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The power of reinvention is the backbone of social entrepreneurship. How do we take something that is seemingly so ordinary, so every day and—with a few little tweaks—change its purpose and use entirely? Or perhaps rethink a product to reach an audience who could not afford it before? Willam Taylor, cofounder of Fast Company magazine, calls this “vuja de” – seeing something you’ve seen every day and looking at it with a fresh perspective to create a whole new future.

Classrooms can be incredible places to achieve this perspective. They give you the space, the resources, and the time to explore, experiment and tinker; to pull something apart and put it back together in an entirely different way. With so many points of view co-mingling, classrooms can be breeding grounds for invention, to set off that ‘aha’ moment when you know you’ve got something big. Think Google, Microsoft, Dell, Teach for America.

Embrace, co-founded by 2008 Echoing Green Fellows Jane Chen and Rahul Panicker, was born from a class assignment at Stanford’s Institute of Design. Incubators can cost thousands of dollars, are usually only available in hospitals, and are not available to many babies who need them in their first hours after birth. With over 20 million babies born premature or with a low-birth weight around the world, the Embrace team recognized the incredible need for a low-cost version and with much research and prototyping, developed one. The Embrace Infant Warmer is a non-electric, miniature sleeping bag that uses a removable wax insert, that when heated, can hold a consistent temperature for four to six hours. By helping premature babies regulate their internal temperatures, the infant warmer gives their vital organs time to develop thus markedly increasing survival rates.

Embrace was featured this past Friday on ABC’s 20/20, as the network launched a year-long series on global health issues in affiliation with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In a recently announced partnership with GE, Embrace will begin distribution of the infant warmer in India next year and expects to save more than 100,000 babies in India and prevent illness for 800,000 more by 2013.

All of this began from a homework assignment.

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