Global Social Innovation Tour

1. SOCIAL INNOVATION IN SOUTH AFRICA
Dr Lindi van Niekerk
12 November 2014

2. PROMISE OF FREEDOM

3. POVERTY & EMPLOYMENT

4. EDUCATION

5. HEALTH

6. We are continually faced with a series of
great opportunities, that are brilliantly
disguised as insoluble problems
John W Gardner

7. LENS OF SOCIAL INNOVATION IN SOUTH
AFRICA
CORRECTIVE
TRANSFORMATIVE
PARADIGM
PARADIGM
PROBLEMS POSSIBILITIES
GAPS STRENGTHS
SERVICE CO-CREATION
DEVELOPMENT EVOLUTION
PRODUCTS & PROCESSES PATTERNS
EXTERNALIZED INSTITUTIONS INTERNALIZED INSTITUTIONS
Nilsson, Bonnici, Nwosu 2012

8. SOCIAL ENTREPRENEUSHIP IN SA
Shonaquip
employment through empowering those with disabilities
Open Africa
rural jobs & environmental conservation through tourism
Soul City & Heartlines health and values through mass
media communications
Johannesburg Housing Company
affordable low cost housing & building economically active
neighbourhoods
The Hope Factory
creating sustainable livelihoods through business, technical & life
skills
The Big Issue
employment, skills targeting those who are homeless
Cause Activation
Universities
Networks

9. EDUCATION INNOVATION IN SA
Iifa Labantwana Initiative
Ikamva Youth
Tsiba

10. HEALTHCARE INNOVATION IN SA

11. SUPPORT FOR SOCIAL INNOVATION

12. THE UCT BERTHA CENTRE FOR SOCIAL
INNOVATION & ENTREPRENEURSHIP
First academic centre in Africa dedicated to social innovation. We use academia
and on-the-ground action to address needs and pursue a more fair and inclusive
world.
Established in partnership with the Bertha Foundation in 2011.
AIM: Social Impact Catalysts
Key Focus Areas
• Type of Innovation
– Innovative Finance
• Sector & Outcome areas
– Education Innovation
– Inclusive Healthcare innovation
• Models for impact
– Scaling social innovation
• Policy & Ecosystems
through Teaching, Research, Dialogue, Action

13. MISSION VISION
We strive for a fair and just world, in which all people, most notably on the African continent, are united by a sense
of belonging and accountability towards the communities they live in and where all feel empowered to achieve
their full potential
ROLES & VALUES
At the Bertha Centre, we are on a journey towards transformative social innovation and change: We seek to inspire
and challenge individuals, organizations, and systems, to question what is, reimagine what can be, and to get
behind and deliver those solutions that have the potential to transform the world we live in
Pathways to Transformative Innovation & Change
REIMAGINE
systems & solutions
DEMONSTRATE & TEST
new solutions
EMPOWER
agents for change
ADVANCE
systems & solutions
PERSON & COURAGEOUS & COLLABORATIVE CONSIDERATE
COMMUNITY FOCUSED ENTREPRENEURIAL & INCLUSIVE & HUMBLE
KEY ASSETS
ON THE GROUND
in Africa and
communities in need
ACADEMIC RIGOUR
rooted within the
University of Cape Town
DELIVERY CAPACITY
in innovation, programs
& collaboration
NETWORKED
across issue areas, sectors
& geographies
13

14. BERTHA CENTRE ENTREPRENEURSHIP
• Raymond Ackerman Entrepreneurship Academy

15. EDUCATION INNOVATION
Southern Africa Center for Education Innovations – South Africa &
Zambia
-> Change Agents – education practitioners
Focuses on quality education for learners from disadvantages
communities through
1. Identification of new innovations
2. Analyze innovation that works & understand why why
3. Connect stakeholders through dialogue circles & broker
relationships
New focus areas
– Pathways to employment (linked to Philipi)
– Exploring a SIB in ECD

16. INNOVATIVE FINANCE FOR SOCIAL CHANGE
EDUCATION
• Creating an Impact Investing executive education course
• Teaching at UCT’s GSB, Oxford’s Saïd Business School, Central European University
RESEARCH & PUBLICATIONS
• Commissioning series of Impact Investing case studies with Skoll Centre
• Investing for Impact Barometer, Inside | Out magazine, World Economic Forum Impact
Investing publication, Impact Investing Policy Collaboration Global Policy Report, Business
Model Innovation Landscape (South Africa)
• Survey of Southern African Social Enterprise funding needs
DEMONSTRATING FINANCIAL INSTRUMENTS
• Developing an ECD Social Impact Bond Innovation Fund with the Western Cape
Government (funded by LEGO)
• Stakeholder education, feasibility & advisory work (funded by the EU, Flanders Government,
SA National Treasury, Wallace Global Fund)

17. INCLUSIVE HEALTHCARE INNOVATION
Re-imagine Supporting Change Agents Research
HealthInnovationProject.or
g
Demonstrate & Test Public
Sector Innovation

18. SCALING IN ECOSYSTEMS
• Social Franchising Accelerator
• Scale-shift community
• Research
• Policy development

19. SOCIAL INNOVATION HUBS
University-based Hub
Sector-specific Hub
Context-specific Hub

20. POTENTIAL OF SOCIAL INNOVATION
“Difference in a society is not necessarily an obstacle to national reconciliation. To the
contrary, it can be one of its greatest assets. However, when difference and a skewed
distribution of power combine, it is likely to result in inequality and exclusion, which
hampers the broader objectives of a society in which justice is a prerequisite for
reconciliation. Reconciliation requires the building of bridges of understanding
across lines of difference, especially where they have been reinforced by an
unjust distribution of power.” SA Reconcilliation Barometer 2013

21. THANK YOU
Visit our website on www.gsb.uct.ac.za/berthacentre for more information
and join us here for regular updates: