How to Facilitate Citizen-Led Social Innovations: Designer-, Maker-, and Funder-Society as Building Blocks

Year: 2019
Published in: Handbook of Research on Smart Territories and Entrepreneurial Ecosystems for Social Innovation and Sustainable Growth
Cited as: Ates, S. A. (2020). How to Facilitate Citizen-Led Social Innovations: Designer-, Maker-, and Funder-Society as Building Blocks. In Palma-Ruiz, J. M., Saiz-Álvarez, J., & Herrero-Crespo, Á. (Eds.), Handbook of Research on Smart Territories and Entrepreneurial Ecosystems for Social Innovation and Sustainable Growth (pp. 67-83). IGI Global. http://doi:10.4018/978-1-7998-2097-0.ch005

The historical periods of disruptions for almost every field of life underlines the necessity of bottom-up development, which requires citizens to realize its potential and take the responsibility to make a change. Social innovations are believed to play the role that technological innovation did during the industrial development one century ago. Proven experiences suggest that there is an immense need of cultivation of an ‘innov-active’ society which is sensitive to the challenges around them, capable of analyzing the situation, determining the point of action, developing alternatives and providing necessary resources in an innovative and collaborative manner without awaiting or expecting the intervention of others. Unlocking the potential of the people necessitates taking advantage of collective intelligence; a participators design approach, improving the community feeling and level of trust; developing necessary tools for action; and improving the active citizenship mindset, which eventually contributes to an entrepreneurship spirit and thus creates a risk-taker and resilient society.