If you really want to help someone, "Shut up and listen!".

It was not until little Preeti disappeared from school for a week that I realized that something was terribly wrong at her home and that I’d turned a blind eye to the child’s most long-standing problem. It took very little to find out what that problem was as Preeti was suffering everyday, right in front of our eyes.

“ Alcoholism isn’t a spectator sport. Eventually the whole family gets to play.”

Preeti’s father is a raging alcoholic and gets physically and verbally abusive with both his

children and wife, every single day. Through research and a little peek into Preeti’s home

and neighborhood, what we came to find was deeply disturbing.

 During my tenure as a primary school teacher in one of the most economically backward communities in Chennai, India, I had the opportunity to work on one of the most pressing issues in the community- Alcoholism. My first experience with tackling the issue, to put simply, was an utter and complete failure. But, it was also the primary reason behind why I take this class today. My research and analysis towards identifying my mistakes led me to two videos that completely changed my perception of the term " Social Innovation".

1)      A TED talk by Dr. Ernesto Sirolli- Founder of the Sirolli Institute and also referred to as the "iron man" of local economic development. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chXsLtHqfdM

2)      A TED talk by Senthil Mullainathan – Solving Social problems with a nudge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBJQENjZJaA

The readings this week complement my work in the past in this area to reaffirm my thoughts on how a concept as intuitive as Human Centered Design could be so challenging to implement or even think about, to begin with.

So as I read through these articles, I was looking at what could've been potential blunders in my problem-solving techniques. And the biggest blunder among the lot being " unrealistic assumptions". One of the key problems that failed Social Innovations are faced with today may include assuming the problem to be of a much higher or lower degree than it actually is. i.e. creating complex solutions for simple problems or simple solutions for complex problems. This stood out to me as the most longstanding issue with social innovation techniques as a design process could be constructed entirely around this rather "dangerous" assumption.

When I take into consideration, the case of Preethi's father- a case of the highest degree of alcohol addiction, we  designed solutions for an entire community assuming that everyone would be going through the same thing. Encountering a problem of such degree led to the development of a subconscious bias that was a deterrent to the solution  being widely adaptable and usable by all members of the community.

I think while extensive research and study are a given before we delve into innovating, it is extremely important to combine the process with a careful evaluation of personal bias and assumptions as these could affect even the most successful model/process to innovate better.