Tomorrow, September 15th will be activated the call to present solutions to the 10 social challenges presented by European cities or regions. This first call will remain open until December 15th, 2017, date from which ideas to be developed in 2018 will be selected.
Connecting social challenges to entrepreneurs
Societies across Europe have faced severe challenges over the past decade, from a financial crisis breeding economic instability and political volatility to an ever-increasing pace of technological change that threatens to disrupt the social order. The introduction of digital technology with its deepening of existing inequalities is a good example of such disruption.
Meeting such challenges demands new ideas, new approaches and new perspectives. This has led to the mainstreaming of social innovation as a problem-solving methodology in the last decade. Never before have we been so well-equipped to harness the collective power of civil society to solve problems faced in communities across Europe every day. Increasingly we are seeing national, regional and local governments embracing social innovation principles and approaches as a way to better tackle priority public challenges.
Taking advantage of this opportunity, this platform aims to match “challenge owners” – local governments, organisations, NGOs and companies facing a problem which needs solving – with the entrepreneurs, startups and social innovators that can solve them.
Each challenge will be matched with 3 solutions. Their providers will receive a grant of 30,000 euros and a six-month mentoring programme to help them develop their idea. The very best entrepreneurs will then work with the challenge owners to turn their concept into reality.