Our friends at SiG (located at MaRS in Toronto) in partnership with the University of Waterloo recently announced that the new Gradutate Diploma in Social Innovation is now accepting applications.

Creating Shared Value through Social Innovation

All members of our society should be able to make meaningful contributions to our communities and experience a positive sense of belonging. Unfortunately, many do not have those experiences, and their exclusion from full participation comes with heavy costs, not just for them, but also for our communities, their families, our organizations and for the economy overall.

The first offering of the Graduate Diploma in Social Innovation, with support from the J. W. McConnell Family Foundation, will be grounded in the domains of mental health, aging and newcomers to Canada. The challenges related to these groups are complex and can feel intractable even to those most passionate about finding solutions. The problems are too complex for any one sector – government, business, or community organizations – to solve on their own. Creating shared value in these domains involves working to reimagine how all three sectors can interact to create both social and economic value in pursuit of new, more creative and more promising opportunities for change.

If you are seeking creative solutions to big problems, open to exploring and utilizing multiple and cross-cutting perspectives, and eager to develop the habits of thought and strategic skills necessary to make transformative change possible, this program was designed with you in mind.

•     Become a more creative and sophisticated systems-thinker
•     Learn to better identify, nurture and seize opportunities to address the problems of greatest importance to you
•     Build a national, cross-sectoral professional network
•     Develop strategic skills and ways of thinking that will make you more effective in all your endeavors
•     Position yourself to effectively address major social challenges

Find more information and the application online at: http://gradsi.ca/. Applications are June 30, 2011.