2022 Fall Duke Kunshan University Social Innovation Forum

The purpose and responsibility of innovation have changed from economic growth to sustainability transition, from the central role of firms to multi-stakeholder collaboration. Such claims are referred to as “grand challenges” involving “wicked” problems that are “complex, systematic, interconnected, and urgent” (Mazzucato, 2017)“Social innovation is the process of developing and deploying effective solutions to challenging and often systemic social and environmental issues in support of social progress. Social innovation is not the prerogative or privilege of any organizational form or legal structure. Solutions often require the active collaboration of constituents across government, business, and the nonprofit world.” from Sarah A. Soule, Neil Malhotra, and Bernadette Clavier.

The Duke Kunshan University Social Innovation Lab is initiated to inspire changemakers and build a social impact sector among and beyond DKU community. We aim to engage a broader community of social innovators from the government, companies, non-profit organizations, universities, entrepreneurs, and young generations who will dive deeply into the social innovation domain with a dynamic, systematical, and futurist perspective. We hope to develop a platform to explore innovative opportunities for social changes via policy, technology, design, and entrepreneurship, and more, to provide social innovators from around the world with a perspective on the work of social and environmental change being pursued in China.

• 9:00-9:15 Welcome Remarks

• 9:15-10:15 Business Innovation Keynote Speech

• The opening Social Innovation Keynote Speech will discuss the new profit models that enterprises can more focus on. This part surrounds ESG (Environment-Social-Governance) and Impact Investment, Tech for Good, Business for Good, and Social Innovation for the Rural Revitalization four themes to investigate how enterprises can not only maximize their benefits and achieve win-win while developing personal business and self-profit, but also lead the development of all-around business.

• 10:30-11:00 Keynote Speech 1: Traditional Culture and Future Medical Innovation

• Besides the business model innovation described in the opening forum, other social operating systems are also dependent on iteration and innovation. Zeng, Founding President of Beijing Young Zen Foundation, will elaborate the theme of Traditional Culture and Future Medical Innovation and address how to combine tradition and future while using the soft power of culture and medicine to drive the innovation and development of the society and moreover to the world.
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• 11:00-11:30 Keynote Speech 2: From Veganism Promotion to the Sauceman’s Spirit Cultivation

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• 11:30-12:00 Keynote Speech 3: Future Education and Global Development

• While the world is stepping onto the stage of innovative development, the importance of future education is also non-ignorable. Chairman of the China Organizing Committee of the Global Invention Conference, William Wang, will present the interaction between future education and global innovative development. Future education is an inseparable element of global development, based on which to provide the world with an endless supply of talents in order to ensure the sustainable and stable social innovation and development in the future.
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