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Miri Katz

How The Private Sector Can Drive Social Innovation - CIO Central - CIO Network - Forbes - 0 views

  • How The Private Sector Can Drive Social Innovation
  • Out of the 100 largest economies in the world, about half are multinational corporations. Given their impact on global communities, it is becoming increasingly essential that these large corporations execute responsibility to society, rather than rely on governments and non-profits to address difficult social issues alone.
  • oday, the world’s largest companies are in a unique position to play a much greater role in driving social change than ever before.
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  • Aside from pure monetary donations, however, is a new model that is transforming corporate philanthropy.
  • Increasingly, corporations are turning to a shared value model, in which companies work in alignment with society rather than against it, producing mutual benefits to both the community and the corporation
  • It evolves the traditional model of financial and material goods donations, to one in which corporations leverage a range of corporate assets including employee skills, business acumen and partner networks, to drive social change.
  • Here’s the shift: Instead of viewing it as our responsibility to drive business and social value, view it also a valuable opportunity to rethink existing practices.
  • The business case for social innovation
  • there are a variety of benefits for an organization, from brand building, to staff retention, and even improved client stickiness. Shareholders and the investment community are also increasingly considering corporate responsibility when making investment decisions.
  • collaborations can drive innovation through necessity. Non-profits work in extreme environments, faced with limited infrastructure, connectivity and staff. Operating in these situations exposes corporate staff to new sets of customer challenges, which can often deliver innovations in product design or services into the business.
  • by working with a non-profit organization, a corporation can demonstrate its expertise to a new audience, expanding its business network.
  • Increasingly, investors weigh environmental, social and governance  data when making investment decisions. While such data has been a benchmark for European-based companies for some time, we are now seeing a more global adoption and interest in this, which should be another forcing function for more corporations to act as good corporate citizens.
  • Applying social innovation in practic
  • A good starting point is to assess the company’s available skills, expertise, partnerships against the touch-points the company currently has within a given community. From there, establish specific goals to achieve and a strategic plan to meet those goals.
  • Companies that have an expertise in technology, for example, can collaborate with non-profits or social entrepreneurs to provide the infrastructure backbone that turn their ideas into reality. With the social enterprise mPedigree Network, HP leveraged its technology expertise in cloud-based services to design and build an anti-drug counterfeiting service in Africa. Counterfeit medicine is a significant problem in developing countries, causing more than 700,000 deaths each year. The new service helps save lives by enabling patients to validate the integrity of their medicine by sending a free text message.
  • Gabi Zedlmayer is Vice President of Hewlett-Packard’s Office of Global Social Innovation.
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    Out of the 100 largest economies in the world, about half are multinational corporations. Given their impact on global communities, it is increasingly essential that these large corporations execute responsibility to society, rather than rely on governments and non-profits to address difficult social issues alone
Assunta Krehl

Benecaid Names Jonathan Graff Co-President - Canada Newswire Group - 0 views

  • Benecaid has named Jonathan Graff to Co-President, a new role in which he will share senior executive responsibilities with Marla Schwartz, who has been Benecaid's President since 2005.
  • Benecaid is a health benefits administrator that provides cost-effective, customized plan management for small and medium-sized employers and the self-employed. Its innovative approach has resulted in revenue growth of nearly 5,000 per cent over the last five years. Benecaid was ranked in the top 10 of Profit 100's Fastest Growing Canadian Companies in 2009.
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    Benecaid is a health benefits administrator. Jonathan Graff has been announced as a Co-President in which he will share senior executive responsibilities with Marla Schwartz, who has been Benecaid's President since 2005. Graff sits on the Market Advisory Panel for Web Businesses at the MaRS Centre.
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    Benecaid is a health benefits administrator. Jonathan Graff has been announced as a Co-President in which he will share senior executive responsibilities with Marla Schwartz, who has been Benecaid's President since 2005. Graff sits on the Market Advisory Panel for Web Businesses at the MaRS Centre. Sept 8, 2009
Assunta Krehl

Stem Cell Network teaming with MaRS to accelerate commercialization efforts - Research ... - 0 views

  • The Stem Cell Network (SCN) has entered into a collaborative agreement with the MaRS Discovery District to transfer control of its nascent spin-off commercialization arm, Aggregate Therapeutics Inc (ATI). The agreement will see MaRS take immediate management responsibility for ATI, seek funding to operationalize the company and accelerate efforts to commercialize stem cell and regenerative medical research
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    The Stem Cell Network (SCN) has entered into a collaborative agreement with the MaRS Discovery District to transfer control of its nascent spin-off commercialization arm, Aggregate Therapeutics Inc (ATI). The agreement will see MaRS take immediate management responsibility for ATI, seek funding to operationalize the company and accelerate efforts to commercialize stem cell and regenerative medical research
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    Research Money states "The Stem Cell Network (SCN) has entered into a collaborative agreement with the MaRS Discovery District to transfer control of its nascent spin-off commercialization arm, Aggregate Therapeutics Inc (ATI). The agreement will see MaRS take immediate management responsibility for ATI, seek funding to operationalize the company and accelerate efforts to commercialize stem cell and regenerative medical research." April 24, 2007
Tim T

The Case Against Corporate Social Responsibility - WSJ.com - 0 views

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    "The Case Against Corporate Social Responsibility "
Assunta Krehl

Marc and Craig Kielburger's do-gooding social enterprise - The Globe and Mail - March 1... - 0 views

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    Brothers Marc Kielburger and Craig Kielburger, co-founder and founder respecitively, of the Free The Children Foundation. They also launched another project a for-profit company called Me to We, which sells socially responsible products and offers young people trips abroad, channeling most of the proceeds back to Free the Children. Allyson Hewitt, Director of SiG at MaRS, provides her perspectives on the challenges that social entrepreneurs encounter.
Assunta Krehl

Pivot or persevere? When it's right to change, or stay, the course - The Globe and Mail - 0 views

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    Ethical Ocean is a MaRS Client who specializes in selling socially responsible products only made a strategic pivot in their model. Nathan Monk, a senior associate with MaRS Discovery District in Toronto and an adviser in the Web and mobile technology startup community, says it's important to constantly review and test business models or hypotheses.
kathryn mars

Stanford Social Innovation Review : Opinion Blog : The Axiology of Nonprofit Impact (De... - 0 views

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    Stanford Social Innovation Review is an award-winning magazine covering best strategies for nonprofits, foundations, and socially responsible businesses. Published quarterly by the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Cathy Bogaart

Stanford Social Innovation Review - 0 views

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    Stanford Social Innovation Review
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    Shares insights and practical experiences that will help those who do the important work of improving society do it even better. Strategies, tools, ideas for non-profits, foundations, socially responsible businesses.
Sarah Hickman

MaRS Discovery District - Recommended Resources - Entrepreneurship Resources - Stonewoo... - 0 views

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    While governance and fiduciary matters command a bigger share of their time and attention, the hiring of CEOs is among the most important, value-added responsibilities of Boards of Directors. It is also one exercised ever more frequently, with statistics showing that two-thirds of all venture-backed startup companies replace their founding CEOs and of these replacements, two out of every five fail in the first 18 months.
Cathy Bogaart

Social Enterprise Gains Importance In Tough Times - The Leader World - 0 views

  • with self-belief and a preparedness to adapt to the new economic situation, social enterprise will thrive
  • Social enterprise, in many ways, is about generating value: for both society and business. What could be more important when facing difficult times?
  • leverage their natural resources for the betterment of both society and their bottom line
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  • New graduates are known as ‘Generation Yers’. Born between 1979 and 1998, they want to be successful business people, but they also want to do good with their skills. They want luxurious products, but won’t buy from unethical companies. For businesses to recruit and retain the best, they have to offer more than the corporate package. Community engagement is fast becoming a key competitive differentiator between professional services firms. In a recent survey of UK graduates by PricewaterhouseCoopers, 70% said that they will actively seek out employers whose corporate responsibility behaviour reflects their own. An Aspen Institute study shows business school students citing ‘business's responsibility to society’ as a top concern when choosing a job.
  • social entrepreneurship will be rattled by this economic situation, but we will make changes to our approach where necessary and come out stronger and more central to both business and community.
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    This article talks about how the recession's economic tightening is actually good for social enterprises as it forces the industry to be more innovative in order to survive. The author talks about asking for partnerships that are even more valuable than charitable donations. He also talks about why it's important for all companies to incorporate ethical business practices in order to stay viable in a generation of people who care deeply about where products come from. Times are better than ever for social entrepreneurs.
Sarah Hickman

The Well-Designed Global R&D Network - 0 views

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    Consider the two faces of the global innovation movement. Company A, having grown through acquisition, produces multiple brands for multiple markets and operates a worldwide network of research and product development centers. Each of its R&D sites was initially responsible for its own brands and local market, but with globalization these distinctions have lost their importance. Company B, on the other hand, was built largely through internal growth and has two global brands. It operates one primary R&D center supported by a handful of special-purpose sites around the world. This comparatively sparse network has helped Company B win wide admiration for the efficiency of its engineering. Because expanding the number of nodes in a network exponentially increases its complexity, it is not surprising that Company A's R&D structure is more expensive to operate. Company A has considered closing some sites, but has resisted doing so because it fears losing capabilities and insights, and roiling local markets. Meanwhile, incremental budget cuts have chipped away at engineer and supplier morale. Having built its network to maximize the value associated with market access, it is now forced to manage the network for cost. Most global innovation networks look like Company A's - and suffer the same problems. Company B's R&D structure is clearly more productive, but it is not necessarily ideal either. Its network might be too compact, limiting access to knowledge that could maximize performance. Thus, to identify principles and practices for creating a truly well-designed innovation network, Booz Allen Hamilton and INSEAD, the international business school, surveyed R&D leaders in 186 companies from 17 industry sectors in 19 nations in 2005. The survey results, and our own experience, suggest one central truth: Organizations benefit when they configure their innovation networks for cost and manage them for value.
Sarah Hickman

Office of Climate Change, UK - Our activities - Stern Review - 0 views

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    The first half of the Review focuses on the impacts and risks arising from uncontrolled climate change, and on the costs and opportunities associated with action to tackle it. A sound understanding of the economics of risk is critical here. The Review emphasises that economic models over timescales of centuries do not offer precise forecasts - but they are an important way to illustrate the scale of effects we might see. The second half of the Review examines the national and international policy challenges of moving to a low-carbon global economy. Climate change is the greatest market failure the world has seen. Three elements of policy are required for an effective response.
George Botos

AZ pitches social-media rules to FDA - FiercePharma - 0 views

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    AstraZeneca has made its social-media pitch to the FDA. In response to the agency's call for comments on new rules for online marketing and communications, the drugmaker outlined some ways interactions with customers--and potential customers--might be governed. Read more: http://www.fiercepharma.com/story/az-pitches-social-media-rules-fda/2010-03-02?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal#ixzz0h2feB1qq
Assunta Krehl

A Look At The Five Teams Vying To Reinvent Toronto's Birthplace - CityNews - February 1... - 0 views

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    Five architectural teams face the challenge of reinventing a site considered to be Toronto's birthplace. Adamson Associates Architects is on the short listed firms. Mention of Adamson being responsible for the restoration and renovation of the MaRS Centre at College and University. The project included the reformation of the College Wing of the historic Toronto General Hospital and stitching that into contemporary buildings and public atrium space.
Assunta Krehl

Onus on tech firms to build responsible privacy controls: a guest blog from MaRS - IT B... - 0 views

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    Earl Miller from MaRS shares his thoughts on why young tech companies should treaty privacy as a key business issue.
Sarah Hickman

Ode Magazine - A New Homepage for Intelligent Optimists - 0 views

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    A Netherlands publication, Ode's claim to fame is profiling interesting individuals and innovators before they are known globally (such as Patch Adams and Deepak Chopra) and making alternative media mainstream. Since 1995, Ode's goal has been to promote social, economic, and environmental ideas that change the world for the better. Available in Dutch and English, Ode publishes novel ideas, profiles interesting individuals that are making a change today, makes for a great social networking tool, and reports on people, culture, science and health, responsible business, and environment.
Melissa Hughes

Keystone compromise faces up to economic and climactic realities - Toronto Star - March... - 0 views

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    "The expansion of the Keystone XL pipeline has become a lightning rod for the battle between long-term climate concerns and shorter-term economic benefit. Opponents say Canada's tarsands are one of the world's most carbon-intensive and environmentally destructive sources of oil. Proponents argue they're a politically stable source of oil in a world fraught with risk. Both are correct. A compromise on Keystone is essential if Canada is to become a responsible energy superpower in the complex 21st century world of carbon constraints. "
Assunta Krehl

New York launches privately funded program to rehabilitate young offenders - The Star -... - 0 views

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    Carol Goar from The Star states "Financial giant Goldman Sachs will invest $9.6 million in a four-year behavioural learning program designed to reduce the proportion of young inmates who reoffend. Organizations like MaRS, are examining the concept of pay-for-performance bonds.
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