Social innovation

The term refers to the process of creating, supporting, and implementing new solutions to problems or needs of interest to society, bringing together the dialogue between institutions in different sectors and of different natures*. Although the basic definition of the concept is not consensual, and different perspectives qualify the term in different ways, there is a general idea that social innovation is a product of society, which creatively faces its challenges through people, with their multiple and various skills.

Often confused with technological innovation, social innovation does not depend on the use of new technologies [industry, information, production]. On the contrary, many innovations were built without any type of resource or technological apparatus, such as, for example, participatory public budgets or environmental clean-up efforts conducted in different cities around the globe.

Social innovation happens and can happen in different fields of knowledge and social action (in the economy, in the environment, in politics, engineering, etc.), mobilizing different individuals or groups from a given community to seek solutions to problems or issues that affect them directly or indirectly.

Social innovation: the creativity of young people in solving local issues

Samsung Solve for Tomorrow encourages social innovation, recognizing the creativity and desire for change characteristic of youth as powers for creating and developing solutions that can positively impact the local community and inspire and mobilize other actions, on a global scale.

*The term was formally coined in 2003 by the Stanford University Graduate School of Management in California, in the launch edition of the academic journal Stanford Social Innovation Review.