By Youhee Choi, edited by Maya Rector


The technical expertise of Silicon Valley provides a perfect ground for skill-based volunteering that could contribute to society.As the “dominant global ecosystem” of startup acceleration in the world, Silicon Valley can expand its societal potential as a startup accelerator (Startup Genome 2017). For instance, my previous job as a program coordinator at Yonsei Center for Social Innovation played a major role in expanding societal potential as a startup accelerator. Funded by the Ministry of Education in Korea, this center funded undergraduate students’ research on social innovation and facilitated relevant programs such as social innovation consulting competition, Global Innovation Tours to Shanghai and Silicon Valley, and many more. This provided opportunities to students to interact with mentors from McKinsey&Company, Google and more to learn about major components of a successful startup. Rather than simply relying upon donations or using volunteer based expertise as is outlined in the previous options, the center showed a clear vision on synergetic combination of both private and public sectors. (More details on this amazing institution can be found here: uic.yonsei.ac.kr/ycsi)
Social startups can be accelerated with the synergetic combination of both private and public sectors.Throughout this research, I reviewed three possible, not necessarily mutually exclusive options for Silicon Valley to lead social innovation in the area. Although charity foundation and skill-based volunteering have been the trend up until now, I believe that startup accelerators based on both technical expertise and adequate funding can be game-changers for Silicon Valley.
References
- Gunther Mark (2017). The Charity That Big Tech Built. On Stanford Social Innovation Review Fall 2017 Vol 15. №4: 18–25.
- Kesley Oliver (2017). IBIS World Industry Report 81321 Donations,Grants & Endowment in the US. IBIS World.
- Kapoor D. and Sossin L. (2017). Social Enterprise, Law and Legal Education. On Osgoode Hall Law School of York University, Osgoode Digital Commons.
- Letts C. and Holly D. (2017). The Promise of Skills-Based Volunteering. On Stanford Social Innovation Review Fall 2017 Vol 15. №4: 41–47.
- Startup Genome (2017). Global Startup Ecosystem Report 2017
Op-Ed: How can social innovation develop in Silicon Valley? was originally published in Berkeley Master of Engineering on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.