ABOUT THE HOT MOMMAS PROJECT

Hot Mommas® Project Mission: To increase self-efficacy in women and girls by providing scalable, global, free access to role models online.

Long Term Vision: To create the world’s largest free and online case study library combining the worlds of social media, curriculum and role models in a real-time, interactive learning community.

What: The Hot Mommas® Project. Don’t be fooled by the name. That is to reach through the noise of today’s social media and grab the attention of students. We mean business, and we have the results, supporters, and accolades to prove it. The Hot Mommas Project is an award-winning women’s leadership program housed at the George Washington University School of Business. The research initiative started in 2002 to fill a gap in the education system: Scalable access to role models, particularly female ones. Thus, our mission is to increase self-efficacy of women and girls across the globe through exposure to role models. To accomplish our mission, we are building the world’s largest women’s case study library to produce not just vignettes, but credible academic tools that can be utilized in a classroom environment.

This is how it works: Women come online to www.HotMommasProject.org, tell their story using our case study wizard, and serve as online/on paper role models by writing their case. From the time the writer clicks “publish,” the case will become part of a library available online for free. Our project takes the case studies a step further by allowing readers to interact with the role model/case protagonist via social media avenues such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. While The Hot Mommas Project has been in existence since 2002, the case competition launched in October and the response has been phenomenal. In the future, we would like to produce case studies (e.g. video) featuring multi-ethnic, multi-generational case protagonists. Our cases are featured in one of the nation’s leading entrepreneurship textbooks, have won a 2006 Coleman Foundation National Case Award, and increase retention of key classroom concepts by 33% in test groups. See our 2010 press release (2009 press release).

Winners of our 2010 contest will be published in a leading Prentice Hall textbook and honored at an April 28th Women in Philanthropy Forum at the George Washington University in Washington, DC. In addition to the top three winners, there is a special financial literacy category sponsored by the Charles Schwab Foundation. Cases which include information on finance, financial literacy, or money management at home or work will be automatically entered into this category in addition to the general judging pool.

Where: We are housed at the George Washington University School of Business and included in the mission of GWSB’s Center for Entrepreneurial Excellence.

When: The 2010 contest runs through January 31, 2010 Eastern Time. Judging will take place February. Click here to access our judging criteria page with key dates.