Social entrepreneurs

Human-centred design

Social entrepreneurship is the act of implementing solutions to social, cultural, or environmental issues. The challenge – How might we enable more young people to become social entrepreneurs? This project takes on this challenge through the use of human-centred design.

Overview

The free Human-centered Design course run by Acumen and Ideo was a great learning experience in my development as a designer. It helped me focus my problem solving thoughts on the user with a human focus. In our team we attempted to solve how we can encourage people to become social entrepreneurs*.

*Social entrepreneurship is an approach by individuals, groups, start-up companies or entrepreneurs, in which they develop, fund and implement solutions to social, cultural, or environmental issues.

Goals

Learn from people

Talk with the community by interviewing people and understanding their perspectives.

Contextual immersion

Immerse yourself in the environment of social entrepreneurs to understand their day-to-day.

How might we

From the findings, construct “How might we” questions to help solve problems from a human approach.

Challenge

While more and more youth are interested in social entrepreneurship* as a means for tackling some of the world’s toughest challenges, many aspiring social entrepreneurs fail to move beyond the initial idea phase because the infrastructure to support them is lacking. Some are unable to gain access to networks or mentors that could provide the knowledge and experience to confront major decisions, while others lack the capital they need to start their venture. So, how might we enable more young people to become social entrepreneurs?

Team knowledge & assumptions

As a team we shared our knowledge and assumptions on the challenge.

What did we already know about social entrepreneurship and;
What do we need to learn?

This then formed the basis of our research plan which was to learn from those close to this topic to build a stronger understanding and empathy for it.

Conduct interviews

Learn from people

The social entrepreneurs themselves are the core audience we need to better understand. In this case we spoke with:

Anky, an app developer dedicated to developing applications that can help to promote positive social behavior

Meera, an independent fashion designer dedicated to producing ethical fashion products

Adam, a final year dental student with a strong passion to build up a sustainable small business that provides quality dental service to local low-income communities

Key findings:

Learn from experts

The secondary audience are the expert researchers in social entrepreneurship that seek to inspire people to become social activists. In this case, we were fortunate enough to speak with Will from SPUR. SPUR is a group of non-profit companies that produce social change projects and assist organisations to understand and solve their own complex social challenges.

Key findings:

People are engaged to do something to help society but most of them don’t know what that is.
The not-for-profit sector is very competitive, there is not a lot of money going around to fund all projects
Sustainable business models is the key

Insight statements & how might we's

Human-centered design is most powerful when we turn existing challenges into opportunities for design. Based on the previous research, common themes are combined to create insight statements. From there, each insight statement is given a How Might We question to help with the next steps in exploration of a design solution.

Solution

A new social entrepreneur community and digital platform. By designing an online support network where aspiring social entrepreneurs can connect and inspire one another, attend industry events, gain access to mentorship programs and sponsorship opportunities, we are ensuring that we cultivate and support social entrepreneurship as a viable career path.