Social Innovation – notes, mindmaps and the future.

If you ever get the chance to attend Social Innovation Sydney, I’d highly recommend it.

I attended Social Innovation Start-Up camp earlier in the month and walked away feeling inspired by the people, the discussions and the speakers. So, when #sibsyd was announced, I eagerly registered. Here’s a few notes and thoughts from the day…

The morning started with a talk about Resilience (the topic for the day).

Selena Griffith enlightened us on the many interconnected ways in which resilience overshadows aspects of our day to day earthly lives. Key themes included sustainability, mobility, biodiversity, community, human impact, energy consumption, work, travel, education… the list goes on (glad I had my coffee!).

Here’s the mindmap highlighting some of the key themes:

After a quick location change, leg stretch & coffee run, we broke out into discussion groups.

I joined the discussion on “Changing Education – Games, collaboration, the future” with the ever informative Kate Curruthers. The topics flew around the room at an electric speed. We focused on what’s currently working, what’s wrong with the current model (which I discovered, is a model created at the time of the industrial revolution), what’s changed for today’s studens and as a result – what issues do people have when studying (work commitments etc).

We talked about a few new models which arose. Selena noted that she’s now moving her class discussions to Facebook – genius! (Teachers – stack the odds for engagement in your favour!). There was also mentions of a lack of context for (in particular) HSC students when studying eg. Shakespeare, algebra etc you’re told ‘you’ll need this one day’ but you’re not told why, which results in a lack of engagement (I certainly wished I’d paid more attention in math classes!). So what are the alternatives to traditional teaching methods? Can game theory help students learn in a more engaged fashion? I’m not entirely sure what the solution is, but we know a ‘one size fits all’ doesn’t fit all, so it’s certainly worth investigating.

Here’s my mindmap from that session:

After the first session of talks, my mind was ready for a break (a prime example of the challenges teachers face today – short attention spans!).

Thankfully, it was time for lunch… deliciously catered by one of my favourite Indian restaurants – Maya Da Dhaba, with a generous serving of organic salads.

We then moved on to the afternoon discussions, where we discussed a number of new initiatives in the education sector (to help democratise information) and Luke told us about his new venture SchoolBuy which is a new way of fundraising for schools (when you purchase from selected brands, they will contribute a percentage to your school). Somehow, the topic of seasonality slipped in and we all agreed that Australia needs more seasons (though that would mean we’d have more mid-season sales, so I’m not sure if that’s actually a plus!). After a quick wrap up, the talks continued out the door as we made our way to the Fringe Bar for a quick drink.

I was left with a whirlwind of thoughts about the future of education, the future of our planet and above all, what I/we can do to help.

Which then got me thinking about the products we’d discussed at Social Innovation Start Up camp. My group focused on ‘restaurant food waste’. My original idea was to come up with an industry standard reusable bowl for take away food (similar to Keep Cups). However, after a bit of discussion, I realised that this might not be the best way to reduce restaurant food waste.

So, the topic moved on to composting, education campaigns and a few other tactics to discourage waste (eg. give customers a discount if they finish their meal and/or take it home with them).

I’m still investigating the possible solutions, but if you have any ideas about how we can help restaurants reduce food waste, add your thoughts below!

And… if you’d like to collaborate on this, be sure to contact me!

Thanks,

Mishy

Ps. Hope to see you at the next Social Innovation event!

PPs. Thanks Kate, Michelle & Selena for a great day (and Kim – you were missed!).