British Council to kick-off ‘FUTURES’ social issues forum on Mar 21
View(s):The local office of not-for-profit British Council recently held a media briefing to introduce its “FUTURES” social innovation forum, a two-day invitation only event beginning on March 21 which promises to involve multiple stakeholders from the private, public, academic, etc. sectors to tackle problems pertaining to water, health and education in Sri Lanka.
Having partnered with Dialog, Brandix, Softlogic, AMW and the Horizon Campus for this programme, this upcoming British Council Sri Lanka event follows a “learning journey” to the UK that took place at the end of 2013. And, according to organisers, the March 2014 event will kick-off with an analysis of local social issues related to water, health and education taking into account multiple perspectives sourced from the hand-picked participant group that will attend. This group will comprise 150 experts from the grassroots, academics, corporates and public sectors.
Following this, three future scenarios will be modelled, facilitated by a UK-based research agency. These will encompass a future, beyond 2020, where social services breakdown, a future where nothing changes, and a future wherein there are social innovation breakthroughs, having facilitated a better quality of life. The breakthrough future will then, ideally, be focus for social innovation designs.
Also, as per the event’s programme, currently hosted on britishcouncil.lk, social innovations / solutions will be designed via breakout / ‘hackathon’ style sessions.
Speaking at the media briefing, a representative for Softlogic, Charith Gunathilaka, signalled that his company was most interested in social innovations that could come about from the health-based discussions planned for the March 2014 event.
(JH)