Today I went to the first class of social entrepreneurship. And the takeaways are:

• the definition of social innovation: a novel solution to social problems that is more effective, more efficient, sustainable, or just than existing solutins and for which the value created accrues primarily to society as a whole rather than private individuals(check where the benifits go)
• the framework(adopted by Peter Frumkin) of social innovation
  • innovation
  • financial sustainability
  • impact
  • scalable
• Financial sustainability is the most important thing to think about in the starting point. Sustainability can be realized in many ways(e.g., fundraising, earning profit), the thing important is to make the financial chart plausible.
• The social innovation depends on the contexts, even the same thing, for example, computers. if the profits of computers went directly to Bill Gates, it would not be counted as social innovation. However, if the profits of computers were used to help low-income families, it would be considered as social innovation.

An interesting case study:The Aravind Eye Hospital

• One example of social innovation is to lower the cost of one service through massive production lines and to use the benifits to help the people who cannot afford the service(redistribute money).

Further questions regarding this field:

• According to Peter Frumkin, the social enterprise is something between traiditonal full-profit ltds and non-profit organizations in reference to different characteristics. But is it a continuum（then use the charcateristics of previous organizations are enough to describe)? Or is it a totally different thing which may not be put in between(possess new characteristics that is rarely considered in previous organizations)?

The course may provide me with an idea of how to assess organizations( either business companies or non-profit organizatins), what I should look at.