Time to act for challenges that affect us all. Students, international organizations, civil society organizations, public institutions and corporate companies come together around solutions in imeceLAB. On February 13, we kickstarted our collaboration for a more sustainable future. Stay tuned.
We had a panel on Communicating Social Innovation at Wayfinder Istanbul. Ella Saltmarshe, Co-founder of the Comms Lab, an organization which focuses on purpose in advertising; Filiz Bikmen, Managing Director of Esas Sosyal; and Millie Begovic Radojevic, Innovation Specialist from UNDP Eastern Europe and Central Asia regional office, working with teams across the region to find out new ways of tackling challenging problems. You can watch the whole panel from here.
Leonardo Letelier, the founder of SITAWI, started by making a small public opinion poll: “Are you taking your decisions with your mind or with your heart when it comes to social financing?” He said he took it with the heart of the majority. “Social innovation is bringing these two together. Investing with our brains while helping with our hearts. We need to establish a balance between social impact and financial return. Social innovation is possible at this balance.” You can find more about the speech in this video.
Philippe Martin from European Commission was one of the speakers in A Global Tour of Social Innovation panel. “European Commission has reserved a funding of 4 billion Euros to support different projects under various themes. This way social innovation should aim at reaching different issue areas uncovered by the governments.” said Phillippe Martin. You can watch his speech from here.
Özyeğin social investments CEO Ayla Göksel, gave a speech as part of the Wayfinder Istanbul panel, A Global Tour of Social Innovation. Ayla Göksel: “Social innovation does not only require work hard to solve problems but also require to work hard to ensure that the solution is sustainable. I think there will be more and more casual collaborations for social innovation in the next 10 years.” You can watch the video from here.
James Stauch, Director of the Institute for Community Prosperity at Mount Royal University, who connects students to information, research, tools and networks to help transform students in their communities: “What is the University? I think this is the first time we look at it in the next 10 years, and I think that citizenship awareness in the community will develop more in the community.” Click here to watch James Stauch’s speech in Wayfinder Istanbul.
Kriss Deiglmeier, CEO of Tides Foundation: “Can we solve problems by acting fast enough? The answer is in communities. We need both bottom-up and top-down change. Social innovation needs to be fast. We need to be able to reach innovative people without funding restrictions. We need a comprehensive and collaborative model. All of this can be possible only if we work with social innovation.” Click here to watch the entire video.
Academic and the founder of two social enterprises (Adım Adım and Açık Açık) Itır Erhart said: “I am hopeful for the future thanks to social innovation space. It is important for ecosystem stakeholders to connect with each other. Are we talking about the same thing when we say social innovation?” You can watch Itır Erhart’s speech in Wayfinder Istanbul from here.
Nesta Chief Executive Geoff Mulgan has given a speech on the definition of social innovation in Wayfinder Istanbul. “A problem though, is the huge imbalance in where the world directs its money and its brain power. And this is what we hear about: how do we use the world’s brain power and money to really solve the problems which matters most in the world? How can we have a collective democracy?” You can watch Mulgan‘s speech from here.
Istanbul Wayfinder is convened by Social Innovation Exchange (SIX), hosted by Zorlu Holding, powered by imece, in knowledge partnership with ATÖLYE and S360, and supported by UNDP Istanbul Regional Hub and Brookings Doha Center. Together, we will explore: how do we get to transformational change, such as achieving the SDGs? What more can be done to tackle systemic barriers to systemic change over the next ten years?
Together with Ashoka Turkey, we have mapped social innovation ecosystem in Turkey. You can view the map, where you can find detailed information on organizations in the ecosystem and their partnerships, focus areas and projects.