THE CARITAS SOCIAL

INNOVATION ECOSYSTEM
Creating and Sharing Prosperity Effectively and Ethically
Prof Erwin Schwella Social Innovator
 CARITAS: OUR ETHOS AND VALUES
• Caritas and Ubuntu drive our actions, which is about affection, empathy and
care where action speaks louder than words

• Our ethos is doing unto others as we want done unto us

• We first try to understand and then only to be understood

• Immersion creates emergence

 CARITAS: OUR ETHOS AND VALUES
• We aspire to be the change we want to create

• Our leadership is about the privilege to serve rather than claiming the
privilege to be served

• We are strong on vision and weak on boundaries

• Social innovation is our business and our business is social innovation

 THE BIG IDEAS: ON VISION MISSION
OBJECTIVES AND METHODS
• Our Vision and Mission is:

• We aspire and inspire to significantly positively impact on making our world a better
place through:

• innovatively co-creating and sharing prosperity effectively and ethically,

• to alleviate poverty, contribute to equality and impact on unemployment,

• by using cutting edge knowledge based methodologies and deep learning leadership
wisdom, empathy and action,

• for inclusive social innovation, effective social entrepreneurship and prosperous social
business.
 THE BIG IDEAS: ON VISION MISSION
OBJECTIVES AND METHODS
• Our objectives are to:

• Build and sustain a social innovation ecosystem to support our vision

• Create and maintain a knowledge and expertise social network

• Plan and implement a social innovation architecture which functions to engage with
and serve our vision and mission
 THE BIG IDEAS: ON VISION MISSION
OBJECTIVES AND METHODS
• Use innovative design thinking and other applicable knowledge methodologies and
methods to Implement protoptype solutions to societal challenges

• Create a learning and action learning based continuous quality improvement smart
social innovation ecosystem

• Resulting in improving prosperity, reducing inequality and employment

 OUR METHODOLOGIES AND
METHODS
• We use a action learning and engaged iterative learning methodology
where immersion into real world challenges creates emergence of co-
created socially innovative solutions

• We diagnose, design, develop, intervene, scale, diffuse and disseminate,

connect and sustain social innovation to reach our vision, mission and
objectives using cutting edge social innovation methods

• The methods we use include:

 OUR METHODOLOGIES AND
METHODS

• Systems Thinking
• Organisation Development
• Thinkers in Residence
• Incubators
• Prototyping
• Bootcamps and Academies
• Collaboratories
 OUR METHODOLOGIES AND
METHODS
• Smart networks
• Impact Metrics
• Co-created Diagnosis
• Human Centered Design Thinking
• Scenario Planning
• Appreciative Inquiry
• Imagineering
 OUR SOCIAL INNOVATION
ARCHITECTURE
• The Basic Building Blocks:

• The iCubedWorx Process Facilitator

• Community Based Social Labs: The CariBuntu Social Labs

• The Caritas Social Business Consultancy

• A Knowledge Excellence Network

• Knowledge Generator Partnership: Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Learning Entities

collaboratively involved in learning, teaching, research and service including
consultancy
 OUR SOCIAL INNOVATION ARCHITECTURE:
THE ICUBEDWORX PROCESS FACILITATOR
• iCubedWorx is or programme and project manager

• In this space we connect and co-create our ideas from imagination, through
ideas to institutionalisation to implementation

• The BEST Model drives iCubedWorx thinking and actions

 OUR SOCIAL INNOVATION
ARCHITECTURE: SOCIAL LABS
• According to Hassan (2014), Social labs are platforms for addressing
complex social challenges that have three core characteristics:

• They are social. Social labs start by bringing together diverse participants to work
in a team that acts collectively. They are ideally drawn from different sectors of
society, such as government, civil society, and the business community. The
participation of diverse stakeholders beyond consultation, as opposed to teams
of experts or technocrats, represents the social nature of social labs.
 OUR SOCIAL INNOVATION
ARCHITECTURE: SOCIAL LABS
• They are experimental. Social labs are not one-off experiences. They’re ongoing
and sustained efforts. The team doing the work takes an iterative approach to
the challenges it wants to address, prototyping interventions and managing a
portfolio of promising solutions. This reflects the experimental nature of social
labs, as opposed to the project-based nature of many social interventions.

• They are systemic. The ideas and initiatives developing in social labs, released as
prototypes, aspire to be systemic in nature. This means trying to come up with
solutions that go beyond dealing with a part of the whole or symptoms and
address the root cause of why things are not working in the first place.
 OUR SOCIAL INNOVATION
ARCHITECTURE: SOCIAL LABS
• The CariBuntu Social Labs

• CariBuntu Social Labs are co-created and sustained as autonomous free-standing social,
experimental, systemic, self-steering sustainable social businesses

• Social, Experimental, Systemic, Self Steering Sustainable Social Businesses

• The Caribuntu GMB Social Lab

• The MOSMID Social Lab
• The PAM Social Lab
• The Hessequa Social Lab
• Die Ligstad Inisiatief
• The CariBuntu BV Social Lab
• More to Follow
 OUR SOCIAL INNOVATION ARCHITECTURE:
KNOWLEDGE EXCELLENCE NETWORK

• A knowledge generator partnership: Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Learning Entities

collaboratively involved in learning, teaching, research and service including
consultancy

• Primary Academic Space: Hugenote University

• The School of Social Innovation

• A comprehensive tertiary academic institution linked to a University delivering teaching, learning,
research, service, advice and consultancy socially innovative knowledge processes and products

• The Centre for Social Innovation

• A knowledge centre functioning as research and service centre under the auspices and banner of the
School of Social Innovation as disseminator of knowledge through service advice and consultancy

• The PhD Athenaeum International Research Fellowship

 THE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL
INNOVATION
• The School of Social Innovation is a comprehensive tertiary academic
institution linked to a University delivering teaching, learning, research,
service, advice and consultancy socially innovative knowledge processes
and products
 THE CENTRE FOR SOCIAL
INNOVATION
• The Centre for Social Innovation is a knowledge centre functioning as
research and service centre under the auspices and banner of the School of
Social Innovation as disseminator of knowledge through service advice and
consultancy
 OUR SOCIAL INNOVATION ARCHITECTURE:
THE CARITAS SOCIAL BUSINESS
CONSULTANCY

• The Caritas Social Business Consultancy

• A virtual and real social business consultancy service business operating

collaboratively with social labs, the School of Social Innovation, the Centre for Social
Innovation and other partners in the knowledge network internationally, nationally,
regionally and locally

• The Caritas Social Business Consultancy functions as an autonomous self-steering

social business with distinct and separate legal persona status
 THE CARITAS SOCIAL BUSINESS
CONSULTANCY
• The Caritas Social Business Consultancy operates as a virtual and real social
business consultancy service business operating collaboratively with social
labs, the School of Social Innovation, the Centre for Social Innovation and
other partners in the knowledge network internationally, nationally, regionally
and locally
 THE CARITAS SOCIAL BUSINESS
CONSULTANCY
• The Caritas Social Business Consultancy functions as an autonomous self-
steering social business with distinct and separate legal persona status. This
business is prosperity creating cooperative social business rewarding social
entrepreneurship in a commercially cooperative way

• The Caritas Social Business Consultancy utilizes global consultancy best

practice and proactive approaches with a distinct ethos of public and
community service and a caritas philosophy and methodologies to make
our world a better place
 THE CARITAS SOCIAL BUSINESS
CONSULTANCY
• Quality and levels of commitment and contribution will be differentially
compensated as is the case in all business, however with a dynamic of
creating and sharing value for prosperity rather than profit only

• The Consultancy connects capacity to demand and facilitates knowledge

based social innovation solutions in accordance with the Caritas ethos,
vision mission objectives and methods in a primary cooperative set of co-
creating relationships
 FURTHER ITERATION: IMMERSION
CREATES EMERGENCE
• Social Innovation Dynamic Emerging Ideas and Design Criteria for Social
Innovation, Social Entrepreneurship and Social Businesses

• A devolved confederal knowledge ecosystem

• A knowledge network

• Digital, virtual and real

 FURTHER ITERATION: IMMERSION
CREATES EMERGENCE
• The principles of subsidiarity and autonomy

• Choice

• Sustainability through self-steering

• Shared values, commitments, competencies and capacity

• Shared services if so desired

 CONCLUSIONS: CONVERSATIONS
CHANGE CONDITIONS
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzY5y01o2vo
• Immersion Creates Emergence
• Legitimising to Legalisation
• Selection of Action Team
• Next Steps