What is a Social Innovation Lab?

Social Innovation Labs, like Lifehack, are established to tackle wicked problems – problems where the elements involved are ever moving, changing and morphing. They’re interconnected. That makes solving the problems very difficult, some would say impossible. Whilst you can’t solve the problems per se, you can make the situation better.

This year we’re aiming to explain more about how social innovation labs work, what characterises them, and why they provide a different kind of hope for the future compared to traditional planning approaches.

Social Innovation Labs have recently been receiving more and more attention around the world, and our friends at Enspiral helped pull together this NZ-focused Social Labs site recently to share some of the most interesting articles and examples of labs in Aotearoa and beyond.

There’s also nothing like a good infographic to explain things – thanks to Rockefeller Foundation for this one: