A shared platform that brings community, university, corporate and government together to brainstorm and test solutions for long pending problems.
Every other industry has a lab to test new ideas. The social sector does not. The Social Innovation Lab is that missing platform, bringing community, university, corporate and government to one table to solve long pending problems together.
The lab runs in two forms, suited to two very different settings.
SEPICA addresses the Social and Environmental Problems of Industries and Communities through Academics. Industry shares its real social and environmental problems, and university students and faculty find and implement solutions. Students get to apply their knowledge on the ground, faculty get live case studies to teach, the university grooms students who command better packages, and social entrepreneurship is encouraged. The model has been implemented by McMaster University in Canada and is under consideration by Indian universities.
SERA stands for Social Entrepreneurship for Rural Advancement. It brings rural youth and village elders together to map their own problems, skills and resources, and design solutions they can run as groups. Elders contribute forgotten, age old practices that often turn out to be answers to today's problems. The solutions are written up as business plans and taken to the village Panchayat for funding under government schemes. SERA Labs have run in three villages in West Bengal and two in Madhya Pradesh.
Many of the social entrepreneurs mentored through the lab have gone on to win innovation awards, and two have been listed in Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia.
Each form of the lab has its own operating model, its own incentives and its own way in.
Universities wishing to start a SEPICA Lab can express interest here.
Helps rural youth redesign sustainable local livelihoods together as climate change and automation erode farming and factory work, keeping communities and ecology intact.
Teaches rural development to rural children, 70 percent practical and 30 percent theory, building a local backbone of professionals to run welfare programmes and earn locally.
A 360 degree system that scores social contribution and awards credits, mobilising youth, institutions and corporates toward volunteering and rewarding responsible action.
Whether you bring funds, a fresh idea, or an unsolved problem from the community you serve, there is a way in.
