What is the Social Innovation eXchange?

If you want to set up a new social finance system in the rural villages of Bangladesh, or include patients in designing their own care in the UK, or set up a hub in your city where different enterprises could meet work and learn from each other, how would you do it? People, global companies, governments, foundations and NGOs around the world are increasingly recognizing the need for projects like this, and for social innovation. SIX is a global community that connects these people – enabling them to learn and collaborate and replicate innovative projects in different countries, whilst simultaneously developing the field of social innovation across the world.

Our aim is to improve the methods with which our societies find better solutions to challenges such as ageing, climate change, inequality and healthcare.

The website

The SIX website is the first port of call if you want to contact someone in the SIX community, or find out if anyone else is doing a similar project to you. It is also a resource of papers, articles and case studies of whats going on with social innovation around the world.

The Events

Alongside the website we hold events in many different countries in collaboration with our partners and members of the SIX community - events have taken place in Portugal, China, Australia, South Korea, and many more places. Our first annual summer school was held in Spain and focused on the practical challenges of social innovation. The second SIX summer school was held in July 2009 in Lisbon, Portugal and focus on 'Recovery through Innovation'. During 2009, SIX is also running the 6SIX TelePresence series, with the help of Cisco technology.

The Partners

SIX is governed by a steering group of 9 organisations active in social innovation. All organisations represent different fields, sectors and regions. SIX was instigated and is overseen by the Young Foundation, where the secretariat is based.

Chair - Diogo Vasconcelos, Portugal - Former Government Minister, now with Cisco; Members - The Young Foundation, UK; School for Social Entrepreneurs, UK; Australian Social Innovation Exchange, Australia and New Zealand; Business Innovation Brokers, Spain; MIK Co-op., Spain; Lien Foundation, Singapore; Sitawi, Brazil; Phillips Design, Holland; DESIS (Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability), Italy.

SIX has over 400 members, including Centre for Social Innovation, Canada; Centre for Social Innovation, Vienna; Hope Institute, Korea; Euclid Network, Europe, Fuping Institute of Development, China; Monitor Institute, USA; Sustainable Everyday Project, Italy; Tallberg Foundation, Sweden; and many others. Existing SIX sponsors include the Macquarie Group Foundation, Philips Design, Cisco, and Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.