Social Innovation and its scalability potential

Considering an ever-changing world where the emergence of new technologies changes the way we deal with everyday situations, it is important to use that knowledge and expertise to start dealing with a long time societal problems. Problems that range from interpersonal treatment to global arrangement.

With our ability to produce and communicate at a growing pace, new problems arise from each new solution, and as a society based on a democratic system, the government displays a critical role to enforce laws and create parameters to be followed so we can be in equal footing. But with possible disabilities from the state, the other agents should front the problems with their abilities. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs), local state representatives, and entrepreneurs collectively can potentially create solutions together.

“Social Innovation is the process and result of innovating in social relations to fulfill unmet needs of the deprived population by means of empowering the affected population” — Frank Moulaert

The power exerted by the politics is equally necessary and frustrating, at the same rate that they help us develop a better path for justice, it's locked behind a bureaucratic wall of validations.

As a society, we aim to better ourselves at varying levels, we want what is better for us and others. As a technology company that has social interests, we aim to use our knowledge for a greater good. Focusing at specific problems at a time, we rally together with people affected by such matters and deliver to them systems to better understand and catalog the problem at hand, giving them opportunities for action at a personal level and helping create awareness with data for a future government action to take place.

As examples of social innovation applied by new technologies, we present two cases that work within the guidelines of public policies and serve as a means to tackle two very poignant issues. The projects are called AmazoniAlerta and Gloria.

AmazoniAlerta:

It is an app that securely and anonymously report cases of land invasion, illegal mining, deforestation, assaults, and killings in the amazon.

The situation in the Amazon rainforest has been critical for a long time now and the prospects are still dire due to lack of information and the sheer size of the area that is affected.

This tool provides a means to try and remedy these problems and creates a map to keep track of these illegal activities. With the blockchain technology behind the stored data, the information is watermarked in such a way to be Indisputable evidence of the sighted occurrence.

With the gathered data, this information can be legally used to inform the public, the media and it helps the government take better-informed decisions to combat the problem, working as a partner to the policymaking.

Check the app out for yourself and get informed here.

Gloria:

Artificial intelligence that was created to support victims of abuse and violence, Gloria helps women fight against oppression. It is a robot that identifies, intervenes, supports, and educates the matters of surrounding violence.

Despite morally agreed principles being widely accepted within our society, cases of violence still occur. There are various policies that were created to combat this issue, but the pressing matter is identifying the victims and aggressors.

The platform is built around three pillars: machine learning, people analytics, and competency management. From each and Avery interaction, the AI will learn and analyze the data to create heat maps. This helps further understand how to develop public policies to prevent violence in society.

Cristina, the creator of the Gloria project, has connections to state department programs such WeAmericas, and understands how the gathering of information is key for decision making.

Learn more about Gloria and how its positively impacting society here.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) published a study on how social innovation approaches can achieve public policy objectives.

Social innovation differs from innovation when we look at its goal and impact for society, design thinking is at the front of it all. Analyzing the process and the actors involved is key for the whole concept of social innovation.

With their studies they talk about social innovation and its development stages, citing the Young Foundation’s innovation spiral (image 1) like a golden rule. These stages are not always sequential and can sometimes overlap, but serves as a guideline to the process, a lengthier explanation is given here.

• Prompt: The spark for action, it can be identifying the problem as well as understanding which questions should be tackled.
• Proposal: Idea generating, the creative method to widen the perspectives on the matter.
• Prototype: Trying out the idea, at the pace necessary to generate measurable data, and with the possibility to adapt and adjust as needed.
• Sustaining: Transforming these applied practices into an everyday common action, becoming part of the structural planning, regarding budgets, teams, and legislations
• Scaling: This part is according to the growth of the practices outside the organization that initially applied it.
• Systemic change: The ultimate goal for social innovation, where it’s no longer an idea for the betterment of society, it is actively doing its set objective and achieving its desired results.

But, for this process to be complete, actions must come from all fronts, and government and public managers are an important part of this puzzle. They must provide the infrastructure, research funds, and trust in companies and projects that intend the betterment of society. Its a long and arduous road, but projects like the ones presented give back to society and are an example of how each individual can contribute to social innovation, how social innovation impacts society, and how public policies can benefit from this whole ordeal.