Welcome to Becoming a changemaker! This week, we distinguish between simple, complicated and complex problems. Social innovation takes place in complex systems and complex systems have complex or “wicked” problems, like the kinds of problems the world is trying to tackle right now such as climate change, HIV Aids and other pandemics, poverty and inequality. A complex system has many variables or elements such as different sorts of people, material and rules and those elements of the system are interacting with each other so much that the complexity increases exponentially. So the work of complexity is about bringing yourself into the system, engaging with it, living with it and innovating in yourself as you innovate in that system that you’re working in. You can’t look at the whole system but you can look at more than one piece of it. The more you start to bring in different parts of the systems, you can then start to connect those in ways that they weren’t connected before.
Learning Objectives
- Define what social innovation is
- Distinguish simple, complicated and complex problems
- Describe the characteristics of wicked problems
- Breakdown a given problem by unpacking its complexity
- Assess your peers’ assignments on complexity
Week 1:
Maybe you’re someone that’s wanted to respond to something that moves you.
An issue in your community or in the world around you.
But you felt perhaps you weren’t in the right place or
you weren’t the right person, or that you even knew how to get started.
The group of people in an area called Bridgetown in Cape Town were faced with
the same questions.
Surrounded by drug and gang violence, rife unemployment, and lack of opportunity for
young people.
They established an organization called RLabs,
which started with a question, a sense of urgency, and a hunch.
And has grown into an organization involving thousands of people
across more than 20 countries.
And has transformed Bridgetown into a place of hope and opportunity.
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RLabs is a social enterprise where we use alternative educational methods.
Such as innovation and entrepreneurship to bring about social and economic change.
And on this journey we’ve actually seen people, ordinary citizens,
taking a simple idea and turning it into something significant.
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RLabs wasn’t started by professional social workers, or community organizers,
or members of a formal social movement.
It was just a group of people, creative passionate people,
who looked around themselves.
And saw opportunities that excited them and challenges that concerned them.
To me this is the best definition of the emerging term social innovation.
Ordinary people engaged in the active reimagination and
transformation of the world.
Through this course in social innovation we’ll challenge you to develop
ways of thinking about the complexities of social change.
Ways to find hidden resources around you, using creative and
design thinking to deepen your impact.
And ultimately to organize yourself for action.
We want to get you started in becoming a changemaker.
Connecting these external issues that concern you with the internal impulses,
and inclinations you have to make a difference.Play video starting at :2:4 and follow transcript2:04
This course isn’t meant to be the final statement on social innovation.
It’s designed to help you begin your own journey as a social innovator.
And you can take this journey from wherever you are in your life,
whatever kind of work you do.Play video starting at :2:15 and follow transcript2:15
The social innovation journey may well change your life, but
you don’t have to change your life to get started on it right now.
Now. We hope you’ll enjoy the course.
If you want to join this free course, you can visit this link. You also can discover different course at their link, both free and paid courses.
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Sunny Lan 