Our History
After participating in a Wharton International Volunteers Program (WIVP) consulting trip to Cameroon in summer 2004, Valerie Tsai (W ’06) founded Penn International Business Volunteers (PIBV) as an undergraduate counterpart to the MBA organization. Tsai felt that undergraduate students could personally benefit from working with non-governmental organizations in developing countries and also positively impact their clients as well. PIBV was established immediately after her return, in the fall of 2004.
The next summer, a team of twelve students traveled to Guatemala City for PIBV’s first official project, where they consulted for Safe Passage, an NGO that provides educational services to underprivileged children. The team focused on developing a marketing plan for the NGO’s revenue generating hotel and a fundraising strategy. Click here to read more about their trip.
During the 2005-2006 academic year, PIBV expanded to a membership of 25 students. With the additional support, PIBV held its first Wharton Conference on Social Responsibility, titled The Intersection of Private Business with Public Service. Members of the NGO community, government, businesses, and students came together for a day to discuss problems and goals of modern economic development. The event was extremely well-attended by Penn students as well as professionals. Following the success of the 2006 conference, PIBV organized the second annual Wharton Conference on Social Responsibility, titled Investing in Green in the spring of 2007.
PIBV organized its second consulting project in 2006, working with the FUCOHSO, an agricultural NGO in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. Nine students worked on three projects: developing a financial model to reflect potential growth over a five year period, designing a management plan for an agricultural technology training center, and advising rural credit cooperatives on how to best allocate funds.
In the past two years, PIBV has grown tremendously in membership and scope of projects. Over seventy members currently work together in four committees.
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