How do we incentivise innovators of all disciplines to solve our biggest social problems? From life-saving drones to mapping rainforests to AI fighting dementia, challenge prizes can enable major breakthroughs.
INTERVIEW: UK foundation Nesta wants to bring social innovation to health, education and the economy. CEO Ravi Gurumurthy on 10-year plans, scaling without losing impact, and why no idea is ‘too laughable or too boring’.
False trade-offs and quick fixes may be appealing during times of fear and uncertainty – but we need to allow for and even embrace the messy reality of multiple approaches if we're to solve today's biggest problems.
Covid-19 presents an opportunity to rethink how we approach social innovation. A tight-knit collaboration between social enterprises and corporations could be the dream team we need.
Innovation lessons of past decades have fallen by the wayside. Challenges offer better value for money, more diversity of approaches, and a means to shape markets ripe for development – and could provide the moonshot advances that society needs.
Greater use of tiered funding, innovation challenges and outcomes finance will help organisations across the impact space “blaze new paths to shape our world for the better”, EVPA Conference delegates told.
Social sector organisations – and those they exist to help – have been deeply shaken by Covid-19. As they tread slowly towards a longed-for recovery phase, Big Issue Invest CEO Danyal Sattar shares what social investors can do now to support them.
Large firms tend to dedicate CSR efforts to tracking and measuring, while their innovation teams focus on growth. It’s time to connect the two – or miss a massive opportunity to drive social impact.
Almost half of social enterprises are led by women, finds the latest German Social Entrepreneurship Monitor. And more than 80% say their product or service is a market first.
