Designing a better South Africa:

Rarely has the need for new ways of thinking been more glaring. From the sluggish economic growth and financial instability of the last several years to the perennial issues of political upheaval, resource crises, hunger, poverty, and disease, people have come to realize that the old ways of doing things no longer work. 

All over the world during the past decade, there has been a surge of interest in social innovation as a way to achieve sustainable economic growth. 

Social innovation is helping to solve some of the world’s most pressing problems with new solutions such as fair trade, distance learning, mobile money transfer, restorative justice, and zero-carbon housing. In the process of creating solutions, it is also profoundly changing beliefs, basic practices, resources, and social power structures. That is producing more active citizens and putting the power in your own hands to make the changes that you want too see around you.

 Social innovation provides a unique opportunity to step back from a narrow way of thinking about social enterprises, business engagement, and to recognize instead the interconnectedness of various factors of shared knowledge.

Organizational, technological, and social innovations are becoming the norm among African youths and women, driving social change and economic development from the grassroots. With the rising African economies, we are witnessing increasing demand for other important transitions: from research and development (R&D) to research for development (R4D)

Innovations in rural areas:

Through targeted design interventions and co- creating new innovations to support and futher ruale areas are on the rise. Each community has its own unique set of challenges because many are so isolated from urban centres. An example of an up and coming innovation is the.

Hippo Roller Millions of people in rural areas of Africa do not live with a water source in their homes, or even near one. For these individuals, retrieving water can involve carrying heavy buckets on their heads for long distances, but not everybody has the strength do this.

The Hippo Roller is a water drum that can be rolled on the ground, so people with injuries, the elderly, children and the like can transfer water from a source far from their homes, into their kitchens. The roller has long, upward-angled handles at the top, so the person pushing it does not need to bend over to push it. Two South Africans, Pettie Petzer and Johan Jonker, developed the roller after growing up on farms and seeing how difficult it was for many people to bring water to their homes.

will you take part in designing your world?

Dear Suené, what a fantastic writing style you have! You have managed to capture my attention from the very first sentence, just because it was beautifully written. This, in combination with the factual details enabled you to put a blog post together with significant impact. Congratulations. You have also managed to display that our country is filled with outstanding democratically inclined innovators. My biggest wish is to awaken the innovative nature, inherent to all of you in the PUMA 314, 2017 class of which our co-creation will prove to be far beyond anything we could have ever imagined. Well done! Continue to grace us with your beautiful writings, it will prove to bring about positive change. :)

PUMA 314 Students, please take hands with Suené. Participate in her quest by means of your own constructive comments. Your brilliance is about to shine.

What a great blog entry, Suené. I really enjoyed reading it. Your word choices was outstanding, and you really captured the beauty of grabbing my attention, by the use of your factual data.
You really ended your blog in the best possible way, by suggesting the use of the Hippo Roller water drum. It is a great technique to be used, and it enables anyone to use it.
I gladly grade you 85/100.

Honestly a great blog Suene.Your idea of social innovations and how it can help achieve sustainable economic growth is not only a good one,but something that should be given great importance if any real change is to take place.Also very interesting is the Hippo Roller innovation.Its ideas like these that make change affordable and accessible to those that need it most.