Technology Induced Social Innovations for Resilience during Social Upheavals

Social innovation is a relatively new concept, coined to represent any novel perspective, approach, model, technique or process conceived and devised as an intervention to create structures and strategies to address issues in diverse social spheres through innovative policies, programs and technologies to bring about positive and transformative changes. It involves developing and deploying operational solutions to systemic challenges societies come to face in crisis. Such social innovations seldom take place in social vacuum. They are driven and oriented by social upheavals, rendering them more focused and well defined to address specific issues and concerns emanating during situations of crisis by employing innovative technologies and reassigning available resources, to arrive at outcomes that are emancipative, ameliorative and relevant to the intended stakeholders. Social innovation could prove as an effective strategic tool and intervention in addressing issues such as climate change, health, education, poverty alleviation, forced migration, inclusivity and situations of crisis and disasters. As a multidisciplinary model, social innovation has elicited considerable interest and efforts of academia across disciplines, civil society organizations and policy fora. However, owing to its recent origin as a concept and an initiative and in the absence of streamlined theoretical and methodological foundations, empirical research focusing on efficacy and effectiveness of social innovation initiatives in resolving issues they focus upon in is still sparse. Keeping in view the statement made above, the session invites empirical and conceptual papers, focusing on social innovation in theory and in practice.