Social Innovations: Definition and

Practice in Remote Worker Indonesia

Study Case of Remote Worker Indonesia

Eko Suprapto Wibowo

Universitas Islam Indonesia 1

 Definition (1)

“Social innovation is the process of developing and deploying

effective solutions to challenging and often systemic social and
environmental issues in support of social progress. Social
innovation is not the prerogative or privilege of any organizational
form or legal structure. Solutions often require the active
collaboration of constituents across government, business, and the
nonprofit world.”

— Sarah A. Soule, Neil Malhotra, Bernadette Clavier

https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/experience/about/centers-institutes/
csi/defining-social-innovation
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 Definition (2)

Social innovation refers to the design and implementation of new solutions that
imply conceptual, process, product, or organisational change, which ultimately aim
to improve the welfare and wellbeing of individuals and communities. Many
initiatives undertaken by the social economy and by the civil society have proven to
be innovative in dealing with socio-economic and environmental problems, while
contributing to economic development. To fully tap the potential of social
innovation, an enabling policy framework is needed to support public, non-profit and
private actors to co-construct and implement socially innovative solutions and
thereby contribute to address socio-economic issues, build stronger territorial
resilience and better respond to future shocks.
https://www.oecd.org/regional/leed/social-innovation.htm

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 Definition (3)

Social innovation is defined as a novel solution to a social problem

that is more effective, efficient, sustainable, or just than existing
solutions and for which the value created accrues primarily to society
as a whole rather than private individuals (Phills et al. 2008).

https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-642-280
36-8_252

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Constructing Social Innovation Definition

By understanding main concerns from previous definitions, I hereby

proposed this definition of Social Innovation:

“The process of identifying current outdated social framework and

constructing novelty set of mindset, procedure and tool to either
improve or replace the aforementioned social framework with new
one with the goal that it will perform better, sustainable and has
longevity better compared to the old one”

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 The Importance of Social Innovation

Humankind needs betterment in every aspect in their lives. Failed to do so, we

will failed as species. Progression toward this betterment, may sometimes
lead by one individual: prophet, nation leader or innovator. In either way, they
are the one that identify current outdated social framework and construct new
one and guide current society to this new innovation.

In my own perspective, we are in the process of moving toward remote worker

society. This is actually coined from early 2000s in the age of Dotcom Bubble,
but itʼs not gained widespread recognition until Covid-19 pandemic in the end
of 2019.

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In my vision, the problem of gap in wealth distribution in cities
throughout Indonesia, dense traffic jam, mudik, fatherless family,
life/work balance, unemployment and many other social problems,
all can be solved step by step by building Indonesia remote worker
society.

We already moving in the right direction: focus in energy power plant

improvement and internet connection penetration are two important
infrastructure that will be the foundation of this new Indonesia
Remote Worker Society

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I have been building Remote Worker Indonesia (RWID) since 2017, in the pursuit of
building a better Indonesia: a nation that valued highly by other nations and without
its current inferiority complex.

In its simplest term, RWID is a platform where anyone can join to upgrade their skill
based on global remote work demand from https://upwork.com, and use those skills
to get remote job in any country in the world. Because it is paid in USD, RWID
members are enjoying the salary of around 10-20x of Indonesian UMR. This means,
all of RWID members are “Pahlawan Devisa 2.0”. Itʼs exactly like the old “Pahlawan
Devisa”, but without its own social problem due to physically moved to other
countries
https://instagram.com/remoteworker.id

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