Did you say Social Innovation?
The term social innovation has become well used and well researched in recent years:
“Social innovation is the process of developing and deploying effective solutions to challenging and often systemic social and environmental issues in support of social progress. …”—Sarah A. Soule, Neil Malhotra, Bernadette Clavier, Business Graduate School of Stanford.
“Social innovations are new solutions (products, services, models, markets, processes, etc.) that simultaneously meet a social need (more effectively than existing solutions) and lead to new or improved capabilities and relationships and better use of assets and resources. In other words, social innovations are both good for society and enhance society’s capacity to act.” Social Innovation Community Europe.
“Social innovation refers to the design and implementation of new solutions that imply conceptual, process, product, or organizational change, which ultimately aims to improve the welfare and wellbeing of individuals and communities.” Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
Doesn’t this sound familiar to you? Cooperative and mutual business models are by themselves a social innovation that dates back more than 100 years and are still innovating. They are the proof that they contribute actively to social innovations by deploying effective solutions to enhance society’s capacity to act so they improve the welfare and wellbeing of individuals and communities.
Global Innovation Coop Summit (GICS) has been designed to propel these ideas and allows us to exchange and deepen what cooperatives do best: INNOVATE aiming to build together a more inclusive plural economy.
The hybrid event is scheduled on September 26–27, 2022 from 9am to 5pm local time in Crédit Agricole, Paris. It will address new trends in the fields of social, technological and managerial innovation. By discussing innovative ideas, the Summit aims to inspire, promote and foster the development of cooperative enterprises around the globe.
The registrations for the event are now open. For more information, visit www.globalinnovation.coop. In-person participation is limited to 200 people. It works as a first come first serve basis.
ICA-AP members will get a discount on the registration fee by using the coupon code ICAA-P10 while registering.
“We work together and share all our ideas. We believe in the cooperative business model and the best it has to offer: sharing of wealth and power, inclusion for all genders, an economy based on the well-being of humanity, which respects and preserves the environment. We believe in innovations that will help make it happen” The GICS founders.
