It never used to be this way. Failure was bad and comfort was good. We saw it at home. We learnt it in school. We also learnt to compete. We made our beds and lay in them comfortably, planning traditional competitive plans that simply had to succeed. They had to. Otherwise why bother? What would […]
Social innovation conundrums. Walking between the lines.
By Justine Joseph and François Bonnici
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Inside | Justine Joseph and François Bonnici
She’s a scientist by training, but editor of Inside|Out by profession. She has a Bachelor of Science (Medical) Honours from the University of Cape Town and 10 years experience as a health and science journalist. She was a Mondi Magazine Award finalist and the international winner of the 2006 Novo Nordisk Media Prize for Excellence in Diabetes Writing. In 2011 she co-authored The Story of the Fly and How it Could Save the World with enviro-entrepreneur Jason Drew. She’s contributed to various publications including Shape, Men’s Health, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, The Oprah Magazine, Discovery and Hip2B2.
Francois Bonnici is the editorial director of Inside | Out and the co-founder and director of Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town. He originally trained as a medical doctor, graduating top of his class. He then read for a Masters in Public Health (London) and an MBA on a Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford’s Said Business School, where he received the prize for the best overall MBA student. He has a Masters in Global Leadership conferred by the World Economic Forum and is the Head of Africa for the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship.
Destination Education (#2)
By Emma van der Vliet and Justine Joseph
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4. Teacher training, knowledge and confidence Every person we interviewed noted that many South African teachers feel overwhelmed by the crisis in education and by a sense of hopelessness. Sam Christie, director of South African Innovative Learning Intervention (SAILI), an organisation that links academically talented students with well-functioning, low-fee state schools, claimed that the […]
Inside | Emma van der Vliet and Justine Joseph
Dr Emma van der Vliet is a teacher, writer and former coordinator of the Center for Educational Innovations (CEI) hub in South Africa. She also has a Masters in creative writing, a PhD in Film and Media Studies, two published novels and some very lucky kids who get to call her Mom.
She’s a scientist by training, but editor of Inside|Out by profession. She has a Bachelor of Science (Medical) Honours from the University of Cape Town and 10 years experience as a health and science journalist. She was a Mondi Magazine Award finalist and the international winner of the 2006 Novo Nordisk Media Prize for Excellence in Diabetes Writing. In 2011 she co-authored The Story of the Fly and How it Could Save the World with enviro-entrepreneur Jason Drew. She’s contributed to various publications including Shape, Men’s Health, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, The Oprah Magazine, Discovery and Hip2B2.
Destination Education (#1)
By Emma van der Vliet and Justine Joseph
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Despite significant government spend, the education system in South Africa is failing our learners. Results are significantly weaker than those of learners in our poorer sub-Saharan neighbour, Zimbabwe, which seems baffling on the surface. But let’s try to make some sense of it. Let’s examine the trending areas of challenge and the potential changes that […]
Inside | Emma van der Vliet and Justine Joseph
Dr Emma van der Vliet is a teacher, writer and former coordinator of the Center for Educational Innovations (CEI) hub in South Africa. She also has a Masters in creative writing, a PhD in Film and Media Studies, two published novels and some very lucky kids who get to call her Mom.
She’s a scientist by training, but editor of Inside|Out by profession. She has a Bachelor of Science (Medical) Honours from the University of Cape Town and 10 years experience as a health and science journalist. She was a Mondi Magazine Award finalist and the international winner of the 2006 Novo Nordisk Media Prize for Excellence in Diabetes Writing. In 2011 she co-authored The Story of the Fly and How it Could Save the World with enviro-entrepreneur Jason Drew. She’s contributed to various publications including Shape, Men’s Health, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, The Oprah Magazine, Discovery and Hip2B2.
It’s not about the money in education… South Africa vs Zimbabwe
By Emma van der Vliet
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South Africa spends 5.4% of its GDP – or 16.9% of total government spending in 2009 – on education. This is more than most emerging- market countries can afford, yet still, we remain far behind a number of these countries in terms of educational performance. Unicef estimates that in Zimbabwe, 10 children have to […]
Inside | Emma van der Vliet
Dr Emma van der Vliet is a teacher, writer and former coordinator of the Center for Educational Innovations (CEI) hub in South Africa. She also has a Masters in creative writing, a PhD in Film and Media Studies, two published novels and some very lucky kids who get to call her Mom.
Social innovation prizes: who really wins?
By Czerina Patel
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Social innovation prizes spur social innovation, right? Well, sometimes they do, and their winners keep winning. Other times they don’t, and we all wonder, “What was the point of that?” Let’s assess the good, the bad and the ugly… the winners, the losers and the choosers. In 2009, I entered the We Media PitchIt! Challenge – a competition […]
Inside | Czerina Patel
Czerina Patel is a Cape Town-born journalist who has spent half her life in the US. She has a Masters in Journalism from Columbia University. She also ran Radio Rookies, a youth documentary training programme for WNYC Radio in New York and won several journalism and broadcast awards, including the Peabody Award and the Robert F. Kennedy Award. She’s now the founder and executive director of Yenza (www.yenza.org) an organisation that, among other things, uplifts township teens.
Dump the innovation prizes?
By Inside | Out
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In August 2013, Kevin Starr blogged controversially in the Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR) that innovation prizes should be “dumped”, or at least massively reworked. Some of his criticisms: Competitions drain an already resource- deprived sector. They waste masses of time, generating many losers and thousands of lost hours for social change agents. There is […]
Teaching the business of social change
By Carol Williams
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Altino Louw’s business turns plastic bags into handbags. It also employs uneducated people from the community in which he grew up. He’s a student of an academy that’s solving social problems by creating entrepreneurs who solve problems. Clearly. It’s the perfect example of addressing social issues from the inside out. First, identify entrepreneurial individuals from challenging communities. Then give them the […]
Inside | Carol Williams
She’s a qualified music therapist (one of only 47 in South Africa) and also the personal development facilitator at the Raymond Ackerman Academy of Entrepreneurial Development. She’s passionate about social justice, social development and working with fellow South Africans to create a more just society. This is why she loves her job. She also loves music, the beach, a good laugh and a good book. And writing, too, which is great for Inside|Out.
Why social change is Altino’s business
By Carol Williams
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He was born and grew up in Belhar, Cape Town, in a community characterised by gangsterism and drugs. He’s faced various personal, social and financial challenges, but always had a positive attitude and innovative spark. Altino Louw stoked that spark in the 2013 RAA class and in a business that manufactures quality products from household […]
Inside | Carol Williams
She’s a qualified music therapist (one of only 47 in South Africa) and also the personal development facilitator at the Raymond Ackerman Academy of Entrepreneurial Development. She’s passionate about social justice, social development and working with fellow South Africans to create a more just society. This is why she loves her job. She also loves music, the beach, a good laugh and a good book. And writing, too, which is great for Inside|Out.
“It’s like internet dating for educational innovations…”
By Inside | Out
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You can’t find a good match if you don’t know where to look. And that’s what the Center for Education Innovations (CEI) is.A place to look. A meeting, greeting, profiling and potential partnership point. “It’s like internet dating for education organisations,” says IkamvaYouth founder, Joy Olivier. Here’s how CEI might help Olivier and others find […]
Education Innovation #1: LEAP Science and Maths Schools
By Inside | Out
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Programme description LEAP is a chain of no-fee, independent high schools that provide academic and life skills to the kind of skills they require to become future leaders. The schools require only a nominal fee from students, and are otherwise funded primarily by private donors. Mathematics, Physical Science and English are mandatory subjects. School days […]
Education Innovation #2: SAILI Scholarship Programme
By Inside | Out
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Programme description South African Innovative Learning Intervention (SAILI) identifies highperforming, low-income students and high-performing, low-cost schools with strong Maths and Science programmes. It then uses scholarships to support these academically talented students in attending these low-cost, high-quality schools. The aim is to produce graduates who continue into Maths and Science fields. Since the programme began in 1996, over 500 graduates have […]
Education Innovation #3: IkamvaYouth
By Inside | Out
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Programme description IkamvaYouth is a support, tutoring and mentorship initiative that works to equip learners from townships and other disadvantaged communities with the knowledge, skills, networks and resources to access tertiary education or employment. The aim is to address common obstacles to academic achievement. How? By providing supplementary support to secondary school students after school, on Saturday mornings and […]
Essays on Education: 1. The experience of school
By Tana Paddock
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Not only does the schooling environment directly affect the adults its students become, it also affects the organisations and social systems that those adults create. It’s time we thought about that. Critics of modern schooling like John Taylor Gatto and Ivan Illich have recognised that the fundamental curriculum that schools teach is school itself. I’ve […]
Inside | Tana Paddock
She’s co-founder of Organization Unbound, a global community of practice based out of Cape Town that explores how social purpose organisations can live out, in their daily functioning, the changes they are seeking to create in the world, and by doing so deepen their social impact. In her own words, Tana craves, “dialogue, community, and crossing societal divides”. She’s also, “an avid fan of bicycle-centric cities and excited to see the use of bicycles as a form of transportation gaining momentum in Cape Town”.
Essays on Education: 2. The gospel of dreaming
By Nosakhere Griffin-EL
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How using dreams in the educational space can lead to a life of individual and social consequence. In the public discourse, people like to talk about the structural issues contributing to the crisis in education in South Africa. They talk about the lack of textbooks, the shortage of qualified teachers, the poor quality of education […]
Inside | Nosakhere Griffin-EL
Dr Nosakhere Griffin-EL is a self-confessed dreamer and lecturer at the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business. From a traditionally socially and economically oppressed background in America, he’s worked extensively with oppressed communities on realising their value and reaching their potential. All of this while caring for his eight-month old baby boy with his soulmate and fellow senior lecturer, Eliada W Griffin-EL.
Essays on Education: 3. Knowledge should be free
By Mark Horner
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My journey from Nuclear Physics to producing free school textbooks with people all over the world. It happened during my Masters at the University of Cape Town. I suddenly began to pay more attention to the school education sector and its needs. Initially, I just enjoyed being a tutor in the Physics Department. This ultimately […]
Inside | Mark Horner
He started with a PhD in Nuclear Physics, then worked as the Shuttleworth Foundation Fellow for Open and Collaborative Resources. That’s when he transformed the Free High School Science Texts project, which he co-founded, into open source educational resource company Siyavula – an apt Nguni word that means “we are opening”. Mark is the CEO of Siyavula. That’s when he’s not working as a company physics expert, administrator, blogger, IT nerd or anything else.
The data that counts
By Will Sinclair
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One of the great challenges of development work is that you can never really tell whether or not it’s making a difference in the lives of its beneficiaries. Except… you can. Here’s how to find the data you need to quantify the return on social investment – and why you need to do it now. […]
Systemise to maximise
By Will Sinclair
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As with any business, measuring – and demonstrating – the success of a social investment will help the organisation driving that investment to grow. But if your organisation offers social programmes, you need to have proper systems in place before you can even think of expanding your services. In fact, scaling a social investment can be a waste of time (and money) […]
The 7 principles of social impact measurement
By Will Sinclair
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The SROI Network suggests using this list of seven simple checkpoints when measuring return on social investment offered by an innovation or organisation: 1. Involve the stakeholders Identify and consult stakeholders as the analysis is undertaken. This is to ensure that the value (and the way it’s measured) is informed by the actual people who are supposed to benefit from what you’re […]
Go with the flow – How to measure social impact, a process in four parts.
By Will Sinclair
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In their report, Measuring Social Impact: The Foundation of Social Return on Investment (SROI), the London School of Business takes things a step further by identifying a flow of four main elements required to measure what they call “social value creation”. This is how it works: 1. INPUTS The resources needed and invested in your […]
Impact bonds in Africa
By Joonji Mdyogolo
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It’s still early days for Social Impact Bonds (SIBs) in Africa. These financial innovations, which first piloted in the UK in 2010, use private investor capital to fund existing social interventions. The government commits to repaying the money with interest if the intervention is a measurable success. In short, a SIB is a financial and social investment that should have […]
Inside | Joonji Mdyogolo
Joonji Mdyogolo is a Cape Town-based writer and editor who spent a (wonderful, interesting and exhausting) year in the US as a Fulbright fellow in journalism. She’s a former deputy editor of O, The Oprah Magazine, SA. She also taught for New York organisation The Op-Ed Project and was a mentor editor at youth magazine, LiveMagSA. Now she contributes to various local and international publications. She also hosts a late-night show on Talk Radio 702.
Inside | Out is published by The Bertha Centre for Social Innovation & Entrepreneurship, hosted at the Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town, South Africa.
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