Innovation Blog.
From South Africa to Global Success – The Story of hearScreen
Hearing problems are among the most common health issues in young children, with lifelong impacts on their development...
Getting to Know Matthew – An Insight into his Passion for Innovative Finance for Social Impact
“Through my educational background and qualifications, I knew that the work that I wanted to pursue needed to lead to...
6 Key Insights from the ECD and Basic Education Conference 2024
Over the past few months, Early Childhood Development (ECD) has emerged as one of the trending topics in our...
Starting a Journey in Social Entrepreneurship? Some Pointers to Consider
Social entrepreneurs have become increasingly prominent and crucial to the sustainable construct of our societies and...
VUNA: Empowering Caregivers to Address their Mental Health Issues
Continuous high levels of stress, also known as toxic stress, is one of the leading contributors of many mental...
Hey Dad! Connecting Fathers and Young Children Through Learning
Language and literacy acquisition forms the basis of human communication, cognition, and social interaction. Yet, a...
Catalytic Investment in Africa – IE’s Recognition as an Impact Investor
Innovation Edge (IE) is thrilled to have secured a second place for the Catalytic Investor of the Year Award at the...
Keeping Child Data Safe – ChatGPT’s Recommendations
At Innovation Edge we care greatly about child safety: not just keeping them safe from physical harm but enabling...
Deterioration of SA’s already dismal reading stats
The latest Progress in Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) highlighted that 81% of...
The Real Challenges in South Africa’s Early Learning Centres
A call for innovation to better support early learning practitioners Early learning practitioners (those who work with...
Five Reasons Why Fatherhood Matters
While some children are grateful to have been brought up in homes where a father figure was present during their early...
The Digital Divide in South Africa
As technology begins to influence every part of our world, it is becoming increasingly important for every human to...
How conflict and violence influence a child’s development
South Africa tops many global lists as one of the countries with the highest rates of physical and sexual intimate...
The Gender Gap in Healthtech: Empowering Women-Led Innovations
Introduction Healthcare technology (healthtech) is a burgeoning field within the healthcare sector. It represents any...
What are the major challenges to innovation?
Social entrepreneurs are responsible for some of the most transformative social change that our world desperately...
What is a social impact accelerator or incubator, and how can I get involved?
Our world needs social entrepreneurs to approach its complex problems with creative and unique solutions. Oftentimes,...
What is social entrepreneurship, and does it work?
For centuries, successful businesses have held the power to make waves. What might happen if their core priority...
What are the impact funds in South Africa currently?
The impact investment landscape has grown considerably over the last decade, with many large investment companies...
Mapping Gender Norms in South Africa Social Media
Preliminary findings of social media discourse analysis conducted by the heCareZa Project has linked discriminatory...
Largest survey of preschool child development in South Africa finds 65% of 4-5 year olds are failing to thrive
65% of 4-5 year old children attending Early Learning Programmes in South Africa are failing to thrive. These children...
Common thread: What is the recipe for success when submitting to Innovation Edge?
At Innovation Edge, we believe that the potential for creative solutions to early childhood challenges can come from...
The Year for Early Learning and Childcare: Covid-19 Insights
This article was originally published by Keya Lamba from the Early Insights team. This is an introduction of a four...
WhatsApp Business app | A game-changer for small organisations
With over 38 million South African users and 1.8 billion global users, WhatsApp has become the go-to platform to reach...
Up to 30,000 ECD operators could close as a result of Covid-19
Two weeks ago, ilifa Labantwana asked ECD operators to participate in a survey to understand the impact of the...
What comes next? Flourishing Futures in the Pandemic and Beyond
Originally published by Capita, an ideas lab harnessing the power of big ideas to ensure that all children and their...
Work, Play, Food and Care: Creating a More Equitable Future for all Children
At last year’s World Forum on Early Care in Education in Macau, China, we showed the audience a photograph of “PARO,”...
Investing Early: Our roadmap for transforming ideas into impact
DOWNLOAD OUR VENTURE PROGRESSION MAP HERE. At Innovation Edge (IE) we invest early. This is doubly true. For one, we...
Think Future Reflections: Josephilda Nhlapo-Hlope
I left Think Future almost a fanatic convert for ECD. I attended Think Future 2 in October 2019 because my work...
Think Future Reflections: Christina Kirby
I’ll admit, that prior to participating in this years’ Think Future event, I considered the 2019 theme “Challenging...
Think Future Reflections: Designing Events for Innovation
Josiane Smith manages the Strategic Partnerships and Growth at the Social Innovation Exchange (SIX), a global,...
Think Future Reflections: Nwanyibuife Obiako
It was a joy to attend and participate as a speaker at the Think Future 2 conference, held at the Spier Wine Farm in...
Imagine: Working for the dreamers of tomorrow
“A person's a person, no matter how small.” ― Dr. Seuss Recently, on a panel...
The Word for Women in 2019: Defiance
This post was originally published by Forbes. While the world watches the US government shutdown over funding for US...
What could artificial intelligence and Where’s Wally have in common?
Not much, until Innovation Edge investee Andrew Rudge saw the opportunity to create a fun and interactive ‘Where’s...
“Employer-sponsored educare is a win-win-win!”
Find out why with a behind the scenes look at South Africa’s first ever employer-sponsored educare provider. Over the...
Scaling Access & Impact: Realising the Power of EdTech
This post was originally published on the Omidyar Network's website. There are 250 million learners around the world...
Disruption: Moving hearts, limbs, minds and money
The first Africa Social and Behaviour Change (ASBC) Conference took place last month in Nairobi. The overarching theme...
ELOM published in peer review journal
An article on the development and use of one of our investments, the Early Learning Outcomes Measure (ELOM) has been...
Innovation Insights: ECD Heroes Case Study
We are pleased to introduce the Innovation Insights publication. Through the Innovation Insights we aim to; share...
Where to get free reading resources: World Read Aloud Day
“Go take your storybook, its almost bedtime”, I tell my two year old. He returns with the Kathryn Erskine book “Mama...
Move, play, sleep: South Africa launches 1st Movement Guidelines for young children
Yesterday saw the launch of the South African Movement Guidelines for children aged 0 – 5...
Pint sized perspectives: Celebrating World Children’s Day
Global Children’s Day is celebrated on November 20 each year to increase awareness of the rights, care and education...
Social Entrepreneurship: Marrying profit with purpose
Earlier this week the South African Minister of Small Business Development, Lindiwe Zulu, officially launched the...
Getting Pitch Perfect: 8 tips on creating a winning pitch deck
There are a few tools that every entrepreneur needs in their arsenal, one being an awesome pitch deck. This is your...
Four quotes for celebrating Children’s Day
To celebrate National Children’s Day, we’ve put together a few quotes on the importance of our country’s youngest...
Impact investing is booming – and SA should step up
This post was originally shared on Fin 24 by Aunnie Paton Power. Innovation Edge is excited to be part of the...
What to consider when co-creating
There are many ways to go about co-creating, and which to choose depends on the challenges and objectives at hand....
Five Hacks on getting your funding application noticed
They say you never get a second chance to make a first impression. This is true when it comes to applying for funding...
Thinking out the b(o)x: Early Literacy is not just about reading
Isn’t it amazing how the simplest acts can awaken long-dormant memories? Yesterday, while performing the simple act of...
Innovation Is A Collaborative Landscape, Not A Competitive One
This post was originally shared on Medium by Sally Simms The common narrative of innovation is competitive. The image...
Earlybird brings their ECCE model to market
After two years of analysing the international evidence on drivers of quality - i.e. the factors that translate into...
Screening Screentime: Parenting in the digital age
In some ways, parenting is easy. We know that we shouldn’t give our kids cake for dinner. We know that we shouldn’t...
Africa’s greatest humanitarian explorer adds ECD to his quest to improve lives
Using adventure to improve and save lives is the key concept of the Kingsley Holgate Foundation, founded by one of...
Impact Africa: A tale of elephants
The inaugural Impact Africa Summit took place in Johannesburg, South Africa from the 20 - 22 June. Hosted by Ashoka...
Demand, capacity building, incremental innovation and technology in early childhood
This post was originally shared on Medium's Early Insights by Tarun Varma, Initiatives Manager at the Lego Foundation...
Think Future: A gathering of unlike minds in support of early years innovation
This post was originally shared on Bernard VanLeer by Sonja Giese, Executive Director, Innovation Edge Innovation Edge...
Helping young brains grow
The Foundation for Alcohol Related Research (FARR) has for the past three years been developing and piloting a...
The Lego Ideas Conference: Playing, leapfrogging and scaling
Over 400 thought leaders from around the world – including academics, practitioners, innovators, educators, government...
Simple Loving Connections: Memorable Mom(ents)
Sometimes, during the mundaneness of everyday activities like cooking, I narrate what I am doing in detail, I say,...
Tips, Tools & Trends From Social & Behaviour Change Initiatives Around The World
From 16 to 20 April, I joined over 1,000 people from more than 59 countries (majority Global South) in Nusa Dua, Bali...
The W’s of Sankalp Africa Summit 2018
I remember sitting in a university workshop and discussing the third mission of academia: engaged scholarship....
Innovative Public-Private Partnerships as a means to drive change within the ECD sector
Public-private partnerships (PPPs) have become an increasingly effective strategy for drawing together the resources...
Platforms and Jazz: Transforming Early Childhood Experiences Globally
This post was originally shared on Medium's Early Insights by Ashley Beckner, Investment Principal, Omidyar...
Government support for ECD screening is vital for academic success
Sensory impairments have a huge impact on childhood development and academic success. In low and middle income...
The ECD Launchpad – fast tracking access to early learning solutions on mobile devices
Imagine every South African child was armed with the stimulating tools that they need for optimal early childhood...
Earlybird
When we first started Earlybird, it was a great source of inspiration to know this model existed elsewhere. Perhaps...
Virtual Reality Teacher Training – Ready, Set, Action!
A film crew from the Emblematic Group has been working with the University of Cape Town’s Educare centre to conduct...
HearScreen: A case study in repurposing ideas
At the South African Innovation Summit, we challenged innovators to adapt their existing ideas so that they benefit...
On Learning from Failure
“It’s fine to celebrate success, but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure” – Bill Gates, 1995 The...
Why are we innovating to safeguard children’s identities?
Have you ever asked someone what makes up their identity or thought about what makes up yours? Some of the things that...
Gaming for Good
Computer games have come a long way from arcade machines and basic home computers. These days, gaming is a...
Stokvels: a valuable platform for ECD
At first glance, stokvels (shared savings clubs) and early childhood development might seem like an unusual match. But...
Renewable energy: a resource for early childhood development
Trustlab is innovating smarter ways to connect children to education, health services and social benefits, using...
Are South Africa’s children prepared for Grade R?
There is much anticipation every year around the publication of the matric (Grade 12) results in South Africa.