Luís Jerónimo, FCGulbenkian on O Ar é de Todos Podcast #120

Many years before the principles and practices of what we now call social innovation were codified, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation was already solving social problems with innovative projects. I'm talking about the Itinerant Library Service which, in 1950s Portugal, brought people and knowledge together in the form of books, often for the first time.

The Service was later integrated into public policies and incorporated into the National Public Reading Plan, a program that provided the country with modern and equipped municipal libraries. This is one of the stories told by Luís Jerónimo, director of the Gulbenkian Equity Program, at the start of the third season of O Ar é de Todos.

We talk about the social inclination of a socially innovative foundation that was already socially innovative before it became one. In between, we give a brief historical overview of the almost 70-year-old institution and its involvement in the genesis of the social entrepreneurship movement, up to the most recent developments in the area of new financing instruments for social innovation.

At minute 40'16'', listen here (in Portuguese) to Luís Jerónimo talking about the three phases of social innovation in Portugal, in an interesting perspective that points to the present as the phase in which the focus should be on social problems.