This year we celebrate 10 years since UpSocial was born. Looking back, we find reasons for celebration, such as the reduction in the extreme poverty rate, the worldwide increase of school-going girls, important changes in public mobilization to combat racism, stronger responses to the climate crisis, and some improvements regarding gender equity.
However, we still witness many persisting situations of vulnerability becoming chronic, and limiting opportunities for people to have a just, dignified, life. Despite improvements on the matter of social inclusion and fundamental rights, scenarios such as the ones generated by COVID-19 have done nothing but increase existing inequalities, underlining the dysfunctions of political, social and economic systems, and highlighting more than ever, that, in the face of aggravated needs and scarce resources to address them, innovation is an imperative, not a luxury.
UpSocial was created with the obsession to provide systemic, scalable solutions to these social challenges. Our work is based on understanding how changes happen, how they are activated and accelerated, and how they transcend a particular project or organization and become systemic.
Therefore, we want to celebrate our 10th anniversary while launching a collaborative learning challenge to help generate opportunities for common reflection and action, especially seizing a moment where we are globally redefining priorities to build societies that are more resilient and fair.
We invite you to listen to our podcasts about how social change happens, and we would like to thank all participants who enlighted the debate with their ideas.
We also invite you to be inspired by a selection of innovations from around the world that have captivated us with their transformative power.