Social Innovation

In the news article “Social Innovation Park launches book; reveals plans for a lifestyle area” by Alexis Ong on The Straits Times, the article explained about the Social Innovation Park (SIP) which is a non-profit organisation which aims to help develop and nurture social entrepreneurs and SIP's plan to open a farm which was mentioned during the launch of a book: Top 50 Social Innovations Changing Our World. The book elaborated on what social innovation is which refers to an idea or approach that will help create a positive impact for society where examples of social innovation includes the concept of void decks and the Yellow Ribbon Project. Social Innovations are hence an interesting idea that helps social entrepreneurs create a bigger impact on the local community.

Social innovation as defined by Lim & Yeap (2009) refers to innovative practices that are done to help meet a social need. Social innovation practices are usually done by organisations whose primary purpose is to meet a certain social need instead of having its main focus on profit-making. Social innovations are also mostly present in social enterprises which have a double bottom line of addressing its social issue as well as in making profits. Social innovations are often open and collaborative where targeted beneficiaries and the community are able to give their perspective on the problems they face which might not been seen from the perspectives of the social entrepreneurs. Hence, social innovations are made with the beneficiaries and by the beneficiaries which would help to increases the positive impact that the social innovation will bring about (Davies & Simon, 2013). Social innovations also helps to develop a more inclusive society as the disadvantaged groups in Singapore are able to share their problems through social innovations. Social innovation also promotes collaboration practices with other sectors as the combined efforts will help to bring about a more impactful and positive change for the community (Tucker, 2014).

In Singapore, there are initiatives and organisations that helps to promote social innovation. One of the organisations would be the Social Innovation Park (SIP) which is a non-profit organisations that helps to develop social entrepreneurs and innovators to bring about positive change to lives and the community through social innovation. SIP also aims to develop a self-reliant model for developing social entrepreneurs to adopt to aid these social entrepreneurs to bring about a positive impact to the society. SIP has conducted programmes such as The Global Social Innovators Forum which was launched to serve as a platform for social entrepreneurs from the different sectors to share their innovations and to explore how these innovations can help to create a positive impact for the community. SIP also aims to build a network of people to support the collaborative innovations which would help to build a more sustainable and inclusive society (Social Innovation Park, n.d.). Another initiatives to promote social innovation is the ‘Social InnovatorsHack!’. In the hackathon, the participants are exposed to the challenges present in the social sector where they had to find new and innovative solutions through collaborations with other stakeholders to help bring about a positive impact (Social Innovators Hack!, n.d.). The Lien Centre for Social Innovation also helps to promote social innovation in Singapore. The centre aims to start innovative responses to address social needs by building and developing social sector organisations so that they can become more impactful to society through social innovations (Lien Centre for Social Innovation, n.d.).

Some examples of social innovation include the World Toilet Organisation (WTO). WTO aims to empower individuals through education and the building of local marketplace opportunities to help promote the need for safe and clean sanitation facilities present in the communities in the world. WTO shows an example of social innovation as WTO uses a different approach in bringing sanitation facilities to the communities that lack them by providing an international platform where toilet associations, governments and other important stakeholders are able to come together to bring about a collaborative support to bring sanitation facilities to the communities without these facilities (Jacobs, 2013; World Toilet, n.d.). Another example of a social innovation are void decks. Void decks are the spaces found under the Housing and Development Board (HDB) flats as a common space for people of all ages, regardless of race or religion to use to build a more inclusive society. For example, bird corners can be found at some void decks where the elderly residents can come and hang the bird cages up there to listen to the birds chirping while catching up with friends (SG50 Home, 2015).

In conclusion, social innovations are new ideas and approaches that help to address social concerns through collaboration with the targeted beneficiaries and other stakeholders to create a more positive impact to address the social needs of the community. Social innovations are also promoted in Singapore through organisations and initiatives such as the SIP where social innovations ideas are brought to and carried out to help create a more positive change to our society.

References

Davies, A. & Simon, J. (2013). People powered Social Innovation: The Need for Citizen

Engagement. Social Space, 38-43.

Jacobs, M. (2013, May 14). Social innovations: lessons from Singapore, South Korea and

Taiwan. theguardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/social-enterprise-network/2013/may/14/social-innovation-singapore-south-korea-taiwan

Lien Centre for Social Innovation. (n.d.). About us. Retrieved from

https://centres.smu.edu.sg/lien/about-us/

Lim, J. & Yeap, D. (2009, January). Social Innovation. Civil Service College. Retrieved from

https://www.cscollege.gov.sg/Knowledge/Pages/Social-Innovation.aspx

Ong, A. (2016, April 21). Social Innovation Park launches book; reveals plans for a lifestyle

area. The Straits Times. Retrieved from http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/social-innovation-park-launches-book-reveals-plans-for-a-lifestyle-area

SG50 Home. (2015). Uniquely Singapore: Void Decks. Retrieved from

http://www.sg50home.sg/uniquely-singapore-void-decks.html

Social Innovation Park. (n.d.). Home. Retrieved from

http://www.socialinnovationpark.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=135&Itemid=82

Social Innovators Hack!. (n.d.). Events. Retrieved from

http://www.upsingapore.com/events/social-innovators-hack/

Tucker, S. (2014). Social Innovation for Public Service Excellence. Global Centre for Public

Service Excellence.

World Toilet. (n.d.). Our Story. Retrieved from http://worldtoilet.org/who-we-are/our-story/