Suraj Patel

Creating a Chicago Booth Social Enterprise Community

Full-Time MBA student Suraj Patel organizes activities centered around social good.

Suraj Patel, a Full-Time MBA student at Chicago Booth, first became interested in working in education as an undergrad at the University of Pennsylvania. While teaching traditional Indian dance to elementary school students in West Philadelphia, he saw a significant disparity in the quality of public education.

"That’s where I first saw how shattered schools could be," said Patel. "As a result, I decided to spend more time looking into public education."

At Booth, Suraj participated in an education-related case competition and later cofounded the Booth Education Industry Group (BoothED). He also helped organize an Education Trek, one of the student-led treks that visit companies in a particular industry or region to see how companies confront real-world challenges.

“We’re all here because we realize that Booth is all about teaching the fundamentals,” Patel said. “They’re not going to have a class on nonprofit tax management, because that’s a very specific skill, whereas understanding general tax strategy or understanding how to read a financial statement, or understanding how to make corporate decisions is a core skill that should be the same when applied in the not-for-profit and for-profit spaces.

"There are tons of people here who are interested in international development, and I’m interested in education, and we are working together to organize a panel on education issues in emerging markets,” said Patel.

Patel took that collaborative spirit on the road in winter 2013, helping organize an industry-exploration trip to meet companies involved in education and education technology. Along with a fellow classmate, he set up visits with companies that facilitate online learning, help set vision for charter schools, and engage communities in advancing education. "We were looking for insights around how they made the decision to get into the space, what challenges they were facing, what role professionals with MBA could play, and where the industry was heading, ," Patel said. Suraj and his classmates took hour-long visits at Khan Academy, Bloomboard, Verbling, Imagine K12, and the KIPP Foundation, among others.