<p>CHAPEL HILL, N.C. A competition being held this week by North Carolina's public university system pits 31 student-led teams who are presenting business plans for enterprises that would both generate profits and help the needy.</p><p>The first North Carolina Social Business Conference on Thursday promises to boost, if only a little, a hybrid of business and charity getting more attention since the Great Recession highlighted that free markets can't provide all society needs. The competition at North Carolina A&amp;T State University in Greensboro is also a platform for the university system to show off its 17-campus emphasis on pulling concepts out of classrooms and into commerce.</p><p>The teams will be asked to explain how they would build a profit-making enterprise generating cash for purposes such as helping retrain the unemployed or feeding the hungry.</p><p>"We know that students get excited about solving big problems, dreaming big dreams, imagining a world that's different from the one they grew up in. This is blended in this competition with a reality check how are you going to pay for it?" said Leslie Boney, a University of North Carolina system vice president whose job involves finding ways to employ college brainpower outside of campus boundaries. "It's chocolate and peanut butter."</p><p><a href="http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/7be7aa03a27744fda7decc62db4ef710/NC--Social-Business">Keep reading...</a></p><p>Read also:</p><p><a href="http://myfox8.com/2012/09/26/unc-students-shape-businesses-to-fill-social-needs/">UNC students shape businesses to fill social needs</a> (My Fox 8)</p><p>Explore: <a href="http://news.google.com/news/more?pz=1&ned=us&ncl=dNYDBiLu86dqm7Mzy-xNEy4TNJ-8M">19 additional articles.</a></p>