Autumn Social Innovation Workshops

Simply put, social innovation is finding new and innovative solutions to existing social problems. These solutions can take the form of new products, services, models, markets or processes. Crucially, social innovation seeks not only to resolve the immediate social problem but also enhances society’s capacity to act in future.

Now in its second year, this initiative of the Building Change Trust, Social Innovation NI, is a cross-sectoral collaboration of organisations who want to see innovation at the heart of solving social problems in Northern Ireland. These are:

• The Building Change Trust (overall coordination)
• NICVA (Social Innovation Workshops)
• Work West (Social Innovation Skills Programme – lead)
• Enterprise North West (Social Innovation Skills Programme)
• Innovate NI (Techies in Residence)

The term ‘Social Innovation’ can be alienating to many people and with these workshops NICVA will hope to demystify the concept showing participants how social innovation is really something anyone can try.  You will hear from participants on the first year of the programme, many of whom accessed seed funding to bring their idea and concept to the next stage. 

There will also be an opportunity to try out one of the key methods involved in social innovation – Design Thinking –  so groups and organisations can see for themselves whether it can help them find new solutions to whatever societal challenges they are passionate about. ‘Design thinking’ is a creative approach to problem solving that starts with the people you’re designing for and ends with new solutions that are tailor made to suit their needs.

We foresee this as the first step on the Social Innovation NI journey with groups and organisations going on to participate in our other Support Projects, but we believe it is equally as worthwhile for those who are just hoping to learn more about Social Innovation, and take those lessons into their own work.

Dates of the workshops are below, click on the links to book a place:  

All seminars will be scheduled for 10.00am - 1.00pm with the exception of Belfast and Derry which will be 3.00pm - 4.30pm