As far as I can remember there were a total of approximately 52 social innovation projects in Latin America. Labs dealing with social innovation issues and related subjects were set up in Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Bogota and Mexico City... you might want to search the Internet for information relating to the above... Good luck.

Thanks a lot! Very helpful! I'll do my best :)

and several new projects in progress started under Horizon 2020, but you need to google the internet.

best wishes, Ida

Mr Kralj,

I am afraid I cannot  entirely agree with your  take on social innovation. I am  wondering what you mean by "hider productivity". Why is social innovation not innovation, from your viewpoint?

"... undermining social structure of society by attacking its economic foundation" is a mouthful but it says very little without explanation.

Let us deconstruct the term "social innovation" and we arrive at two words, viz., 1) social and 2) innovation. Taking "innovation", anything done for the first time by a person, entity or organization is innovation. An idea introduced to an organization is innovation, and if it produces  meaningful results, it is a good, value-adding innovation. Here is an example: consider this: if you   put out a pail or bucket to collect rain water when it rains, then that act is an innovation  to the issue of harvesting rain water; seen another way the use of that pail is an innovation, if you have not done that before. A supermarket that sells food products close to it's "use  by date" at a low, give-away price  is being innovative because  the less fortunate amongst us or the poor and the dispossessed can  now buy at very low prices,   products that they normally cannot afford.

Recently, my local supermarket, here in the rich country of The Netherlands,  created a "voedeselbank" or foodbank just before Christmas. Customers could buy more durable food products like beans, canned vegetables, jams, spaghetti and other sorts of pasta (that have longer use by or consume by dates) and place them ( i.e., donate) in  boxes placed at the end of the conveyor belt  located at the cashier's desks. These products were aimed at distributing to the less fortunate amongst us, just before Christmas. Now that is innovation, or  to be more direct SOCIAL INNOVATION by a supermarket. The example neatly  brings together the two words "social" and " innovation" and is an interesting example of social innovation.. If a group of people or an organization or interest group get together to help create jobs for the less fortunate amongst us  such as those who have physical or health disabilities and  cannot find employment, we have "social innovation".

All that said, most innovations have  a technological basis but there are social innovations;  let us not forget that in the past, women did not have the right to vote and granting them that right was  a social innovation at that time in history. At a  US company I worked for,  the managers used to have their lunches in the same canteen as others, whilst in a previous company,  that I worked for, the managers had their own restaurants...  The US company was displaying a form of social innovation. I can go on with more examples of social innovation...

"Managing by walking around" is another example of social innovation, in my view as managers leave their plush offices and visit the factory floor, or the engineering labs to find out what is happening and learning what is at play out there. In that way they become aware of problems before they become too big and serious.

Finally,  there is a restaurant in the small town where I live. It is called BrowniesandDownies. I assume you know  what brownies are -- they are cakes made with cocoa or chocolates. Downies? Have you heard of the Down syndrome? (DS or DNS)? DS is a genetic disorder caused by  a disorder in chromosome 21. A person with Down's Syndrome has delays in physical growth, and  display characteristic facial features and are intellectually deficient, with a mental age  of an 8 or 9 year old child or slightly older child. They have difficulty in finding employment due to some form of discrimination.

Brownies&Downies employ people with Down Syndrome as cooks and waiters, thus affording them opportunity to feel useful members of society,  giving them dignity and pride as value-adding human beings, despite their apparent handicaps. What a great idea! My hats off to the innovator.

You can visit www.browniesanddownieswijchen.nl

and see for yourself what I mean.

Brownies&Downies is an extremely good example of social innovation and I am proud to be a resident of a town that values people with Down Syndrome. If you go to the site of the restaurant you can see photos of some of the employees.

I hope everyone reading this will be inspired by the notion of social innovation that is  captured in the restaurant that I refer to. I hope you too will  contribute  in your own way to the realization of social innovation in your village, your town, your country, your continent, however distant you may be from The Netherlands.

Wishing you all a happy, healthy, and successful 2018.

Researchgate may be viewed as a social innovation; Uber, Twitter, Facebook are all social innovations with an underlying technology.

This reference could be of your interest

Social Innovation in Latin America

D Domanski, J Howaldt, A Schröder - Journal of Human …, 2017 - Taylor & Francis

Thank you so much for the information!

Interesting question and discussion.

Since the 1990s, many Latin American countries have developed innovative ways to address social and economic problems by implementing solidarity economies. Latin America took some European lessons but at the same time was a pioneer in providing the solidarity economy with many tools such as the implementation of barter, recovered enterprises, the creation of money for intra- solidarity economy use, and the creation of itinerant craft markets, which were later adopted in many parts of the world, such as Italy, Spain and France. The solidarity economy aimed to integrate people "from below", changing the structures of the current system in favour of the majority and cannot be successfully achieved by a single one-dimensional action, programme or projects but with a consistent strategy of public policies articulated and supported with important resources. It constitutes an emerging, alternative, embryonic, contradictory and transitional socio-economic initiative towards the construction of "another economy"

Thanks a lot to your comments, @ Pablo Baisotti, best wishes,

Joanna

Dear Joanna, How good that he answered this time, since the email that I sent you more than 3 years ago did not have any response at all.

best regards

Yes, @ Pablo Baisotti, sometimes it happans like this... :)

Joanna

ajajajaj, yes...sure :(