Social Innovation

What About Including Women in Africa's Transformation?

Kristine Pearson | Posted 05.16.2012

Kristine Pearson

South Africa's minister of finance delivered heartfelt remarks, reminding us that there are a billion lives that need to benefit from Africa's transformation. Little did I realize how swiftly and significantly Minister Gordhan's words would touch me.

The Road to Africa 2022

Andrea Coleman | Posted 05.15.2012

Andrea Coleman

How will Africa look in 2022 if we do not enable the whole population to deploy its abundance of home-grown innovation? What will happen if women and men are not able to engage in the development of the continent by innovation, or by any other means?

Bringing About Innovation: Where To Start?

Elianne Ramos | Posted 05.21.2012

Elianne Ramos

How do we inject some excitement into the learning process so that our students fall back in love with it? How do we improve current educational curricula to bring American children of every gender, age group and ethnicity up to par with students in other nations?

Lexicon of Health Care for Africa: M Is for Mobility, T Is for Transport

Andrea Coleman | Posted 05.10.2012

Andrea Coleman

The physical movement of people and services to connect the 70% of people who live in rural Africa with health care is one of the most vital yet neglected aspects of health care on that continent.

Reinventing Your Life: Changing the World Has to Be Fun

Russell C. Smith | Posted 05.08.2012

Russell C. Smith

Art, design, business, and culture have merged. Experiences and products are all about what someone feels. People act or react, attend or purchase, like or follow because they are drawn toward something.

The Hunt for Impact Investments

Maura O'Neill | Posted 04.30.2012

Maura O'Neill

If a boat is financial capital, and deals are the fish, investors want to be floating in a river where the fish are jumping.

Mainstreaming Social Innovation With the Public Sector

Ben Hecht | Posted 04.16.2012

Ben Hecht

When we refer to social innovation, what we really mean is innovation sponsored by the social sector ("social sector innovation"). We're talking about nonprofits created to fill gaps in a terribly broken system.

IDEO.org's Mission to Tackle Global Social Challenges Through Design for All

Rahilla Zafar | Posted 04.10.2012

Rahilla Zafar

One of the big differences in the human-centered design approach is that it is centered on the needs of communities, so it starts with developing a deep understanding.

Funding Innovation for Skoll Social Entrepreneurs

Jim Fruchterman | Posted 04.04.2012

Jim Fruchterman

The constant theme is raising money for our social enterprises. But not just any money -- we talk about the most difficult money to raise: the unrestricted funding that is the lifeblood for a social entrepreneur.

From Seattle to Singapore: How Microsoft Is Taking Lessons From Young People

Akhtar Badshah | Posted 05.30.2012

Akhtar Badshah

As part of the events we're launching the Innovate4Good @Microsoft community, a place where young people around the world can come together, collaborate, inspire and support each other.

WATCH: The Top Social Entrepreneurs Saving The World

Huffington Post | Jessica Prois | Posted 04.13.2012

From teeny-tiny sleeping bags ending infant mortality to soccer balls that produce electricity, a new documentary shows how fresh solutions to old pro...

Can A Rat Change The World? The Unusual Players In Social Innovation

Caty Borum Chattoo | Posted 05.21.2012

Caty Borum Chattoo

Electric soccer balls, life-saving sleeping bags, and water on wheels...business as usual? Well, it depends on who you ask.

Bringing Affordable Solar Lighting to Millions

Liz Hamburg | Posted 04.25.2012

Liz Hamburg

They certainly didn't come up with the idea of solar lighting replacing kerosene. The idea had been around for a while. And, solar has been getting a lot of buzz lately. But most of the companies offering solar solutions don't see the 1.6 billion people as a real market.

A Safer Way to Catch Tuna

Jeffrey Hollender | Posted 04.23.2012

Jeffrey Hollender

There is no denying that our oceans are in grave peril, and the conventional tuna industry now must make a choice: fish more sustainably, or lose market share to those who do.

An Ecosystem for Innovation in Higher Education

Saul Garlick | Posted 04.22.2012

Saul Garlick

What is the force moving this mountain? After all, universities are decentralized, lumbering bureaucracies that don't exactly embrace monolithic approaches to anything, especially if it is primarily focused on practical application.

Unleash the Privateers

Phil Shanks | Posted 04.15.2012

Phil Shanks

The small and medium sector, our privateers, remain becalmed by the lack of bank finance and unable to join the battle. I am confident that it is safe to unleash them yet again, put some wind in their sails and reap the benefits.

Country in Crisis: Looking to America's Mayors to Rise to the Challenge

Arianna Huffington | Posted 03.18.2012

Arianna Huffington

I believe the solutions the country is so desperately looking for are going to come at the local level -- from our mayors and engaged citizens working with their communities. It's our cities, not the nation's capital, that are the real idea factory of our country.

What Social Innovation Means to Me: The Power of Yellow

Doug Ulman | Posted 02.09.2012

Doug Ulman

In tough economic times, many of us curb our philanthropic impulses, and that's completely understandable. However, innovative charitable endeavors -- even in $1 increments -- can change the world.

VOTE: Top 11 Social Innovators Saving The World In 2011

Posted 12.09.2011

McKinsey & Company's Social Innovation Video Contest highlights innovators who are confronting the world's greatest challenges and gives participants ...

What the World Needs Now: Social Innovation

Jeffrey Hollender | Posted 02.05.2012

Jeffrey Hollender

Whatever we don't like about the world we live in, whatever doesn't work the way we think it should, has, believe it or not, been designed to work pretty much exactly that way.

Business Headlines May Be Gloomy, But There Are Bright Spots

Judith Samuelson | Posted 01.31.2012

Judith Samuelson

When I check out the morning headlines, I have a yearning for the problems of yore. I want to go back to 2002 and worry about Enron, rather than a global meltdown.

Social Innovation: A Matter of Scale

Steve Davis | Posted 01.23.2012

Steve Davis

Unlike in the private sector, where successful product innovations have a clear process for gaining market share, the best social innovations are not necessarily widely adopted.

A New Century of Social Innovation

Kingsley Dennis, Ph.D. | Posted 01.22.2012

Kingsley Dennis, Ph.D.

The upcoming decades will be different from what has gone before. Our global society is in the midst of great transformations that will usher in new social and cultural formations.

A Call For Social Innovators To Present Ideas

JustMeans.com | Posted 01.06.2012

McKinsey's Social Sector Office has formed a group called Social Innovation Practice, which brings innovation, philanthropy and social entrepreneurshi...

Taking the 'Avon' Way to Reach 'The Last Mile'

Chuck Slaughter | Posted 12.31.2011

Chuck Slaughter

Roughly 270 million people in Africa still lack access to life's most essential products. Now more than ever, we need an efficient, scalable, and sustainable system to deliver life-saving and life-changing products to the world's poor.