This paper argues that, while universities have a crucial role to play in social innovation by democratizing knowledge, fulfilling that role in the Global South requires them to partner with civil society actors such as NGOs. With their history of working with the socially disadvantaged, NGOs have a unique role in clarifying the nature of demand since social innovation must often address ill-formulated “wicked problems”. Similarly, NGOs can fill the “institutional voids” which limit socioeconomic transactions in the Global South. The paper discusses the wicked nature of visual-impairment, which is both widely prevalent and has biopsychosocial attributes i.e., the functional limitations are reinforced by the psychological perceptions of the blind and visually impaired (BVI), and the sociological stigma of impairment. The empirical setting is India where policies for the BVI population are being formulated within a broader framework of social inclusion. The paper investigates how the International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIITB) has taken advantage of state policies to embrace an academic mandate which includes social innovation. Specifically, it explores IIITB's incubation of the NGO Vision Empower, and the partnership that has followed, to overcome the neglect of the BVI in science and mathematics education.

本文认为，虽然大学可以通过知识民主化在社会创新中发挥关键作用，但在全球南方发挥这一作用需要它们与非政府组织等民间社会参与者合作。凭借与社会弱势群体合作的历史，非政府组织在澄清需求的性质方面发挥着独特的作用，因为社会创新往往必须解决表述不当的“邪恶问题”。同样，非政府组织可以填补限制全球南方社会经济交易的“制度空白”。这篇论文讨论了视力障碍的邪恶本质，它既普遍存在，又具有生物心理社会属性，即盲人和视力障碍 (BVI) 的心理认知以及障碍的社会学污名强化了功能限制。经验背景是印度，该国正在更广泛的社会包容框架内制定针对 BVI 人口的政策。该论文调查了班加罗尔国际信息技术研究所 (IIITB) 如何利用国家政策来接受包括社会创新在内的学术任务。具体来说，它探讨了 IIITB 对非政府组织 Vision Empower 的孵化，以及随后的合作伙伴关系，以克服英属维尔京群岛在科学和数学教育方面的忽视。