On 30 May 2019, We4You organized a second social innovation event in Slovenia to present Social Innovation Academy to interested stakeholders. The event was visited by social innovators, business owners, students, successful non-profit owners, and other stakeholders interested in social innovation.

This time, the event was wrapped into the topic of social innovation funding. The interest has been derived from several interviews that our international team had conducted, the  cases we identified and described in details on our website, as well as our upcoming guidebook for impact investors.

Turns out, we made a good decision. Many professionals responded, either interested in the topic themselves, or wanting to share their stories and experience with others. Our own story of how the Academy was initiated and finally funded has complemented their experiences perfectly.

Before we started to talk about financing social innovation, we first explored what social innovation is and also what isn’t. We reviewed some of the world’s most known examples (e.g. Wikipedia, microcredit) and then explored local stories as well. It was indeed inspiring how social innovators are typically able to find solutions to the problems occurring during the process.

Majority of the social innovation event in Slovenia was devoted to the presentation of our work during the project. Attendants got to know about the partnership, objectives, and goals achieved. Together we explored Social Innovation Academy on-line, what it offers, about learning paths one can take, or how can a visitor test their knowledge. Also, a logbook that helps an aspiring entrepreneur to launch and scale his or her vision was accepted with great interest.

After explaining our next planned steps to grow SOCIA (including guidelines for stakeholder groups), we networked a lot. Maybe one of the biggest victories was that we managed to raise awareness of social innovation in Slovenia. Just recently, one of the attendants of our social innovation event in Slovenia wrote to us that he was really touched by the event and is now actively seeking ways to initiate new activities that could lead to social innovation. Of course, we directed him to use our Academy’s platform. 🙂

Learn more at Social Innovation Academy 

If you are interested in social innovation, why not learn more at the Social Innovation Academy, the first fully online management training program focused exclusively on social innovation?

Why the Social Innovation Academy? Social innovation has increasingly come to be perceived as the answer to a rising number of  European societal challenges. While the European authorities, leading academics, policy experts, business people, and activists all agree that social innovation is the key to a better future for Europe and the World; it is extremely difficult for professionals to obtain high-quality training on what social innovation actually offers and, more importantly, how it can be put into practice.

The Social Innovation Academy is aiming to change this situation both in Europe and beyond. If you are interested in keeping up with this project, you can subscribe to our newsletter, become one of our friends or follow us on social media (LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook). We welcome all requests for collaboration here.