Common Good First Launches its Social Innovation Digital Platform

From October 7^th to October 9^th, 2019, the partners of the Erasmus+ project Common Good First from South Africa, Scotland, Iceland, Norway and Spain came together in Cape Town, South Africa, in order to wrap up the project which ends on October 14^th, and to launch it into its next phase. Two professors from the University of Alicante, Diana Jareño and Guadalupe Ortiz, participated in the event to participate in the discussions and share the work that has been developed at the University of Alicante during this time.

During the past three years the partners have collected and documented social innovation cases in South Africa, working with social innovators from around the country to help them share their experiences through digital stories and profiles to be shared with the world on a digital platform. At the same time the project has been tackling the digital divide in South Africa, by increase the digital skills of the community managers and social innovators who participated in the project’s digital storytelling modules organized in several of the partner universities.

On 8 October 2019, the Digital Platform for the global project, Common Good First, was launched at a Social Innovation for Digital Storytelling Symposium in Cape Town. to an audience made up of academic staff, social innovators, community managers and other community representatives. The Common Good First platform will showcase remarkable community projects, social innovation and social enterprise project from around the world. The platform launched with 100 stories from different locations in South Africa as well as Scotland. From educating children to overcome gangsterism, looking after orphans, doing pottery, dealing with gender-based violence to purifying water, all communities have an exceptional ability to tackle problems, find innovative solutions and have established projects to address them.

Common Good First now creates the first global platform for such projects. The director of digital collaboration from Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) in Scotland, Julie Adair – who is the project coordinator – says: “The aim of the platform is to share innovative approaches to social challenges, many of which are similar worldwide.  The platform is really easy to use.  When telling your story, it is like filling in a Facebook or LinkedIn profile. Projects can add content as they go along to market and communicate their stories, raise their profile and attract funders.”  The Innovative Digital Platform where stories can be shared, is available at Common Good First website