Here’s how the Social Innovation Camp works in brief.

- A call for ideas

The Social Innovation Camp starts with a big, open call for ideas. Anyone can enter an idea for a web-based social innovation. You don't need to be technically skilled - you just need to know about a social need that you've either encountered in your personal or professional life where the web might be able to help.

You can also attend one of our events to learn more about the camp. You can also contact us if you want to organise a meetup to generate ideas.

From the ideas submitted, a panel of judges select between six and eight of the most promising to be developed at the Social Innovation Camp weekend. The public votes will also be taken into account when selecting the ideas coming to the camp.


- One weekend

Then the people behind the selected ideas, together with software developers and designers, those with business and marketing skills, as well as individuals with expert knowledge of social need are invited to the Social Innovation Camp weekend.

From a Friday evening to a Sunday afternoon, participants are asked to organise themselves into teams around the selected ideas and then set five challenges:

1) What’s the problem they're trying to solve?
2) Build the technology with which to do this
3) How will you sustain your idea?
4) How will you build a community of users?
5) What are you going to do after the Social Innovation Camp weekend

At the end of the two days, all participants come back together to pitch what they have built and the judges award a small prize to the projects which have shown greatest potential.

- Supporting projects after the event

After the Social Innovation Camp weekend, some teams will want to continue to grow their ideas; others will decide not to take anything forward. Those teams who continue are given support to do so.

In the first camps in the UK, some projects were adopted by different organisations.

- Intellectual property

Social Innovation Camp doesn't lay claim to any IP.

We strongly believe in the value of an idea shared and a problem solved. We don't believe that intellectual property is the most important thing in getting an idea off the ground: many people can have the same idea; it's the execution that counts.

This is particularly true of the ideas that are right for Social Innovation Camp because they will be really, really early stage. You'll get more out of your idea by talking about it and sharing: you'll get nothing from jealously guarding it from the world. We always encourage people to share their ideas openly online when they submit them.

In the Social Innovation Camps in the UK, they leave it up those who go the Camp to discuss who takes an idea on after the Camp. While that has never been a problem, we will be available to answer questions and give support and advice, should that be necessary.

Having said this, giving someone credit for doing something is really incredibly important - hence the reason we encourage people to post their ideas online with details about themselves.

In the UK they have found that as soon as you start talking about IP, it becomes important in the minds of your participants when it really doesn't need to be. If people have a problem with this approach (and the vast majority don't) then they simply don't get involved. Which is fine; it's not for everybody. The kind of people you should be aiming to get along to your events (and the kind of people who will get the most out of it and who are most likely to come anyway) are those who subscribe to the values which underpin this approach: that ideas are more powerful when shared and that being 'entrepreneurial' means being collaborative and open.

Does it sounds like something you want to be part of?. You can submit an idea, Check what makes a good idea or sign up to join the Social Innovation Camp.