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Social Innovation Camp – just do it!
Are you fed up with filling out long grant applications? Tired by theoretical disputes on unrealistic policies? Eager to deal with things that make you feel frustrated? Ready to take action without thinking of problems and barriers that may occur? So make things to make a difference.
The idea
When I first heard about the Social Innovation Camp, I treated it as a reaction to the traditional conferences and policies. All the participants of the Social Innovation Camp start from nothing and use almost only the power of the internet to create their sustainable projects. They decided not to develop long policies, but to directly and quickly deal with things that make them feel frustrated. The idea is to bring together talented software developers, designers and social innovators from the non-profit, commercial and public sector to create effective web-based solutions to real social problems. 
The camp
All the participants are given only 48 hours to create their start-up projects. They hardly know each other before the start of the camp. On the first working day the electricity went down for one hour. Filip Gelacik, one of the organizers, thinks that this is the only hour when they were not staring at their computer screens, but interacting. When I come to interview one of them, I always have the feeling that I interfere with their work, as they seem very much devoted to what they do. They come mostly from Eastern and Central European countries, but there are also people from the Caucasus and Western Europe. The Social Innovation Camp is for the first time international. It was organized in the UK before, but it is the first time that it takes place in Central and Eastern Europe.
The participants
People of different backgrounds and countries. They are geeks, media representatives, academics, bloggers, students, social entrepreneurs, designers, marketing and business experts. What they have in common is conviction, mission and passion, but also a bit of a feeling of risk which pushes them to put themselves on the line. The participants come mostly alone to the camp without really knowing what to expect, so they have to jump directly into the projects. What they do is not a test, it is for real. The websites they create are prototypes of really existing start-ups. The Social Innovation Camp focuses on social impact that's distinct from campaigning, policy or orthodox service delivery.
They come from different backgrounds and build an amazing and chemical mixture of people who want to take part in a real cooking process. This is how Dan McQuillan, the project manager, describes what happens at the camp. Before the show-and-tell presentation of the website prototypes – a presentation of a basic working model for a new venture, Dan is a bit nervous. He cannot do much during the working process, it all goes quite independently from what he could plan, so it is fascinating also for him what he will see in the end. The camp itself is very much self-organized. The only thing created by the camp facilitators is the space and computers. The show and tell pitching competition closes the event. It includes some prizes for the winning ideas which demonstrate the greatest potential to create real change.
Tanya Obushtarova, a journalist from Bulgaria, is interested in social media and online activities which can be directly implemented. Although at the beginning the work seems to her a bit chaotic, she believes that 48 hours is enough to create a social network for parents living alone.
What Cristian Ziliberberg, a psychologist from Moldova, especially appreciates in the camp is the process of creativity. He thinks that future events will no longer be based on traditional trainings, but rather on participation and self-organization of individuals. The Innovation Camp uses all the modern methods of open space and new technologies and approaches to involve participants in a participatory way. Although Cristian also feels the time pressure, he claims that 48 hours is enough to build something that will work later on.
Katalin Oborni from Hungary and Rashad Alioghlu from Azerbaijan work on the same team. They are creating an online space for parents with small children to help them in networking and helping each other. They both believe it can work after the camp, although in Azerbaijan Rashad may have difficulties to implement it immediately.
Zviad Sulaberidze from Georgia is keen on social innovation based on new technologies. He works in the Ministry of Education and is involved in the shaping of the learning process in public schools. Is it possible to create a social network for parents in Georgia? Zviad believes it is, if you do it together. Civil society nowadays needs to be empowered by information and communication technologies. Social Innovation Camp is about helping people to realize their ideas.
Vlad Georgescu characterizes the event as a working camp. He works as a freelancer and designer in Romania. Directly after coming to Bratislava he jumped into the Roadar project, which aims at gathering reports from people on traffic violations. He is fed up with the situation on the roads in Romania, as well as his other team members from Slovenia, Belarus, Poland and Azerbaijan.
The projects
Tymon Kałębasiak comes from Łódź (Poland), where his grandmother still lives. He lives and works in London and can only sometimes visit his grandma, who lives alone after the death of her daughter, Tymon's mother. Tymon wants to create a social network called “Have a go heroes” to use the activism of young people to help the elderly in their everyday life.
Although the generation of elderly is huge and still growing in Poland, it seems to be very much isolated from what is happening in society. Everything is being identified with young people. Tymon wants to use the potential of young people and the internet to help the elderly in simple everyday activities like going for a walk and teaching how to use the TV remote control. He wants to first create a pilot program within a small group and check how it works in order to broaden in to seven other countries. As the problem directly refers to him and his family, he feels very much motivated to take care of the project’s sustainability. The Social Innovation Camp is all about creating the relationships needed to start new projects and giving a helping hand after the Camp to build on what is created.
All the projects and websites created during the camp are based on ideas that could work in more than one country, even if the realities are so different. Dan believes, innovation happens in places you don't expect. That is why you don't need to wait until everything is done. You can be a pioneer!
Use online tools to organise offline change
Project manager Dan McQuillan believes what we especially need nowadays is the creative “hacktivism” that is breaking out as we realise we can "use online tools to organise offline change." The tools that can be used are already there, you don't have to ask for permission. The internet is an open space culture. Of course it has its good and bad sides. It can feed racism, prejudices and victimisation, but the Social Innovation Camp is a very good example of how to develop this open space according to the right values.
Posted in | 23.09.09
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