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Social Innovation Conversations


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The Skoll World Forum aims to help define social innovation, raise its profile and encourage debate about its importance and practice. It addresses social innovation at a systemic and organizational level, as well as practically to explore what it means for social entrepreneurs, funders and policymakers.

In 2007 the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship attracted nearly 700 social entrepreneurs, thought leaders, policy makers, corporate representatives, financiers, philanthropists and students from more than 40 countries.

The Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship is produced by the Skoll Center for Social Entrepreneurship at Oxford SAID Business School in partnership with the Skoll Foundation.

Programs form the last conference coming soon. Please stay tuned.

Social Innovation - Where Do We Go From Here?

Social innovation is more than just invention. Diffusion or scaling up of ideas is an integral part of making truly effective social change. Roger Martin, Martin Fisher, Mindy Lubber, Taddy Blecher, and Roshaneh Zafar wrap up the 2007 Skoll World Forum conference with inspiring final thoughts about how to take innovative ideas for social change to that tipping point where they can create large-scale lasting positive effects.
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  34 minutes, 15.8mb, recorded 2007-03-27     details...

Charles Handy - The New Philanthropists

In Britain, something is happening that hasn't happened for 100 years. More people are becoming incredibly wealthy, not only through inheritance, but also because of their own hard work. A phenomenon on this scale has not happened since the Victorian industrialists. Charles Handy tells us about social entrepreneurs who put their energies into meeting some perceived social need -- something that government never gets around to and that private enterprise typically doesn't see a market for.
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  20 minutes, 9.4mb, recorded 2007-03-27     details...

The Future of Philanthropy

How far can creative philanthropy support social innovation to address major challenges confronting global society? Helmut Anheier of UCLA's Centre for Civil Society, Mark Kramer of FSG Social Impact Advisors, Lester Salamon of Johns Hopkins' Center for Civil Society Studies, and Oxford's Alex Nicholls explore opportunities to maximize impact and discover how philanthropic institutions approach mission-related investment and the nonprofits' challenge of securing investment capital in a brave new world.
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  85 minutes, 39mb, recorded 2007-03-29     details...

Supporting More Social Innovation

In this facilitated discussion, John Elkington poses a fundamental question to his distinguished panelists Bill Drayton and Ed Milibrand. Seeking to foster and support social innovation the panel identifies some of the basic actions that are required of the public, entrepreneurs, and the government.
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  42 minutes, 19.5mb, recorded 2007-03-29     details...

Larry Brilliant - Reflections from a Pioneer

Larry Brilliant, executive director of Google.org, asks whether we should be optimistic or pessimistic about the future of humanity. He cites disturbing megatrends that could lead to pessimism, but then he counters with reasons for optimism, including his success as head of the World Health Organization campaign that eradicated smallpox. His conclusion: He is optimistic and proud of our species.
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  29 minutes, 13.3mb, recorded 2007-03-29     details...