Call for Projects - Impact Journalism Day 2014 by Sparknews
Your project offers concrete solutions to the pressing challenges of the day? Impact Journalism Day by Sparknews: your story showcased in our newspaper and 40 newspapers throughout the world, reaching 100 million people.
As a Canadian, mother, gen Y-er, kinesiology graduate, and consultant in the social innovation space, my perspective on the potential for wellness throughout this country is one of hope. I have been inspired by the blending of social entrepreneurship and health, inclusive of sport, nutrition, wellness, and more, to delve into the emerging field of social innovation.
Do you want to learn about the innovative ideas and programs that are helping Canadians become healthier and more active? Do you have ideas for encouraging healthy living in Canada?
In Europe, millions of people don’t have access to essential products and services. What can YOU do to address this challenge and generate big impact?
Are you a social entrepreneur or a social-mission organization?
(Editor's note: This post originally appeared on Forbes.com)
Scaling up innovation is rarely as simple as investing in a company. The best social innovations aren’t companies – rather they are social movements, coalitions co-created by businesses, social sector organisations and governments working together.
But how do you fund and scale up a movement?
Blue Wing changemakers, like Asher Hasan, offer innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing social problems. They are ambitious, visionary, and inspiring. They’ve done more than tackle major issues: they’ve proven that with persistence comes positive, lasting change.
(Editor's note: This post originally appeared on Forbes.com, photo credit: Editions Diateino)
We are entering an Age of Complexity characterized by intensified economic unpredictability, tectonic demographic and technological shifts, and accelerating resource scarcity. Adversity has become the New Normal. When you face adversity you either throw in the towel quickly or keep on fighting the issue. But what if you could transcend this “fight-or-flight” reaction and uncover a third way that could empower you to see adversity as an opportunity for personal and collective growth?
Omayma was paying for a crime she didn’t commit.
After taking out a loan to finance her sister’s trousseax, her father convinced Omayma to sign as a guarantor claiming it was “just a formality.” When he passed away, Omayma was left responsible to pay the price.
Unable to pay back her father’s E£ 7000 (about $1,140), Omayma was sentenced to three years in prison. “He has always been lucky,” Omayma said. “He died and left me the bill to pay – it cost me my freedom and my children too.
The Brock Niagara Penguins is the only sports club of its kind in the Niagara, Ontario region that enables disabled youth and adults to come together and achieve active, healthy living. Penguins offers three programs for para-athletes: swimming, a wheelchair basketball team, and bocce ball.
Every year, road accidents create an estimated 2 percent loss in GDP by affecting workforce members and placing added pressure on the health care system. According to the World Health Organisation, there are 1.24 million road traffic deaths worldwide with 130,000 occurring in India, the country with the worst road traffic accident rate worldwide.
Ashoka and The MasterCard Foundation have partnered to bring the third webinar in the Future Forward series featuring youth and innovators, Ashoka Fellows selected in partnership with The MasterCard Foundation to discuss creating solutions by redefining jobs for youth in Africa.
Panelists:
Fred Ouko, Founder and Executive Director of Action Network for the Disabled (ANDY), Kenya
«Σα βγεις στον πηγαιμό για την Ιθάκη,
να εύχεσαι να’ναι μακρύς ο δρόμος,
γεμάτος περιπέτειες, γεμάτος γνώσεις.»
Κωνσταντίνος Π. Καβάφης
Αθήνα - 12 Μαρτίου 2014 – Η διαδικασία υποβολής συμμετοχών άνοιξε για το “Destination: Change. New Solutions for Greece.”, ένα διαγωνισμό που φιλοξενείται από την online πλατφόρμα των Ashoka Changemakers για να αποτελέσει πηγή, αποκορύφωμα και καταλύτη πρωτοβουλιών που θα φέρουν λύσεις στην Ελληνική κοινωνία.
As you set out for Ithaka
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
- Constantine P. Cavafy
Athens – March 12, 2014 – Entries are now open for “Destination: Change. New Solutions for Greece,” a competition hosted on the online Ashoka Changemakers platform to source, highlight and catalyze new solutions and approaches to problem solving in Greece.
On February 22, The Play Exchange was launched live on CBC. Watch the Honourable Rona Ambrose, Minister of Health, talk about helping Canadians be more active and make healthier choices. Speaking from Ottawa, Minister Ambrose was joined by CBC’s Scott Russell and Canadian Tire President Allan MacDonald in Sochi at the Olympic Winter Games to make the announcement. Watch the broadcast above.
(Editor's note: This post originally appeared on Forbes.com. Welcome desk in main Paris agency for telecommunication services (photo credit : Emmaüs Défi)
Today, over 16% of the population of the European Union lives in poverty and does not have access to several essential products and services. But according to a recent European study from Accenture France, co-creation between the business and social sectors can enable the emergence of hybrid models that are better positioned to meet key societal needs, create new market opportunities, generate public savings and create new jobs.
(Editor's note: This post originally appeared on Forbes.com)
In 2009, in the middle of the economic crisis, Danone CEO Franck Riboud made the following statement: “It is a common sense observation that no living organism can grow and develop in a deprived environment or a desert. It is in a company’s best interests to take good care of its economic and social environment, in one word, its ‘ecosystem.’”
According to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, only 14.3% of women in the country participate in the labor force. Lack of social and financial support and restrictions imposed on access and mobility serve as major obstacles for women who want to pursue fulfilling careers. In this landscape, Sabiha Ghani has been a game changer who has redefined the economic space for women in her community. She has fostered initiative and independence by founding the Women Development Foundation Pakistan (WDFP) which supports hundreds of women in starting their own business ventures.
(Editor's note: This post originally appeared on Forbes.com. Photo credit: peshkova / 123RF Stock Photo)
Last summer, Jennifer Sigler, the Chief Operating Officer at Global Giving, shared with me that her entire staff was reading the Lean Startup by Eric Ries. The idea that a senior manager of a non-profit would have all of her employees read a book about start-up strategy sounded unconventional and fresh. After our meeting, I headed straight to the local bookstore to pick up a copy and quickly realized Jennifer was onto something big.
Many of us tout the fact that a Canadian invented basketball, and that other sports, including hockey and lacrosse, find their roots in Canada. But what do a prosthetic hand, peanut butter, and insulin have in common?
Launched a year ago by Nesta and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Renewable Energy Challenge Prize has a tried and tested winner!
The winning solution exceeds all the technical requirements for the challenge, covers the energy needs for war returnee families and still costs no more than €5,000 per unit.
More widespread participation in the creation of renewable energy will push the UK closer to its low-carbon economy goal, says Valerie Mocker
Last week, consultants Oliver & Ohlbaum published astudy for Google looking at the question of how to define and measure the creative industries. Its diagnosis of the problems in the metrics is in many ways correct.
This year the race to build the critical mass of data needed to revolutionise healthcare will begin, and the UK will be the first to cross the finish line, says Sir John Chisholm
Star Trek’s Tricorder diagnostic device will make a real life appearance in 2014, says Jon Kingsbury 2014 has already been touted as the year of wearable healthcare. By that I mean items of wearable technology that count steps, sleep and calories, allowing the user to upload, analyse and share their own health data. Indeed, I’m wearing a high-tech bracelet now as I write this (and wondering why I haven’t yet achieved my 12,000th step of the day). But I want to predict something more exciting in the world of health technology – that of the Tricorder.
“Women are not making it to the top of any profession anywhere in the world – the numbers tell the story quite clearly,” says Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg in her 2010 TEDx Talk. Sandberg’s advice to women in her New York Times bestseller, “Lean In,” is relevant across the globe: less than half of working-age women worldwide are employed, they are paid less on average than men for the same work, and the chances of rising to the top of a Fortune 500 company are not in a woman’s favor.
(Editor's note: This post originally appeared on Forbes.com)
The breakout year for the social intrapreneur continues. After being recognized as 2014’s most valuable employee last month, the social intrapreneur will now be at the center of an upcoming book by Professor David Grayson (photo) of the Doughty Centre for Corporate Responsibility and co-authors Melody McLaren and Heiko Spitzeck. “Social Intrapreneurism and All that Jazz” is filled with evidence of intrapreneurial social impact, analysis of intrapreneurism and its most distinguishing characteristics, and how all this can be understood in the context of jazz as a comparison.
It might surprise you to learn that chronic diseases are the most significant cause of death and disability worldwide. In fact, three in five Canadians over the age of 20 have at least one chronic disease, such as cancer, diabetes or heart disease. Obesity and being overweight is a huge contributor to chronic diseases. Today, one in four adults in Canada is obese, and a third of all children are already overweight or obese. These are startling numbers. And they relate to a trend that is reversible.
Grow in a disciplined way. Define your story—before someone else does.
“If you have a preconceived notion of good, you cannot be creative,” said Zahra Ebrahim, founder of archiTEXT. “Let go of everything that already is, and design something that truly does not exist.”Armed with this advice, 15 social innovators in a design-thinking workshop led by Ebrahim went to work twisting pipe cleaners and arranging popsicle sticks to prototype new toothbrush designs.Ebrahim compared design thinking to the mindset required for social innovators during her workshop.
(Editor's note: This post originally appeared on Forbes.com)
You can buy a Coca-Cola anywhere in the world, but affordable products that provide essential value like water treatment or lighting often do not reach billions of poor populations around the globe. However, in what is commonly known as the “last mile distribution challenge,“ some social entrepreneurs are providing innovative solutions to make the last mile a first opportunity.
Funeka, an ex-learner turned volunteer at ikamvayouth.org shares her story, Ikamva Youth's innovative model and its impact to date.
"I have been teaching Baptiste Power Yoga for about 15 years and I was on a family vacation here in Kenya in 2006. I saw a group of youth doing handstands. I got out of the car and did handstands with them. That day changed my life," explains Elenson, who saw yoga as a way to create jobs for young people in Kenya.
Every year, the World Economic Forum publishes its Global Gender Gap Report, tracking the world’s progress toward eliminating gender inequality. This year’s report, published in October, included some good news: in the nearly 140 countries counted, more than 90 percent of the divide in health and education has been closed. Still, there remains a huge gender gap in economic participation, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, where men are 60 percent more economically empowered than women.
(Editor's note: This post originally appeared on Forbes.com)
Ten years ago, I met a woman working in the kitchens of my son’s school. Prior to having children, she had been a high flying professional. This, she told me, was the only job she could find with the flexibility she needed to care for her family. After searching for months for something at her level of skill and ability, she felt she had no choice but to “back pedal” on her achievements, earning capacity and future ambitions.
From a young age, he was responsible for the well-being of his family, but Kennedy Odede never felt control of anything, especially his own health. He was growing up in Kibera, Nairobi, immersed in the devastating and ever-changing realities of Africa’s largest urban slum.
(Editor's note: This post originally appeared on Forbes.com. Photo credit: Specialisterne – "People with autism at an IT company")
In a world defined by rapid change, the search for solutions to societal and environmental challenges has become more complex. While market systems have become interconnected and supply chains have become supply webs, public policy and industry norms are not changing as fast. As a result, they are increasingly inadequate tools to govern our societies.
If you want to obtain different results, don’t do the same things. Improve your potential by combining systems that meet skills and strengthen creative gaps. Make the change you want to see as clear as the problem you want to solve.
“We are building a system for management of garbage in communities,” said Gamal Albinsaid, age 24, founder of the social enterprise Garbage Clinical Insurance (CGI).
Before venturing into entrepreneurship, Maria Umar was a full-time teacher at a private school in Pakistan. After she got pregnant, however, she was refused maternity leave and fired. Discovering online work through sites such as Odesk and Elance, Umar began to take on micro online tasks ranging from content writing to social media management before outsourcing them to her nieces, friends and other women in Pakistan. In 2009, she founded her own all-women virtual firm – The Women’s Digital League.
Here you can find the Social&Business Co-Creation Competition Welcome Letter, as well as the Competition Guidelines and Criteria in Greek.
Featuring Kabelo Ramatlhape student of Ashoka Fellow Taddy Blecher's social innovation Maharishi Institute, and a serial entrepreneur in his own right.
"Why do all of us as social entrepreneurs do this work? Because I believe from the bottom of my heart that poverty is simply unnecessary, and that we could end it in our generation—and that’s what we work towards every single day." —Taddy Blecher, Ashoka Fellow and Founder of Maharishi Institute... read more
Editor's Note: This article originally appeared on Forbes.com. Tsega Belachew (@tsepeaces) shares insights on social entrepreneurs paving the path for youth employment solutions in Africa…
It is not easy to be young and in the labor market today. In the midst of economic and political flux, youth face a lot of uncertainty about their future. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), global unemployment is reaching crisis levels at 12.6%. But recent projections from the UN Population Division tell a significant story: the demographic future of the world will be Africa-driven.
Social entrepreneur Mene B. Orits helps Nigerian farmers feed their families, and the rest of the country, while also offering young people and women a means out of poverty.
Ewa Wojkowska has created distribution systems that are giving people in remote areas of Indonesia and other parts of the world, who lack access to electricity and clean water, life-changing technologies such as water filters, solar lights and fuel efficient cookstoves. She is co-founder Kopernik, a Bali-based nonprofit organization that launched a Tech Kiosk initiative in 2012 to support 41 Tech Kiosks across five Indonesian provinces.
Turkish Women’s International Network (TurkishWIN) seeks to inspire and connect female leaders in Turkey and abroad with stories that convey whole hearted stories and inspiration. The goal is simple: utilizing the power of video and the format of TED talks, it provides wings to women’s stories, unleashing the economic power of women by inspiring and connecting them across the homeland and in the Turkish diaspora.
Keeping waste out of landfills? Making health care accessible to all?
“If we hire a woman, she will just leave the company when she gets married or has a child.”
“We want to hire women, but we can’t find women with the right qualifications.”
“We can’t hire women because our men will just harass them.”
The story of how one social entrepreneur in Guatemala, Curt Bowen, is starting a revolution—for farmers, by farmers.
