Social Innovation: Solving the Society's Most Stubborn Problems

Social innovation essentially means developing innovative solutions to some of the most intractable problems facing the society, such as poverty, unemployment and a sustainable environment. Less than a decade ago, social innovation was a term largely unheard of. However, today it is the buzzword that everyone from politicians to businessmen to young college goers, are keen to use as an answer to the world's thorniest problems.

One main thrust of social innovation is through social entrepreneurship. It strives to arrive at solutions that are entrepreneurial, self-sufficient and economically progressive. Rather than relying on the traditional nonprofit model of financial aid and donations, social innovation promotes responsible ideas that produce profits along with generating maximum benefit for the maximum number of people.

The Nobel peace prize winner Muhammad Yunus is a classic example of an individual who introduced social innovation to the world of finance. He created microfinance banking in Bangladesh, a model that has now been replicated worldwide and is creating livelihoods for millions of poor people. Wendy Kopp, the founder of "Teach for America" is another leading example whose social innovation idea to place thousands of young graduates from eminent universities as teachers in some of the worst schools in the country has made a key difference to the education sector.

However, the path of social innovation through social entrepreneurship is still fraught with challenges. The biggest challenge is not a dearth of innovative ideas, but a lack of speed and scale. Even if a social innovation idea has succeeded extraordinarily well in a particular area, it has not been easy to expand the scope of that idea and make a major difference at a macro level. Successful social innovations tend to spread very slowly.

Another path to social innovation is being taken by some existing companies, which are taking steps to stay competitive by being innovative. For example, Con-way, a $4.3 billion freight transportation and logistics services company, has remained at the forefront of internal sustainability by developing environmentally friendly and innovative ways to reduce overhead costs and help the planet. Similarly, telecommunications giant Nokia has launched a project called Nokia Data Gathering that helps organizations working in remote areas, including some social entrepreneurship ventures, collect data using only phones instead of paper, PDAs or laptops.

While it is hard to imagine a socially oriented and simultaneously innovative company becoming the next Google or Ebay, that doesn't mean that the next big socially innovative thing might not come from within one of these companies. Because these projects often don't receive a lot of attention, one of the best ways to monitor these developments is through the numerous awards ceremonies that do the monitoring for you. 2012 may prove to be a big year for social innovation, and the Justmeans Social Innovation Awards is a good starting place to see what is coming down the road.

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