INNO2100 Innovation for Social Justice Impact: Doing Good While Doing Well

This topic explores the creation of value and impact from innovation in a social justice context. Two cultures are at play in the field of social justice innovation: an age-old culture of charity, and a more contemporary culture of entrepreneurial problem solving. Students explore how social entrepreneurs apply an entrepreneurial mindset of innovation, risk taking and large-scale transformation to social justice problem solving with the potential to build business models with a focus on social justice that generate rapid and sustained social impact. Project driven, students will extend on their economic analysis of social justice innovation in practice, by applying practical (social media) interactive tools for story-telling, spreading the word and community building to the development and user-testing of their own social justice innovation.

This topic aims to help students develop a better understanding of the role of the social enterprise and social innovation in creating business opportunities that deliver social justice impact. How can a social venture better solve, 'customer jobs to be done', creating sustainable commercial and social value in the market (product-market fit)? Students will learn how to create and test value propositions and apply early stage product/market development skills, tools and techniques facilitated by a blend of seminars, discussions, cases, readings, video material, and workshop activities.

1. Identify and describe social justice issues in a framework that enables the application of innovation processes to develop solutions
2. Critically analyse examples of social justice innovation, applying knowledge of the key concepts underlying social justice entrepreneurship, innovation and sustainable business models to create impact
3. Apply a variety of tools to design, develop, pitch and evaluate social justice ventures, applying knowledge of the role of stakeholder engagement, management and governance, measurement of success, economics and funding
4. Design strategies to connect and create communities, in order to communicate, design, test, evaluate and pitch a social justice venture, including applying social media and story-telling tools in order to gather feedback and test the value proposition