“The solutions to many of Ireland’s problems already exist at home and across the world,” Paul O’Hara, director of Ashoka and founder of Change Nation explains. “Our challenge is to identify these solutions and bring them to scale.”

“The solutions to be discovered at Change Nation have proven themselves to be effective, each one typically impacting on thousands of lives. Systematically importing and accelerating these proven solutions will increase our speed, efficiency and success rate in addressing these challenges.”

Key speakers at next month’s event will include:

• Peter Eigen of Transparency International, a leader of a global coalition to challenge corruption. His leadership is producing change in monitoring and governance in more than 90 countries around the world, according to ChangeNation
• James Whelton of Coder Dojo, a 19-year-old social entrepreneur who is building a movement to inspire and support young people across Ireland in learning about software and computer programming
• Mary Gordon of Roots of Empathy. Gordon is reducing aggression by teaching students emotional literacy and fostering the development of empathy. With programmes already established in more than 40 schools across Ireland, Roots of Empathy will continue to expand in coming years
• Matt Flannery of KIVA, which has created a new online platform for lenders and borrowers to meet, thereby bringing fresh finance to SMEs across the world. Since its launch in 2005, KIVA has facilitated more than $280 million in loans in more than 60 countries.

O’Hara said that the organisation is inviting people to “discover these solutions” on the Change Nation website and to get involved in the solutions they feel passionate about or want to make their own.

Launching the event today, Taoiseach Enda Kenny welcomed the initiative, saying it would “bring together the talents and ideas of some of our brightest and best to find solutions to challenges facing our nation.”

“By working together, Ireland can not only emerge from its problems, but emerge stronger and better,” Kenny added.

The Taoiseach said that social innovation was particularly valuable because it could create new alliances between communities, government and business to “address fundamental social and economic challenges”.