Documenting the “Rise of the Reluctant Innovator” by Ken Banks (PopTech 2012)
This publication will fill a much-needed gap in the social innovation/social entrepreneurship market, one which is currently dominated by books which - often at no fault of their own - give the impression that meaningful change is only possible if you’re an MBA, or a geek, or have money or influence, or a carefully laid out five-year master plan, or all five. By highlighting the stories of ten ordinary yet remarkable individuals, and the impact their work is collectively having on hundreds of millions of people around the world, “Rise of the Reluctant Innovator” will show us that anything is possible, planning isn’t everything, and that anyone anywhere can change their world for the better.
Applications are open for OneBeat, a music fellowship and tour which aims to create positive impact through music.
OneBeatSM is an international cultural exchange that celebrates the transformative power of the arts through the creation of original, inventive music, and people-to-people diplomacy. In the fall of 2013, 25 musicians (ages 19-35) from around the world will come together in the U.S. for four weeks to collaboratively write, produce, and perform original music, and develop ways that music can make a positive impact on our local and global communities
OneBeat is a project of Found Sound Nation, an organization founded by 2011 PopTech Social Innovation Fellow Chris Marianetti.
The Truth about Disruptive Development →
By Ken Banks (PopTech 2012)
Yes, we should provide local entrepreneurs and grassroots nonprofits with tools—and where appropriate and requested, expertise—but we shouldn’t develop solutions to problems we don’t understand. We shouldn’t take ownership of a problem that isn’t ours, and we certainly shouldn’t build “solutions” from thousands of miles away and then jump on a plane in search of a home for them.
[…]
Development is at a watershed moment, powered by accessible and affordable liberating technologies and an emerging army of determined, local talent. This local talent is gradually acquiring the skills, resources, and support it needs to take back ownership of many of its problems—problems of which it never took original ownership because those skills and resources were not available. Well, now they are.
FastCo.Exist’s 11 Most Generous Designers includes PopTech fellows Heather Fleming (PopTech 2008) of Catapult Design and Michael Murphy (PopTech 2011) and Alan Ricks of MASS Design Group.
PopTech and the Rockefeller Foundation are proud to announce the call for nominations for a unique joint Fellows program focused on unconventional collaboration.
The Bellagio/PopTech Fellows program will bring together four to six individuals from diverse backgrounds for a two-week immersion residency at the Rockefeller Foundation’s renowned Bellagio Center on the shores of Lake Como, Italy.
This year’s program will focus on building community resilience through the use of data science, visualization, and distributed information technologies. Fellows will explore the extent to which big data and related technology can be used to enhance psychological, social and systemic resilience worldwide. This effort will be creative, interdisciplinary and collaborative – providing an environment where emerging tools, approaches and solutions are viewed as an art as much as a science.
The program is seeking candidates from the fields of data and data visualization, technology, design, art, social and natural sciences, resilience research, and other social domains. A diverse cohort of Fellows will be chosen for their technical and creative excellence and their demonstrated ability to work and think across disciplines.
Candidates may self-nominate or be nominated by someone else. Eligibility details are available on the call for nominations web page.
Know someone who might be a good fit? Nominations will be accepted through March 1, 2013, and can be submitted via the online nomination form.
NPR’s All Tech Considered’s 5 Nerds To Watch In 2013
The list includes 2012 PopTech Social Innovation Fellow Andreas Raptopoulos, founder of Matternet, a network of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to transport medicine and goods in places with poor road infrastructure. Watch his talk.
“We believe, based on our experience, that good behaviors are indeed contagious.”
Daniel Zoughbie created Microclinic International to leverage the power of social network relationships to spread healthy behaviors throughout under-resourced communities.
Underlying MCI’s proposition is a bigger idea regarding how we conceptualize and approach global health. “We’re so accustomed to thinking about health in an individualistic and medicalized way,” said Zoughbie. Too often, this leads to diagnoses and treatments that are provided in isolation of patients’ social context, and a tendency to address the biological rather than social determinants of disease. But MCI, he said, “sees the social context as part of both the problem and the solution.
2012 Social Innovation Fellow Daniel Zoughbie, founder of Microclinic International
Find out more about how we can harness social contagion for social good.
“I think we need to remember that we are more valuable as individuals than the sum of the notes in our pocket.”
Ken Banks recently launched Means of Exchange to look at how everyday technologies can be used to democratize opportunities for economic self-sufficiency, rebuild local communities and promote a return to local resource use.
“If you look across the globe, there are severe inequalities in how people access and use finance.”
As director of the Global Financial Inclusion Initiative at Yale University and Innovations for Poverty Action, Aishwarya Ratan’s goal is to ensure that the financial products, services and tools available to the poor to manage and grow their money are affordable, efficient, secure and welfare-enhancing.
