The Department of Community Development, DCD, is organising a series of “Social Innovation Talks” under the theme, "Real Issues... Real Impact", with the first session being held on April 12th under the title, “The Importance of Social Innovation.” The talks have the aim of contributing to raising awareness about the importance of social innovation to the lives of members of society and enabling them to find innovative solutions to various social challenges.
The Department, as the custodian of Abu Dhabi’s social sector agenda, seeks to improve the quality of services by building an integrated and cohesive society in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, which is in line with the UAE’s vision to become a pioneer in the field of social innovation.
“Social Innovation Talks”, the region's premier platform for discussions on Social Innovation, aim to address social challenges that are difficult to solve by traditional methods in order to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the social sector, and the DCD will host a selection of thought leaders and innovators to discuss a range of important social topics and issues.
The DCD confirmed that the implementation of the “Social Innovation Talks” is based on the organisation’s true belief in the importance of innovation in helping various entities in society, to create innovative methods and solutions that contribute to addressing crises and responding to them, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, as social innovation contributes to solving issues and problems that are difficult to solve by traditional methods.
Social Innovation includes new strategies, ideas and organizations that meet the social needs of all by extending and strengthening civil society, especially as there has been a phenomenal surge of interest in social innovation all over the world during the past decade in the quest to achieve economic sustainability. The Talks will help all sectors come together to collaborate and solve society's challenges and issues.
The first talk will be presented by the global speaker Norbert Kunz, CEO of Social Impact, one of the most distinguished social entrepreneurs. The session will discuss the importance of social innovation and the need to develop it and identify its social impacts on key issues and the mechanism for measuring them.
Social innovation is one of the core functions of the DCD, as the Department provides the necessary support to generate opportunities and solutions to address the many challenges society faces. The Social Innovation team at DCD have recently prepared a white paper aimed at showcasing the role of social innovation as an important tool for addressing various social challenges. The paper also highlights social innovation’s contributions to identifying innovative solutions by integrating social sciences with technology to guarantee solutions to address the current challenges, thereby achieving the desired sustainable goals.
The registration is accessible to those who are interested in attending the first session of the “SI Talk” series, please visit https://bit.ly/3cG8xF1