Social Innovation
Title: Digital Pioneers
21 March 2008, Netherlands, Social Innovation, Social Entrepreneurship, Social Finance and Philanthropy, Business and SI, Networks and Collaboration, Democracy and Participation, http://www.digitalpioneers.org
Digital Pioneers consists of two projects. 1. Digital Pioneers Fund. This fund lends expertise and financial support to innovative Internet initiatives of small-scale social organisations. Starting in December 2002, the Fund has supported over 120 projects in eleven rounds. 2. Digital Pioneers Academy. The second project is the Digital Pioneers Academy, in which the project leaders of promising initiatives are supported by many (international) experts in writing a financial plan for their project. Digital Pioneer projects play an important role in the involvement of citizens in social developments in communities and in the participation in democracy. Since December 2002 more than 136 projects were selected out of 1000+ applications. The project started from various perspectives: * Independent produced content contributes to opinion making, information provision and participation and should exist next to traditional media and service providers (prosumers); * Lack of business models for civil society projects in public domain of the Internet; * No funding possibilities for grass-roots internet initiatives (public media policy); * Private initiatives can contribute to innovation in public domain (open innovation models). On our website you will find the results of some of the selected projects with their own unique scope, community and technical know-how. We hope that the examples and best practices inspire you to re-use the knowledge and experience of these Digital Pioneers. Stichting Nederland Kennisland has executed this program with financial support of the Ministry responsible for Media Policy in the Netherlands. For any additional information or comments you may contact us at info@digitalepioniers.nl
Title: Social Innovation: what it is, why it matters and how it can be accelerated
20 February 2008, Social Innovation
This report examines how social innovation happens in NGOs, the public sector, movements, networks and markets. Following on from ‘Social Silicon Valleys: a manifesto for social innovation’, ‘Social Innovation’ presents a deeper, extended analysis of the history, the theory and the process, paving a way for social innovation to play an increasingly significant role in society.
Social innovations – new ideas that work to meet pressing unmet needs - are all around us. Examples include distance learning, patient-led healthcare, fair trade, Wikipedia and restorative justice. Many social innovations (from the Open University to laws against age discrimination) were successfully promoted by the Young Foundation in its previous incarnations.
Huge energies - and resources - are devoted to innovation in science and technology. But far less attention has been paid to social innovation, despite pressing needs in fields as diverse as chronic disease and climate change.
This report examines the growing importance of social innovation and how we can improve societies’ capacities to solve their problems.
It looks at the history of great social innovators – from Robert Owen to Wangari Maathai - and at what can be learned from research in related fields, including science and technology, design, social enterprise and public policy.
It makes the case for much more systematic initiatives to tap the ubiquitous intelligence that exists in every society and shows the practical ways in which successful social innovation can be accelerated.
This third edition represents a work in progress and we are grateful to the team at Saïd Business School in Oxford for earlier inputs and for enabling us to share it with the participants in their world forum on social entrepreneurship.
Please click here to download a copy of the report.
Username: nathan.frick
Username: Bud Blackwell
Username: Walter Melton
Username: Gilberto Caldwell
Username: Olga Mcfadden
Title: New ways of doing
15 August 2008, Social Innovation
Social innovation is the new global obsession. It might be a nebulous idea but it has huge potential...
click here to see Yvonne's article in The Guardian.
Title: Honest Brokers: brokering innovation in public services
14 August 2008, Social Innovation, Government and Public Policy, Methods and Tools
Where is the Silicon Valley for public services in Britain?
Highly innovative sectors of the economy benefit from an infrastructure of science and innovation parks, business incubators, R&D labs and the like. What would the equivalent infrastructure look like to support innovation that tackled chronic disease, youth crime, climate change or teenage pregnancy?
This booklet explores the role of innovation brokers in public services. It looks at what they are, what they do, and why they might be needed to support innovation in public services. In particular, it looks at how they broker knowledge and relationships between innovators with ideas, managers and commissioners looking for solutions, investors and policy makers.
The emerging market of innovation brokers working in public services is a fragile underdeveloped market of SMEs that could be damaged by unhelpful policy making. We recommend that Government seeks to create propitious market conditions for innovation intermediaries working in public services - just as it has encouraged innovation intermediaries in hi-tec, high innovation, commercial sectors.
Download Honest Brokers here: http://www.innovation-unit.co.uk/images/stories/honest_brokers_final.pdf
Username: AndresRoberts
