[Herald Interview]

One way to solve social challenges such as poverty and housing problems is to spread the concept of social innovation, said an international expert on public administration. 

“Social innovation is a new idea which often leads to changes in human behaviors or shifts how resources flow. Ideally, social innovation helps us to tackle the root cause of the problems, instead of just to mitigate symptoms,” said Tim Draimin, the executive director of Social Innovation Generation based in Vancouver, in a recent interview with The Korea Herald.

For over a decade, Draimin has put effort into international nonprofit organizations and the social innovation ecosystem in Canada. In particular, he actively worked on bridging social innovation initiatives among the government, private companies, educational institutes and others.

He visited Seoul last week to give a speech at the 2016 Future Innovation Forum in Seoul, hosted by the Seoul Metropolitan Government under the theme of “A Window to the Future.”

According to Draimin, social innovation is a set of new ideas that help people to tackle challenges such as social and environmental issues. It also helps people to imagine future forms of innovation.

“Generally, business and social organizations we have now were built about half a century ago. Now is the time to challenge ourselves to change our minds,” said Draimin.

He emphasized that partnerships across organizations, sectors and countries can lead to new and better outcomes for citizens, citing Grameen Danone as one such example.

Established in 2006, Grameen Danone is a joint venture between French food product group Danone and Bangladesh’s Nobel prize-winning microfinance organization Grameen Bank. It provides children with key nutrients missing from diets in rural Bangladesh.

“Hiring people in (the) Bangladesh community not only gave social impact in Bangladesh, but also led to new business opportunities and more cash flow to Danone.

“Progressive businesses which want to retain smart employees and improve their relationship with community, should ask this question to themselves: How can we incorporate thinking about community in our project and economic values in our business model?”

Draimin also spoke about government organizations’ role of establishing and promoting cross-sectoral business models through education.

Draimin’s team at SIG is currently running a number of education programs and diploma courses at the University of Waterloo and other educational institutions. Some of the programs are even available online.

“Younger people are generally more open to newer ideas and opportunities represented by social innovations. Young people can learn how to apply innovation principals to existing social problems, that are also applicable in business, government, community and universities,” Draimin said.

“We face a lot of social challenges. In the future, many of these problems will require us to collaborate in order to understand the cultural differences between sectors. It will help us create new architecture of how we collaborate together to solve problems.”

By Kim Da-sol (ddd@herladcorp.com)