Innovation Station Experience
Last weekend, Maggi and I had the privilege to travel to Blagoevgrad and participate in a non-profit organization social innovation case competition. The event is called Innovation Station and is hosted by the Better Community Club at AUBG (American University in Blagoevgrad).
Each organization sends in a case study/problem they are trying to address within their organization or for the community and student teams are given a certain organizations’ case as well as paired up with a different organizations’ representatives who act as mentors for the weekend.
We were paired with a last minute team to work on an organization, Single Step’s problem of gaining acceptance for the LGBTQ community in Bulgaria. This was a really tough social issue to tackle due to Bulgaria’s history with communism as well as with their deep Orthodox religious roots. For the 3 boys, at times I could see them wrestling themselves internally of whether they could even be supportive of the inclusivity of this group of people and come up with a solution to help the organization.
Still, after 2 full days of work, the boys came up with an idea with some help from us mentors and we ended up deciding on an educational campaign to promote discussion about “what defines someone’s identity”. The premise was to create a city wide debate competition and invite various high schools in Sofia to participate on a school class level first, and then have the winners move on to the city competition. We came up with the idea to partner with other organizations that Single Step already had prior relationships built with in order to have a more balanced approach when going to the schools to present the idea.
It was a cool experience to see so many uni students engaged and excited about helping different NGO’s with their social or organizational problems. The team that had PINK’s problem case was super enthusiastic and worked really hard on our case. Overall, it was a really special event that I was glad and grateful to be a part of! Maggi and I also were able to connect and talk with some of the other mentors who work at other organizations and learn more about what they do too!
I’m looking forward to participating again next year and also seeing how the other organizations’ problems were resolved! Until next time, чао! - - - Nathan.
