Fostering connections to advance social innovation

“Connections” is the word that stands out when I think about the recent gathering of the Global Agenda Council on Social Innovation in Dubai, where we discussed ways to advance social innovation.

Our discussions touched on inspiring ideas and approaches being put to use to affect positive social change, including work being done by social entrepreneurs, use of innovative technologies, creation of unusual partnerships, governments embracing policies that promote social innovation and citizen-led movements from around the world. Yet, in every conversation, there remained a key question: How do we take these innovations to a scale where they can meaningfully address the magnitude of challenges that face society today?

Discussions on scale and broad-based change kept bringing us back to the need for fostering critical connections – between people, organizations and systems. We need innovators to be connected to like-minded peers and communities as well as to partners who can help advance the scale-up or replication of their innovations. We need different types of capital including philanthropy, development finance and commercial finance to come in at varying stages of supporting and scaling social innovations. And for this, there is a need for custodians of such capital to come together and engage to better understand the others’ language, interests and strengths and to identify complementary roles for each other.

Many different actors including the private sector, government, civil society and communities have the opportunity to work together and leverage their complementary strengths. Opportunities exist to combine new tools such as social media with the wisdom of the past to design and deliver solutions. Tools such as the Internet and widespread social networks provide us with an unprecedented opportunity to enable faster knowledge exchange, replication of best practices and partnerships across geographies.

Over the next two years, the Global Agenda Council on Social Innovation will identify, define and foster some of these connections.

Lasting social change will not happen one person at a time; it will need shared knowledge and collaborative action among individuals, organizations and systems. It will demand fostering the right connections.

Author: Manju George is Co-Founder and Vice-President of Intellecap, India, and a Member of the Global Agenda Council on Social Innovation.

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