Fifty of the world’s leading social innovators will gather in Dublin next month to help kick-start an ambitious plan to tackle key challenges facing the country.
The idea behind Change Nation is to connect proven solutions with talent and finance to accelerate innovations in areas such as the environment, health, education, civic participation and economic development.
The three-day event - billed as a "social innovation platform" by its organisers - will involve more than 300 one-on-one meetings between social entrepreneurs, philanthropists, business and political leaders.
It is due to take place in Dublin between March 22nd and 24th and is hosted by Ashoka Ireland, in partnership with businesses, the Government and the media. The Irish Times is among the media partners for the event.
Among the social innovators due to take part in the three-day event include:
* Matt Flannery of KIVA, an online platform which allows lenders and borrows to meet and help bring finance to small and medium-sized businesses. The company has facilitated more than $280 million in loans since it was established in 2005
* James Whelton of Coder Dojo, a nineteen year old social entrepreneur who is building a movement to inspire young people to learn about software and computer programming.
* Rodrigo Baggio of CDI Brazil who is working to provide a more interactive learning environment, computer equipment and training to disadvantaged young people in South America.
* Peter Eigen of Transparency International, who has helped lead a global coalition to challenge corruption in more than 90 countries around the world.
Speaking at the launch of the initiative, Paul O'Hara, director of Ashoka and founder of Change Nation, said many of the solutions to Ireland's problems already existed at home and across the world. The challenge, he said, was to identify these solutions and implement them.
"The solutions to be discovered at Change Nation have proven themselves to be effective, each one typically impacting on thousands of lives. Systematically importing and accelerating these proven solutions will increase our speed, efficiency and success rate in addressing these challenges," he said.
Mr O'Hara said the organisation was inviting everyone to discover these solutions at its website, changenation.org.
"We hope that people will get involved in the solutions they are passionate about or choose to create their own. Ireland needs more changemakers and everyone has a role to play," he said.
In a statement, Taoiseach Enda Kenny welcomed the initiative which he said would help find solutions to some of the challenges facing the nation.
"By working together, Ireland can not only emerge from its problems, but emerge stronger and better. Social innovation is especially valuable because it can create radical new alliances between communities, government and business to address fundamental social and economic challenges," Mr Kenny said.
