Iceland: 39 well-being indicators
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Iceland: 39 well-being indicators

Scotland, Iceland and New Zealand established the Wellbeing Economy Goverments (WeGo) initiative in 2018. The project was inspired by the Wellbeing Economy Alliance (WeAll). In September 2019, Kartín Jakobsdóttir, Prime Minister of Iceland, introduced the proposed 39 well-being indicators under 3 main sections: Society, Environment and Economy. In April 2020, the Icelandic government has approved a motion from the Prime Minister to implement the use of 39 well-being indicators to measure prosperity and quality of life in the country.  At a time when the government faces some tough decisions related to the COVID-19 epidemic, these 39 indicators are proving very effective in creating their relief policies.

Shifting focus from GDP

Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir states: “Gross Domestic Product and economic growth are certainly important metrics and will continue to be so, but these factors do not tell the whole story about people’s quality of life and the successes of communities. It is important to have metrics that take the environment, society, and economy into account.”

UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Iceland’s 39 well-being indicators are separated into three categories – social, economic, and environmental – and relate to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. On page 3 and 4 of the Well-being measurements document is a table of how each of the indicators can be mapped to a particular SDG.

Social enterprises in Iceland

Social enterprises at their core fulfill one or more of the SDGs in transforming the world into a more equal and just world. With this newly released and approved well-being indicators, social enterprises are positioned to offer effective solutions to meeting the 39 indicators. In addition, social enterprises continue to measure their successes not just through financial indicators (akin to GDP in governments) but also KPIs and impact measurements to continually improve on their effectiveness in delivering their services to their designated customer base. The social enterprises of Iceland are therefore well positioned to be the ground crew that assist the Icelandic government in fulfilling their 39 indicators.

Sources:

Iceland Government unveils Well-being framework
Iceland to Measure Social and Environmental Prosperity

 

Photo by Nicolas J Leclercq on Unsplash

Snjallræði: Startup Social 2019 – applications close 9 September 2019
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Snjallræði: Startup Social 2019 – applications close 9 September 2019

Snjallræði: Startup Social 2019

This marks the second year of the fledgling social accelerator in Iceland, building on the successes of last year. The objective of Snjallræði: Startup Social is to provide individuals, NGOs and companies with a platform to develop their ideas and find ways to make them sustainable. The ideas must have a clear and positive social impact and support one or more of the UN Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs. They are open to all ideas in all stages, from fresh thoughts to developed projects and businesses.

8 ideas will be chosen for an 8 week accelerator program in October and November. Each team will receive ISK800.000 to participate in the program. They will receive an office space and assistance with idea development and implementation. This year the teams will undergo the  sprint concept in collaboration with MIT designX .

Would you like to work on your idea?

Your project idea will be evaluated based on three key criteria:

  • Innovation: Your innovation can be a product, a process, a technology, a market-based solution, or a service that is either entirely new, is being used in a novel and beneficial way, or is some new combination of existing ideas.. Innovation creates value and new opportunities for the community and offers benefits that are an improvement on previous efforts. In your application clearly state what other solutions have been tried and how your project differs from these.
  • Impact: Impact can be defined in several ways, either by how deeply a small group of people may be affected or how many people across a broad spectrum could benefit from your project. We are interested in projects that address an under served need—working on an issue or with a social group that has not received sufficient attention, support, or resources, for example. This could mean working on a project that is very specific, such as providing access to clean water in one specific geographic area or community, or it could mean something more broadly systemic, such as developing affordable means for evaluating environmental impact for small businesses. Finally, we are interested in ideas that find ways to generate mutual impact across different systems or sectors, such as education and healthcare, through linking the needs of one with the assets of another.
  • Feasibility: We want to see that your work can result in a tangible benefit for a particular group or community. To demonstrate the feasibility of your project, you should describe the status of your project, note whom you will or would like to be working with to implement the project, and show that you have the right combination of skills among your team to make the project possible.

 

Where and when to apply

You can apply direct online here. The applications deadline is 9 September 2019.

Text and image from www.snjallraedi.is

 

TravAble- the travel companion for the physically impaired

TravAble- the travel companion for the physically impaired

Ósk Sigurdóttir, a occupational therapist and her founding partner Hannes Pétursson had the desire to assist those the physically impaired to have access to amenities such as public spaces like restaurants as well as hotels. To assist with this, they created TravAble a travel companion for the physically impaired.

The travel companion is an app and can be downloaded for free. Each location is rated by their accessibility such as elevators, handicap toilets, parking spaces, ramps and 360 turning spaces for those utilizing wheelchairs. The app also invites users to add new places where ever they may travel.

The financial model for now is free downloads, but will eventually create a build in booking system for listed venues. A one stop shop for traveling for the physically impaired.

“TravAble is for everyone to use. Not just users with wheeled mobility, but also friends and families, social services and personal assistants or just anyone in the need of information regarding accessibility to different services.”

They are still in early stages of the app, and will grow their services and related impact as they grow their user base as well as services they offer.

Travable video

Support for social enterprises in Iceland

Support for social enterprises in Iceland

The community in Iceland for social enterprises is small. But if you have an idea for social good, there are a few places you can get some support.

Kveikja, félagsamtök

Kveikja offers education, support and development of social entrepreneurship in Iceland. They work on a 1-on-1 basis and are available for consultations no matter where you are with your business. They also provide training courses on relevant topics as well as offer meet ups for its members for peer-to-peer learning and networking.

Frumbjörg

The go to place for social innovation in Iceland, mostly focused on health and welfare related projects. They have a wealth of knowledge in this field and the best people to contact if you project fits in this area.

Innovation Centre Iceland

They offer fee 1 hour consultation sessions that any one can discuss their business idea with. They also offer business related courses for free in Iceland and English.

Photo by Tim Wright on Unsplash
Startup Social Iceland: the winning teams

Startup Social Iceland: the winning teams

Startup Social, the first Icelandic accelerator solely focused on social innovation, organized by Höfði Reykjavík Peace Center and the Innovation Center, was launched on October 10.

7 teams were chosen from a total of 40 applications to further improve their ideas. The winning teams that are currently participating in the accelerator program are as follows:

  • Rehabilitation Centre for Young Individuals at Risk will revolve around an interdisciplinary and integrated treatment of mental disorder, drug abuse, and trauma.
  • Reykjavík er okkar, app for citizens to ‘adopt’ certain areas in Reykjavík and be personally responsible for their tidiness, in exchange for certain benefits
  • Social House located in central Reykjavík, which aims to further connect Icelandic society and individuals of different origin. People in vulnerable situations are particularly welcomed.
  • Samgönguspor aims to be a service for companies and organisations to help them implement a policy of transport, in order to improve eco-friendly mode of transport.
  • Healing Earth aims to use fungi to purify and restore contaminated areas and/or to prevent environmental accidents.
  • BFSUBL want to build a car-free area in Reykjavík, with affordable apartments and parking lots at the neighborhood’s periphery.
  • Centre for Nursing Service, which aims to operate nationally and provide knowledge about ageing to both staff in relevant sectors as well as the general public.

We look forward to seeing the presentations at the end of the 7 weeks on 22 November 2018.

This is a summary of the full article written by Höfði Reykjavík Peace Center. For the full article, go here.

karolinafund
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Business model in Iceland: Karolina Fund & Karolina Engine

“Karolina Fund is a startup company from Iceland. They are the winners of the Nordic Startup Awards 2016 (Social Tech) and co-founders of the Nordic Crowdfunding Alliance.

Karolina Fund aims to become a next generation crowd sourcing and crowd funding community. Our mission is to connect ideas, funds and talent to make creative projects possible that individuals can’t do alone.”

In the spring of 2016 they started offering their award winning solutions under the name Karolina Engine where other countries could adopt the Icelandic crowdfunding model and bring it “home”. So far Karolina Engine have assisted crowdfunding platforms Slovenia, Finland, Denmark and Norway.

As a social enterprise, they started small and local, where they now have 10% of the Icelandic population actively involved in their platform. From the start they were clear and open with regards to the impact they were creating through their platform. Just by visiting their home page you have an instant access to their impact metrics.

karolinametrics

(Image of metrics taken on 25 May 2018)

They have embedded their local know how in the Karolina Engine where they “understand the value of being local, both within and across national boundaries.” A wonderful model of local going global with a local twist.