On April 9, Merab Berdzenishvili International Cultural Center “Muza” in Tbilisi hosted opening of the first “Social Innovation Camp Caucasus” and the first International Conference “Social Media for Social Change”. On April 10, 5:45pm the judges consisting of European experts of the social media and conference participants from the US, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Europe, and Georgia will have to name the 2 best projects presented by Social Innovations Camp participants.
Over two days (April 9-10) the representatives of leading innovation technology companies, web designers, university professors, representatives of non-governmental and governmental organizations, journalists and bloggers from the United States, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Europe have been sharing their experience on the issues like: social media as the social changes’ accelerator; civic journalism; the role of traditional and untraditional media in transitional democracy countries; blogging and etc.
The Social Innovation Camp gathers web designers, experienced journalists, marketing specialists and NGO representatives from Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia. Participants have been divided into six groups to find digital solutions to 6 social issues that were presented by participants itself and selected by the judges at the first stage of the selection. During 48 hours spent in the Camp the participants will have the opportunity to transform these ideas into web-based innovations. The authors of the winner ideas will be awarded monetary prizes and thus will have a chance to turn their project into reality after the Camp. These six competing ideas vary from field to field. They focus on raising awareness on reproductive health issues, freedom of public information, environmental issues, human rights protection etc.
For the first time the Social Innovation Camp was held in London in 2007 and for the second time in Bratislava in September, 2009. The author of this idea, the new media specialist Mr. Dan McQuillan from Great Britain attends the Social Innovation Camp Caucasus together with other European experts of this field. “When the society faces the problem it is not necessary to wait for the government or for non-governmental organization and expect that they will come up with solutions or some useful ideas. When the change is needed there should be found ways for making it happen”.
To learn more and get the feeling of the Social Innovatins Camp visit http://sic-caucasus.net/.
Here you can view the event agenda.