Mature Funding Ecosystem Lets Estonia Lead in Social Innovation

Estonia leads the world in social innovation with a mature funding ecosystem, people-centric focus, and advanced digital capabilities.

Estonia is a little known Baltic State making big moves in digitalization and social innovation. According to the Estonian Startup Database, there are 1,110 startups operating in Estonia and 66 new startups have been created in 2020. It’s also the only nation on Earth where 99% of all public services are available online. The country itself is a key Use Case for any nation or company looking to embrace social innovation. Estonia’s success in this arena is attributed to its dedicated state-sponsored funds, people-centric focus, and mature finding environment. As a result, the country has been able to achieve a digital society (dubbed e-Estonia), has produced some of the world’s leading, cross-sector startups and digital solutions for its citizens, and continues to top the global ranks as a leading nation in social impact.

Estonia has dedicated fund entities that work to elevate its citizenry. For example, the Estonian Development Fund is a state-run Untitled2public institution that invests into young and growth-oriented technology companies together with the private sector. The fund is aimed to invest into knowledge-intensive and high-technology Estonian companies that are in the launching stage, offering management-related support to the relevant operators (EU Commission). Moreover, the EUR 100M Baltic Innovation Fund (BIF) launched in the recent past exclusively focused on the Baltic States like Estonia to develop SMEs and boost growth. In addition to state-run funds, there are also a host of VCs and PE firms in Estonia that focus on social innovation verticals.

On the topic of VC, the revenue of Estonian startups totaled €562 million in the third quarter of 2020. According to Change Ventures, “Estonian startup round sizes and valuations continue to be larger than their compatriots in Latvia and Lithuania, reflecting a more mature funding ecosystem. The top quartile valuations for Estonian seed rounds actually exceed median US startup valuations, reflecting the massive growth in angel and super-angel investors in Estonia.” Crunchbase has further reported that Estonia is showing higher growth than usual, and that “Many point to Estonia’s early success with Skype as the catalyst for the country’s bubbling and uniquely successful startup culture, which has borne five unicorns. Pipedrive was the latest to join the ranks in November 2020.”

Estonia allows for quick startup turnover in social innovation because of the maturity of its digital infrastructure, as well as the relatively low living costs (common to all Baltic States). This encourages social entrepreneurs to participate in the market. Startups in Estonia also operate on the premise of social good. For example, Immediately after the state of emergency (last March) was declared in Estonia, Garage48 and Accelerate Estonia organized an online hackathon, “Hack the Crisis”, to provide solutions on how to use technology for crisis response and how to cope in the post-crisis era. The idea of ​​the hack soon spread all around the world, leading to a Global Hack involving more than 12,000 people in 100 countries. In addition, many country-specific hackathons took place during the spring to find solutions to the damage caused by the corona crisis (Startupday).

 

With a mature funding ecosystem that champions humans at its core, and Estonia’s advanced digital capabilities, it’s no wonder why this nation leads the world in social innovation.

The original source: https://www.the-angelica-factor.com/post/estonia-leads-in-social-innovation

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This publication has been prepared within INDIGISE project. The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of the project coordinator and may not always reflect the views of the European Commission or the National Agency.

 

 

 

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Read carefully, the article provides insight on how to focus on making decisions and actually create a culture of making impact happen – instead of pausing to measure too many or not-relevant things  – and not having enough focus on the doing. It also provides practical examples of how this focus can be made more clear – which type of questions to ask and how to make them relevant.

(Illustration by Davor Pavelic, from the original article) 

 

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For the 4th time already an annual summer camp on social entrepreneurship took place in Antaliepte – a small Lithuanian town nearby Latvian border in August 22-23.

Over 200 participants took part in the traditional summer camp BIZZZ ’15. The main topic of this year camp was sharing economy. During the course of two days participants have been not only listening to inspiring presentations, but also attending workshops and doing hands on work in repurposing surrounding area.

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Young People and Social Innovation in Europe

By Ljupka Janevska.

“Social innovation is the process of developing creative ideas that will eventually ‘’grow’’ into practical solutions, which will improve the overall wellbeing of the community. The primary goal of implementing or designing a new social innovation is to solve different systemic issues that will hopefully contribute in increasing the enviorenment value. However, the basics of implementing a new social innovation can be found in the energy and passion of the young people, who are brave enough, not only to identify, but also to challenge and address global problems that are worthy of attention and investment.

In Europe, the process of youth social innovation is a growing challenge. Fortunately, there are a lot of successful social innovations in Europe that aim to raise awareness of the positive outcome that social innovations can have on young people and communities.

  • Student integration in employment

Young graduates often struggle to find their first employment experience. In Latvia, young people are almost twice as likely to be unemployed compared to the rest of the population, due to lack of a professional network and skills experience. The youth social innovation of ‘’The Demola platform’’, established in 2014 in Finland, connects companies with university students. The companies can submit a specific problem situation for students to address , and by participating in problem-solving workshops the students are developing their skills as potential problem-solvers instead of as young people in need of work experience.

  • Active youth participation in local decision-making

One of the priorities of the EU is to provide meaningful social, civic and political engagement opportunities for all young people. Young people prefer to support causes that are directly relevant to them, and they usually engage in them through alternative participation methods, such as volunteering or online support. ‘’The Youth Participatory Budgeting (YPB)’’ is a Portuguese youth social innovation that aims to foster an active participation of young people in the decision-making process, and thus promote a stronger sense of citizenship, through an online platform that serves young people’s need for democratic participation.

●     European exchange programme for young Entrepreneurs

Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs is a youth social innovation that provides ambitious young European entrepreneurs with the necessary skills to start or successfully run a small business in Europe. New entrepreneurs gather and exchange knowledge and business ideas with an experienced entrepreneur, with whom they stay and collaborate for a period of 1 to 6 months. ‘’Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs’’ is financed by the European Commission and operates across the Participating Countries with the help of the local contact points, competent in business support.

  • Youth opportunities in the economy

‘’REvive Greece’’ is an interesting social innovation in Greece that helps young people from the most vulnerable groups (unemployed Greeks, refugees, migrants, etc.). ‘’REvive’’ is a registered non-profit mission that has the goal to integrate these vulnerable, social groups into the socioeconomic system by helping them to gain skills in the IT sector.

Conclusion

All over the world in the past decades, there has been an increased interest in social innovation as a way to achieve sustainable and economic growth. Today, social innovation as a valuable practice and worldwide movement is helping to solve some of the world’s most pressing problems with new solutions such as fair trade, distance learning, mobile money transfer, restorative justice, and zero-carbon housing. But, besides solving, social innovation by understanding and identifying a problem contributes in changing people’s beliefs , perceptions and practices about social enterprises, business engagement, and philanthropy. So, the rise of social entrepreneurs and social enterprises is not only encouraging the mobilization of people in the innovation process but also providing the’’force’’ for economic growth and social equality in the enviorenment.”

 

Source: https://digitalsocialinnovation.org/young-people-and-social-innovation-in-europe/

 

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This publication has been prepared within INDIGISE project. The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of the project coordinator and may not always reflect the views of the European Commission or the National Agency.

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Read the latest EU study “New technologies and digitisation: opportunities and challenges for the social economy and social enterprises”

This study aims to benchmark diffuse initiatives and policies at EU level as well as national level to promote successful approaches using digital technologies in social economy and social enterprises.

It will do so to

  • reinforce their e-skills and the uptake of new technologies in their entrepreneurial strategy
  • discuss the opportunities and challenges they face in digitising their operations
  • spread best practices of social economy organisations in the uptake, development, usage and co-creation of digital tools and technologies.

We especially recommend the section Tools for Digitisation DIGITAL PLATFORMS:

Digital platforms offer unprecedented opportunities for networking and collaborations. Their impact goes beyond physical reach. Social economy actors are increasingly using digital platforms to marshal community engagement and foster collaborations with public and private stakeholders more effectively and efficiently than ever before.

Traditional/off line means, such as word-of-mouth or faceto-face interactions, cannot compare with digital-platformbased interaction. For example, fundraising over crowdfunding and crowdsourcing platforms regularly outperform traditional fundraising events. Digital social economy platforms – digital platform technologies used for social economy purposes – are technological ecosystems where different social economy actors, including producers, users, service providers, can create and combine flexibly their offerings of services, products and content by combining specific software applications. The digital environment governed by the social principles of democratic ownership, fairness and shared governance.

Digital social economy platforms are disrupting long established sectors such as banking, energy production and distribution, education, transport, health. They are changing established hierarchies and control of information. In platform-based utility cooperatives, for example, consumers are transformed into prosumers, a new term for people engaged both in production and in consumption.

Read the reports here:

New technologies and digitisation – opportunities and challenges for the SE_ENG

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Reference: Gagliardi D., Psarra F., Wintjes R., Trendafili K., Pineda Mendoza J., Haaland K., Turkeli S., Giotitsas C., Pazaitis A., Niglia F., (2020), New Technologies and Digitisation: Opportunities and Challenges for the Social Economy and Social Enterprises. European Commission, Executive Agency for SMEs, DOI: 10.2826/767888.

Accessed on: https://ec.europa.eu/growth/content/new-technologies-and-digitisation-opportunities-and-challenges-social-economy-and-social_en

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This article has been prepared within INDIGISE project. The content of this article is the sole responsibility of the project coordinator and may not always reflect the views of the European Commission or the National Agency.

 

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IKEA Social Entrepreneurship

You all have probably heard of IKEA – a Swedish home furnishings company and world’s largest furniture retailer since 2008.  But did you know IKEA backs and boosts social entrepreneurs all over the world?

IKEA has long since had the vision to create a better everyday life for as many people as possible. Back in 2012, the company looked at how to achieve this by including products and services from social entrepreneurs in its offer. These first collaborations resulted in over 100 jobs created. Today, these business partnerships contribute to over 20,000 jobs and incomes.
Building on the success, IKEA looked to support programmes that accelerate the movement of social entrepreneurship in general. By supporting social enterprises with a vision to create a more inclusive and equal society, IKEA hopes to have a positive impact on people’s livelihoods. At the same time, the company is continuing to look for new and innovative partnerships that will offer IKEA customers unique handmade collections and services.

By boosting social entrepreneurs all over the world, IKEA gets to be a part of creating new opportunities for vulnerable people and communities – while fighting the root causes of poverty and inequality.

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“Since 2012, IKEA has been collaborating with social businesses – pioneers with the ambition to create business that is ethical in all dimensions. This is the story of business done differently, which aims to create 95,000 jobs that positively impact 500,000 lives. And that’s just the beginning.

IKEA social entrepreneurship is a program that started with the vision of honouring unique skills and competences and gives them a global platform to stand on – resulting in better lives for those who need it most. This has been accomplished by partnering with enterprises that produce products and services that in turn empower people who struggle to provide for themselves and their loved ones. The result is financial independence and life-changing opportunities for families and communities; with improved health care, education and gender empowerment.

IKEA has high standards for all suppliers through something called IWAY. IWAY sets social and environmental requirements for all IKEA suppliers; making sure that people are well treated, resources are protected, and workspaces are healthy and safe. A social business meets these standards, but chooses to go beyond IWAY to reach people furthest from the job market.

Focus areas

By focusing on inclusion, equality and livelihood IKEA enables a better everyday life for people who struggle to provide for themselves and their families. To achieve this, every project the company engages in should address and positively affect one or all of these three areas.

  • Inclusion

    Supporting social entrepreneurs who strive to improve the terms on which individuals and groups take part in society. This involves providing jobs, incomes, capabilities and tools to those who are vulnerable and marginalised irrespective of their individual or group characteristics.

  • Equality

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  • Livelihood

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Partnerships that inspires change

IKEA’s work is about inspiring and engaging others to make a change. It’s a collaboration between the company, civil society organisations and social entrepreneurs. By doing business with social entrepreneurs and giving them access to IKEA’s supply chain, the company also creates real and sustainable opportunities. To highlight the equal partnering, it focuses on mutual learning and build on each other’s strengths. They look at how to use their knowledge and experience to help social entrepreneurs grow and have a bigger impact.

  • Through real business

    Partnering with social entrepreneurs at a business level, IKEA designs and produces products and services that are sold and offered at IKEA stores worldwide. It is a win-win situation with high quality products manufactured and vulnerable peoples lives changed through the jobs created.

  • IKEA co-worker engagement

    What’s really unique about IKEA is how it uses colleagues as a resource. Their involvement ranges from operational support for social entrepreneurs who make products for IKEA, to strategic development for the ones that don’t provide products or services for IKEA. At the same time, it gives IKEA the opportunity to learn how to become more circular, sustainable and entrepreneurial in the business. It’s a relationship built on knowledge sharing, a mutual exchange of competences and inspiration.

  • Financial support to the partners

    Since the characteristics and needs of each social entrepreneur are different, IKEA will customize its financial support. This will be a choice between grants – without the demand for repayment or financial return -, loans and equity investments.”

Read more here: https://ikea.today/social-entrepreneurship/

Source: https://www.ikeasocialentrepreneurship.org/en

 

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This publication has been prepared within INDIGISE project. The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of the project coordinator and may not always reflect the views of the European Commission or the National Agency.

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