Preface

This book has been conceived on a trip that 34 students from the KaosPilots International went on in the spring of 2008. These 34 students, representing seven nationalities, travelled to the other side of the world with the purpose of exploring the meaning of the term social innovation. After three months, the same students returned home, to document their learning’s in this book.

Though Shanghai was our port, social innovation was what we aspired towards, digging out of the concrete and steel of the hectic city. Only after returning home, with the creation of this book, did we find it. Through the sharing of knowledge that took place while we were working on the book, and through the overview which the phrasing of our findings provided us with. This is why the book you are about to read has taken the format of a travel guide.

It’s our hope that it will make the journey into the abstract realm of social innovation easier for the travellers that follow in our footsteps, and that it will guide the traveller past dead ends of inaction in the labyrinthine jungle of theory where so many are lost, and into action; the place where we have come to believe social innovation reveals its true value.

Our travels showed us that to embark on social innovation, you need at first to embrace disorientation. Everywhere you look you find opposing views on what the term means, and what it encompasses. In us, this confusion sparked both a need and an ambition: to bring social innovation out of the clouds and down to earth. It hasn’t been our purpose to show the frustrations we went through on our path – though there were many – but through our findings make it easier for coming travellers to navigate. Most importantly we felt a need to make the concept tangible to a reader, in order to create a foundation for action. We’re giving you as a reader the knowledge we would have liked to have had when we set off on our journey; how to be able to take action with a social purpose and spark innovations on your way.

We’ve attempted to cut the path through the jungle bed. It is our hope that you will be inspired to walk it. Please forgive us any bushy parts you come across. As with any jungle, the shroud and vegetation grows back in new ways on a daily basis, and our method of cutting the bush might leave areas unexplored.

Some of you may enjoy reading this book without wishing to embark on the journey, like one who enjoys browsing the pages of a travel catalogue. You are welcome readers. We have, however, written this as a guide to the ones of you who have a desire to swing in the vines yourselves.

Change is the only constant in the world, and we hope that this book can help to unleash your potential to guide this change in a positive direction.

Finally, as you start to read, please keep in mind that the 34 travellers that set off on this journey have also shared the task of writing about their experiences. Sometimes, when some saw a lion, others were sure they saw a kangaroo. Evidence of this phenomenon will be present as you scroll through the pages of this book. Please, we encourage you not to despair in the face of this diversity. We at least have come to rest in the fact that our confusion around social innovation seems simply to reflect that of the world.