On 30 July, 2022 Desert Bloom organized a day-long Innovathon in Amman. It was a full day of hands-on learning, co-creation, innovation, enrichment, perseverance, hard work, networking and fun. The event brought together more than 50 people from diverse backgrounds including academia, public, private and voluntary sectors. A good number of seasoned social entrepreneurs worked hand in hand with the majority of young people who are either engaged in social entrepreneurship in different capacities or aspiring social entrepreneurs.
Young people have built a common understanding of key concepts including hackathon methodology, open innovation, social entrepreneurship and its ecosystem, design thinking and business modeling. Additionally, common tools usually used by entrepreneurs were introduced such as community needs assessment, problem analysis, ideation and business modeling.
The participants worked in groups, in which they framed the problem statements, analyzed the problems (through problem tree and solution tree), then brainstormed to develop their innovative ideas and translate them into a social business model. At the end, the groups pitched their project ideas in front of an expert jury panel and audience. The following two projects won the prizes:
1) Developing a mobile application to translate audio to Sign Language. To help deaf and hard of hearing to fully integrate in life.
2) Develop a video game that enables young students to gain a sense of real work experience of certain jobs to make the right study decision.
The Innovathon not only raised awareness about social entrepreneurship, it has also built young people entrepreneurial skills and capacities.
