Lead Up to Australia's First Social Innovation Camp

The Australian Social Innovation eXchange, or ASIX, is currently staging a series of meet-ups around Australia, bringing together social innovators from different parts of society to discuss their web-based social ideas and the most promising ideas will be developed at Australia’s first Social Innovation Camp, to be held in Sydney in March 2010.

The Australian Social Innovation Exchange Limited is a Not for Profit company formed to find better ways of tackling social problems and responding to growing community needs or opportunities. ASIX aims to devleop as a “network of networks” that links people and organisations interested in, and actively engaged with, social innovation in Australia.

ASIX is part of the global network of social innovators which is being connected by the Social Innovation Exchange (SIX). SIX is being developed by The Young Foundation in London.

Infoxchange Australia is hosting the first Melbourne meet-up of social innovators on Wednesday 14 October at their offices in Abbotsford. This is the first opportunity for Melbourne social innovators to meet and brainstorm their various ideas. To register for the Melbourne meet-up or any other gathering around Australia, visit www.asix.org.au.

Connecting Up Australia is hosting the Adelaide meetup at the Connecting Up Australia Offices in Adelaide at Level 8, 108 King William Street near Town Hall On November 19th. For more information email raul.caceres@asix.org.au

Meetings have already been held in Sydney.

Social Innovation Camp is described as an experiment in creating social innovations for the digital age.

From the ideas submitted, a panel of judges will select between six and eight of the most promising to be developed at the Social Innovation Camp weekend.

Then the people behind the selected ideas, together with software developers and designers, those with business and marketing skills, as well as individuals with expert knowledge of social need are invited to the Social Innovation Camp weekend.

From a Friday evening to a Sunday afternoon, participants are asked to organise themselves into teams around the selected ideas and then set five challenges:

1.) What’s the problem they’re trying to solve?
2.) Build the technology with which to do this
3.) How will you sustain your idea?
4.) How will you build a community of users?
5.) What are you going to do after the Social Innovation Camp weekend

At the end of the two days, all participants come back together to pitch what they have built and the judges award a small prize to the projects which have shown greatest potential.

To find out more go to www.asix.org.au