Sleepless innovators create community websites

A refugee buddy system won a special travel prize at Australia’s first Social Innovation Camp in Sydney yesterday.

Presenting the award to Joy Suliman of the Refugee Buddy team, Cheryl Kernot, Director of Social Innovation at the Centre for Social Impact, University of New South Wales, said it was exciting to see innovative and socially beneficial uses of new technology. The winning team received a return airfare and per diem allowance to attend a Social Innovation camp overseas.

As the day's #ozsicamp Twitter activity is reduced to barely a peep, it would seem that all our SI Campers have finally found a pillow to rest their heads on after an incredible, action-packed and sleep-deprived few days. The close of the inaugural ASIX Social Innovation Camp this afternoon exceeded all expectations as our eight ideas were officially released to the world via the web, demonstrating the power of social innovation and the people driving it forward.

Australia’s first ever Social Innovation Camp is happening in Sydney right now.

I read somewhere that the defining characteristics of social innovators are optimism, creativity and democracy. It's a powerful cocktail. And it's on show, in spades, at the Social Innovation Camp going on right now in Sydney. It's Australia's first try at the Camp model, which the Australian Social Innovation Exchange picked up from its global network, in this case from the UK and Europe. With the generous help of the Centre for Social Impact at UNSW, we're trying out this approach to finding, and rapidly developing, promising ideas for social change.