Social Innovation Camp is about bridging the gap between having an idea and actually doing something about it.
Our call for ideas aims to surface those really early stage ideas and giving them some breathing space. The Social Innovation Camp weekends are all about proving the potential that an idea has to change something important, but what happens after that?
We’ll be awarding two prizes at the end of the weekend: a winner and a runner up from our seven ideas. And – if the team chooses to continue to work on what they’ve built at Social Innovation Camp – we’d like to give them a helping hand towards finding ways of growing and sustaining their ideas in the long run.
So we’ve got three prizes to give away:
A bit of cash
We’ve got £1,000 for our Social Innovation Camp December 2008 runner up and £2,000 for our winner.
We realise this isn’t enough to make a serious dent in funding an early-stage start-up; think of it as more of a treat. It’s to be used by the people who are going to be taking the idea forward – should a team decide to do this – to help keep the momentum going after the weekend is over. Use it to pay for web hosting or travel to visit potential funders. Or take the team away for a few days to develop the idea further or maybe just take everyone who helped out at the weekend for a good meal.
Support developing the technology, thanks to Headshift
By the end of Social Innovation Camp, our seven ideas are likely to be in very different stages of development – particularly on the technical side of things. Some projects may have a very clear sense of what they would need to build next to get their idea off the ground: others won’t have reached this stage yet.
To help an idea take its next technical steps, Headshift have kindly offered the Social Innovation Camp winner ten days of their time from whatever mix of development support, design work, sysadmin or mentoring an idea requires to continue to grow.
A little bit about Headshift
Headshift is Europe’s leading enterprise social computing consultancy. The London-based team has over 5 years’ experience in designing, implementing and growing next generation social software solutions. They also operate in New York, Paris, Sydney, Rome and Zurich.
Headshift deliver smarter, simpler, more social IT solutions internally within large enterprises, knowledge intensive firms, government and third sector organisations. And their social media practice works with media companies, brands, and other organisations or networks that want to engage with their customers in new and innovative ways.
Support developing the idea, thanks to the Creative Coop
There’s a great energy that comes from having a big idea – that light bulb moment where you desperately scribble it down on the back of an envelope. The Creative Coop has launched a unique social start-up package to help capture and bottle that very moment in a creative and visual process, enabling start-ups to effectively explain their concept.
It’s all about telling the story behind an idea in an exciting and engaging way – whoever needs to understand your idea – from business advisers, funders, investors, volunteers, or like-minded businesses. And the Creative Coop have kindly offered this service to both the winner and runner up projects from Social Innovation Camp.
A little bit about the Creative Coop
The Creative Coop is a diverse group of highly skilled freelance professionals with a common passion for everything creative. They collaborate under a cooperative umbrella to work on social projects, calling on each other for specialist expertise and inspiration.
Members include designers, copy-writers, art directors, illustrators, editors and photographers, new media and strategic branding specialists working alongside advertising and marketing specialists.
And finally….
To help ideas along the way after Social Innovation Camp we’d like to help set teams up with a mentor for three months following the Social Innovation Camp weekend to help you work out what you do next.
The Social Innovation Camp winners will be chosen by our judges at the closing session, 2-4 pm on Sunday 7th December. To come along, sign up here.