Ignite Social Innovation

I often come across the question “So, what do you do?” when I am at an event and meeting people for the first time, or catching up with old friends from high school or university.

More often than not, I find myself having to explain the work that I do from the very beginning. It usually begins with providing a basic overview of the terms social innovation and social entrepreneurship, both from the Social Innovation Generation perspective, complemented with the emerging definitions of the terms.

I have also heard the argument that there will come a point in time where the word ‘social’ will no longer be needed in front of the word ‘entrepreneur’ to define ‘social entrepreneur’, as the very definition of ‘entrepreneur’ in itself would have evolved to encompass the ideals and values of a social entrepreneur: an individual focused on social and environmental impact, while maintaining net positive financial returns as well. (Again, this is a very broad definition of social entrepreneurship).

Frances Westley and Nino Antadze also have an interesting perspective on social innovation, social enterprise & social entrepreneurship, in their monograph on social innovation, Making a Difference: Strategies for Scaling Social Innovations for Greater Impact, published by SiG@Waterloo back in March 2009, that helps to put all three terms into context.

However, we still have a long way to go before the terms social innovation and social entrepreneurship, enters into mainstream vocabulary.

That being said, the following video is certainly a great primer if you are not too familiar with social innovation, or if the field of social change has recently piqued your interest.

Above is my colleague Lisa Torjman from SiG@MaRS, delivering a 5-minute talk on social innovation at Ignite Toronto a couple of months ago. This short video highlights what social innovators are interested in. From convergence and complexity theory, to social-ecological resilience and systems design, Lisa does a great job of condensing the complex elements surrounding social innovation, into the Ignite presentation format of only 20 presentation slides, with only 15 seconds allocated to each slide.

And on that note, make sure to mark your calendars for the first-ever Ignite Waterloo event, set to take place at the Waterloo Region Children’s Museum on November 25, 2009.

If you enjoyed Lisa’s presentation above, you will certainly enjoy the roster of exciting speakers and topics that we have lined up for Ignite Waterloo. The Ignite Waterloo presentation that I am personally looking forward to is Simon Clark’s Hacking the ‘hood – Simple ways to turn a neighborhood into a community.

About Ignite Waterloo

Posted via email from Renjie Butalid