Feb 10, 2014 06:40 PM EST By Jaleesa Baulkman, UniversityHerald Reporter

Georgetown University in the District of Columbia has received a $10 million gift for a new center that aims to promote collaboration among students, faculty and the private sector, the Associated Press reported.

The Beeck Center for Social Impact & Innovation, made possible by Georgetown alumna Olga María and her husband, philanthropist Alberto Beeck, seeks to foster innovation and provide a unique skill set to generate concrete, solution-based social change. It will do this by providing a state-of-the-art laboratory to test new ideas and methods from students hoping to solve some of the world's most pressing problems.

"The center is a campus-wide catalyst, coordinator and multiplier, and it will bring together many activities that are going on already," Georgetown Provost Robert Groves, who will serve as the center's executive vice president, said in a statement.

Beeck, director of Virgin Hotels and former president of a Peruvian cement company, told the AP his family's passion is education "and connecting the social sector while also promoting solutions-based government policies."

"I guess it's in our DNA that we need to do something for society," he told The AP. "That plus the fast and the exciting changes that are taking place in the social sector. ... The exponential growth in technology has empowered and connected individuals in ways that we have never seen before."

The Beecks currently have two children studying at Georgetown College - Leticia, who will graduate in 2017, and Matias, a member of the Class of 2015.

While the university currently offers courses and programs that focus on social enterprise, social entrepreneurship and corporate social responsibility in some of its schools, the new center will be open to all Georgetown students.

"I really think that this is going to become an important beacon in Washington, shining a light on the importance of social innovation and putting a focus on the entrepreneurial spirit and approaches in the social sector," says Case, executive-in-residence at the McDonough School's Global Social Enterprise Initiative. "[The Beeck Center] will have great value not just to students, but to faculty and global leaders from all sectors."

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