July 1, 2010, the “Social Innovator for the 21th Century” workshop was held at the Degui Academy as a collaborative project by One Village Foundation, Okogreen, Bamboo Community University, and School of Philanthropy of Dharma Drum University. Fifty participants attended the workshop, including students belonging to National Tsing Hua University’s Ghana Service-learning team and Yuan Ze University’s Aceh (Indonesia) team, as well as individuals from Dharma Drum Young Buddhist Society, YWCA, Bamboo Community University, etc.

Ms. Joy Tang, founder of One Village Foundation and executive advisor to DDU School of Philanthropy, and Mr. Wen-yen Xu, founder of Okogreen co-initiated the social innovator workshop with the intention to develop a learning community to help students who are engaged in international service learning programs and are interested in social innovation action. The training emphasizes holistic thinking and ecological consciousness in business and investment. The project will also develop “innovation hubs” that give participants the opportunity to find innovative ways to address important issues regarding global social justice and sustainability.  

The workshop covered four subjects: fair trade, storytelling through documentary, citizen journalism, and digital archive. Mr. Wen-yen Xu, who initiated the fair trade movement in Taiwan, gave a reflexive talk on globalization, free market, and social justice. Ms. Su-Hsin Tsui, senior documentary producer & board member of Green Citizens' Action Alliance, discussed the key elements for documentary and encouraged us to get hands-on experiences and to become a storyteller using documentaries. Mr. Portnoy Cheng, project manager at the Mongolian & Tibetan Foundation and editor of Global Voices Online (Chinese session), questioned the credibility of mainstream mass media in Taiwan. Cheng invited more people to be aware of the issue and get involved in the citizen journalism movement.

Mr. Ilya Lee, project manager at the Research Center Information Technology Innovation of the Academia Sinica, challenged the conventional, “storage” view in digital archives. Lee emphasized that and the practice of digital archiving is in essence a “social” practice and oriented toward collection action. Therefore, digital archivists are “field agents,” who facilitate the interaction, dialogue, and collective action through their active involvement in both the virtual and the physical worlds. For details of the workshop please visit the School of Philanthropy’s homepage: http://sop.ddc.edu.tw (Leemen Lee/Taipei)