has transformed the lives of Colombian entrepreneurs and Venezuelan migrants, and by extension, host communities across Colombia.

Don’t Fly by the Seat of Your Pants: The Good Way to Deliver Bad News

Communication strategies: Whether an organization is responding to a complaint, communicating about a crisis, or notifying employees about downsizing or a change in policies, individuals need to know how to deliver bad news to internal and external audiences. Leaders must focus on three goals: Convey the news, gain acceptance and maintain goodwill.

Lauren Kaufmann

Kaufmann teaches business ethics in Darden’s full-time and part-time MBA formats. She uses normative and empirical methods in her research on business ethics, including in the areas of social and environmental impact, impact investing and gender.

Outcomes-Based Financing: The Quality Education India Development Impact Bond

Impact bonds are outcomes-based contracts that catalyse funding from “risk investors” to cover upfront working capital to deliver services. To improve the quality of education available for children in India, a goal aligned with the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals, the Quality Education India Development Impact Bond was formed.

5 Ways Digital Technology Is Redefining Competitive Dynamics

Digital technologies have evolved from efficient, convenient tools to be the driving force behind a paradigm shift in competition. Strategy expert Mike Lenox discusses five changes in the landscape business leaders are wise to keep in mind.

Accelerated Learning Program: Expanding Education Access in Ethiopia

As conflict and climate-related disruptions increasingly threaten children’s futures, the Ministry of Education (MOE) in Ethiopia is prioritizing innovative approaches to nonformal education as part of its efforts to expand education access to out-of-school children and has partnered with the Luminos Fund as a public-private partnership changing the world.

Too Many Choices: A Model to Predict Open-Ended Consumer Decisions

New research uses neuroscience to examine how humans make decisions and presents a framework — proven to have startling accuracy — to predict what choices we’ll make under what circumstances. Darden Professor Zhihao Zhang discusses the role memory plays, as well as implications of his groundbreaking research for brand awareness and beyond.

The Haiti Humanitarian Air Bridge: Facilitating Aid

When disaster occurs in conflict-prone regions, the main objective is to create a safe space for the people in the region, usually by evacuating them. When a country is completely cut off, all basic infrastructure and services within the country are down, there is an outbreak of disease, and the government is run over, how do you reach them?