Activities

SIX is a global community of over 3000 individuals and organisations – including small NGOs and global firms, public agencies and academics - committed to promoting social innovation and growing the capacity of the field.

SIX runs a series of activities:

TelePresence

SIX TelePresences make use of unique Cisco teleconferencing technologies to connect social innovators from across the globe to discuss topics ranging from ‘Hubs Labs and Incubators,’ to ‘The Theoretical Foundations of Social Innovation’ and ‘Creating an Environment for Social Innovation to Flourish.’

Spring Schools

The SIX Spring Schools are annual, three-day events that are built on the Accelerator Model—by bringing SIX community members together in an intimate group to discuss and find innovative solutions to very specific challenges, these events concentrate our collective intelligence and accelerate the process of innovation.  Past SIX Spring Schools have addressed ‘Co-creating Democracy: Citizen Passion in the 21st Century,’ and ‘Innovation and Opportunity in an Ageing Society.’

Summer Schools

Like SIX Spring Schools, our Summer Schools are designed to connect social innovators face to face, and support the strengthening of their networks, and inspire them to innovate new solutions to social issues. While Spring Schools have a tight focus on a single issue, Summer Schools address broad subjects, encouraging a diversity of insights, inputs, and inspirations.

In 2008, SIX held its inaugural International Summer School in Spain. 'Scaling up Social Innovation' focused on the practical challenges of social innovation, specifically how successful innovations could be grown and replicated. In July 2009, in Lisbon, Portugal, the second International Summer School focused on ‘Recovery through Innovation'. 125 people from 24 countries - both social innovation experts and those who are new to the field came together to share experiences and discuss the challenges and possible solutions to the current global financial crisis.

Following their successes, ‘SIX and the City' 2010 was held in Singapore. Over the past year, city innovation has been at the heart of discussions amongst the SIX community - Discussions ranging from design for social innovation, tackling chronic disease, climate change and carbon reductions, providing and caring for aging populations, community engagement and helping the unemployed back to work, have often converged around cities and social innovation. The 2010 SIX summer school gave participants the opportunity to further explore these issues. 

Online Hubs

SIX makes use of online tools to bring together our network of social innovators across borders, time zones, and sectors. We host three websites, including www.socialinnovationexchange.org, www.socialinnovationeurope.eu, and www.socialinnovator.info, our living textbook of methods and tools for innovators around the world, sourced from innovators from around the world.

While offline conversations and conferences can do a great deal to strengthen personal and professional ties and accelerate thinking around important topics, our online networks create a space for on-going conversations that are unbound by the constraints of time and geography. Innovators working around the clock and around the world can meet peers tackling similar problems in very different contexts. Unexpected partnerships can form, and unanticipated solutions can emerge.

In our growing web-space, we are working to create a place where innovators can feel safe sharing successes and challenges, where we can identify what works and what doesn’t and share good practice widely. When we work alone, we risk repeating one another’s mistakes. When we work together, we can build from strength to strength and accelerate the process of solving pressing global challenges.