When faced with complex challenges, how can your Enactus team come up with creative solutions that work?
Doing a little research and becoming aware of current tools and support mechanisms can help your team be even more innovative!
Reach Out
To help you on your innovation journey, reach out to any innovation centres and entrepreneurship centres at your school that may be able to assist. In particular, if your school has an innovation lab, your team should definitely tap into that resource.
For example, at Simon Fraser University, there is a social venture lab called RADIUS SFU that would probably be a great place to start for the Enactus SFU team and probably have pre-existing processes that assist with social innovation.
Adopt a Process
Innovation is best supported through adopting a process. Familarize your team with Lean Start-Up methodology and human centered design (or design thinking). Various toolkits that support social innovation can be found on the Enactus Shared Resources Drive.
Find Appropriate Tools
Human centered design, in particular, challenges you to create solutions that your target audience finds desirable, are technically feasible and financially viable.
From a financially viability perspective, if your project generates revenue (i.e. is set up as a social enterprise) you may want to use the Business Model Canvas tool.
In addition to these resources, Social innovation Generation (SiG) has developed a ton of learning tools focused specifically on social innovation.
These tools serve as a foundation for helping you drive innovation on your team and ultimately help you turn that innovation into improved livelihood outcomes for your project beneficiaries.