Incentivizing innovation

With the cliched grassroots approach, the challenges of investment and scalability exist. Organizations like the Honey Bee Network appear to be a drop in the ocean for the change that the community of social entrepreneurs would want to see. There appears to be a big gap which can be taken by the private sector. To complement this, policy makers at international and national level need to incentivize sustainable innovation from the private organizations. Tax breaks for corporate social responsibility programs and sustainable energy projects are just a beginning.

Organizations like Grand Challenge and Ansari X Prize have made great headway in the gamification of innovation. The breakthrough is getting private companies to participate in these competitions. Governments around the world have much to learn from this model. Imagine if governments and non-profits could get the local private industry to solve the local social problems.

The article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review talks about the Office of Social Innovation and Impact in the White House. As discussed in many classes by Professor Zak, US is taking cues from the policy decisions made in the United Kingdom. However, the pace of change seems to be not sufficient to foster the motivation for individuals, non profits and private sector. With the much needed push from world organizations, the policy can propagate quickly to the parts of the world where this is much needed.