What Makes a Good SI Camp Idea

So what makes a good Social Innovation Camp idea?

A quick way to learn about good Social Innovation Camp ideas is to look at past examples. Here are the criteria we use to select ideas for the camp:

1. Is this idea suitable for Social Innovation Camp?

   • How does the idea tackle a social problem? Social Innovation Camp is all about using the web to re-organise the world from the grassroots up for an explicit social purpose. It's not about making the third sector more efficient or effective. It's about using the power of the web to help individuals connect and collaborate to change things that are important in completely new ways: using the web as a network which becomes more than the sum of its parts.
   • How new is the idea? Is this a well-worn issue? Or has the solution been tried before? We are not after ideas which take existing solutions and make them more effective: a version of Freecycle with a different business model, for example, wouldn't be suitable. But a wholly different approach to encouraging recycling would be.
   • What stage of development is this idea in? Social Innovation Camp is ideal for accelerating really early stage ideas: it’s about helping concepts across that really delicate threshold between back-of-the-envelop planning and something which could become a reality. Any idea which already has a group of co-developers, any kind of functionality, or prior funding is probably too far along to benefit from the Social Innovation Camp experience. The scope of an idea is also crucial: Something very small or very large won’t work: think about what is achievable in Wednesday — Friday, September 16-18th.

2. How interesting is this idea?

   Once we've filtered the ideas that we think are suitable for the Social Innovation Camp, how will we choose between the best? The main criteria are the following:

   • People power: the idea should have the potential to create significant social change by enabling people to do things better for themselves.
   • Technology that's not just for geeks: the idea should be able to lead to a technical solution that anyone can use, not just traditional technology users.
   • Proof of potential: the idea should have the potential to really work. Ideas shouldn’t just be about the technology: it's about the whole social start-up package.
   • Relevance: the idea should be relevant for the target countries, and hopefully, replicable in many, if not all, of them.

Who can submit an idea?

Anyone with a good idea! We are looking for submissions from NGOs, public employees, web developers, business and marketing types, and anyone enthusiastic about a social cause.  Ideas can be submitted by groups or by individuals.

What countries are eligible?

Project ideas can be submitted by citizens/organizations of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Interested individuals from other parts of Europe are invited to attend the event as experts and developers (see the participate page for more details).