Sarah White's List: Social Innovation

The Centre for Social Impact has completed a report for the NSW Government advising on the proposed Social Impact Bond pilot announced by Premier Kristina Keneally in November last year.

Barefoot Power is a social entrepreneurial business. We design and manufacture technology products specifically for poor people that have the potential to reduce poverty in developing countries.

That old stereotype that Internet users are isolated and anti-social is getting harder and harder to justify. In fact, the latest study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project, aptly titled "The Social Side of the Internet," challenges this notion even further, finding that Internet users are actually more active in voluntary groups and organizations than non-Internet users.

This paper is the first in a series of reports sharing what we’re learning about redesigning social services from the bottomup and top-down. The Australian Centre for Social Innovation exists to identify and support people, methods, and ideas that create social change. We’re in our first year and have designed our initial programme of work to test a range of methods and ideas. One of these methods is a ‘design + policy’ approach to solving social problems. That means, as you’ll soon read, starting with people to co-design, prototype, and scale new kinds of services, systems and supports.

The Global soundmaps project. Sounds from around the world in an online database of soundmaps. The sounds and noise of cities. Hundreds of city sounds recorded from around the world on soundmaps. The website also has series on online mixing desks where you can mix these sounds.

Informal social networking meetups in Brisbane.

"Social Traders is an independent social enterprise development company. We fund research and raise awareness of the potential of social enterprise to deliver innovative and important social outcomes for the community. We support the development of viable social enterprises by improving access to finance and markets."

"The Carlton Primary Community Learning project is an example of one particular attempt to improve outcomes for a disadvantaged community in inner Melbourne providing opportunities for lifelong learning.

The project has established the local primary school as a community hub, where a number of activities and programs take place, designed to enhance the learning opportunities and experiences for Carlton residents, in particular those who dwell on the high rise public housing estate."

"This twelve month research and community development project was undertaken for Carlton Primary School prior to the establishment of a Lifelong Learning Hub. The focus of the research part of the project was on the educational backgrounds and learning needs of the wider school community - that is, parents, grandparents, siblings and others related to the students at the school. The majority of students who attend the school are from Horn of Africa refugee backgrounds and now live in public housing in Carlton. The research investigates the previous educational attainment of a sample of the community, along with a study of what learning opportunities are currently available to residents, which services are already being used, what further needs exist and what barriers prevent residents from engaging in further learning. The report also details the process which was undertaken to bring service providers and not for profit agencies together into an integrated Learning Hub and details some of the difficulties involved in carrying out such a project.
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"Citizens, artists and consumers are no longer powerless and isolated in the face of the content-providing industries: now individuals across many different spheres collaborate, participate and decide"

"The Global Connection Project develops software tools and technologies to increase the power of images to connect, inform, and inspire people to become engaged and responsible global citizens."

"Welcome to the Tokyo HackerSpace! Hacker spaces are community-operated physical places, where people can meet and work on their projects. Tokyo HackerSpace is an open community lab, studio, workbench, sewing circle, machine shop+, where people with common interests in technology, building things, gardening, cooking, science, sewing, digital art, gaming+, can find the space, the like-minded people, and the infrastructure needed for these activities. They are not just project studios, but places where people can get together and make interesting projects, cook, hang out, have barbecues, and watch anime."

Innovation Exchange exists to support innovation in the third sector. Its focus is next practice – innovative solutions to problems we have yet to solve.

Social Innovation Camp is an experiment in creating social innovations for the digital age. We think the web and related technologies hold huge potential to change some pretty fundamental stuff: how people hold those in positions of power accountable; who they rely on to provide the services they need to live healthy, happy lives; or how they make a difference to something that affects them. But for any of this to happen, we have to work out what people really need and start building the technology that can help – which is what Social Innovation Camp is all about.

"The Social Lab is a space where people can develop concepts to address social change"

mySociety is many things! mySociety runs most of the best-known democracy and transparency websites in the UK, sites like TheyWorkForYou and WriteToThem. mySociety is a not-for-profit company that builds websites of a democratic bent for other people, such as the No 10 Downing Street Petitions Website, for the Prime Minister’s Office. mySociety is a community of volunteers and (paid) open source coders.

"Australian Social Innovation Exchange Limited is a non-profit company formed to find better ways of tackling social problems and responding to growing community needs or opportunities.\n\nASIX will devleop as a "network of networks" that links people and organisations interested in, and actively engaged with, social innovation in Australia."