Analysis Of Pedius, Phone Calls For The Deafes

Pedius, phone calls for the deaf. Pedius business model is centred on a communication system that allows deaf and hard of hearing people make phone calls using speech recognition and synthesis technologies. Pedius’ offer allows access to the service to anyone who needs it. It entails a free plan whereby each account is granted 20 minutes per month without paying any fee, and two tariff plans: a 5 euro fee for 100 minutes calls and a 30 euros yearly fee that covers unlimited calls (fees accessed 20 December 2016). Pedius idea was conceived in 2012; after four years, in 2016, Pedius has become a business venture active in 9 countries, counting 8 full-time employees and 12.000 users.
D-Orbit, new space solutions. D-Orbit provid es commissioning
Similarly, to high-tech start-ups, social tech start-ups are newly created organizations that are in the initial stages of their lifecycle and leverage technology to develop new products and services (Desa and Kotha, 2006; Kamariah, Mir and Umee, 2012). However, their distinctive feature, compared to other high tech start-ups, is that these ventures specifically aim to “develop and deploy technology driven solutions to address social needs in a financially sustainable manner” (Desa and Kotha, 2006). This feature – i.e. the twin cornerstone of intentionally addressing a social need and safeguarding a financial return – associate them to social enterprises (SEs), that are commonly defined as those organizations that have primary social objectives, but seek to achieve them through forms of enterprise and trading (Austin, Stevenson and Wei-Skillern, 2006; Haugh, 2007). SE’s disruptive idea is the ability to generate a new business model that grounds on the provision of goods and / or services that answer to an unmet social need (Hynes,
Social needs represent a growing market that is being further enlarged by the welfare reduction. Companies and organizations operating in the social sector started to see opportunities for creating new business models and generate profits by addressing these social needs thanks to social innovation (Franz, Hochgerner and Howaldt, 2012; Grimm, Fox, Baines and Albertson, 2013; Cajaiba-Santana, 2014). Social innovation, in turn, increasingly leverages on technological innovation – i.e. exploiting technical and technological advancements to create products, artefacts, services or processes that can contribute to address a social problem (e.g. Gardner, Acharya and Yach, 2007; Rahman and Smit, 2014; Misuraca, Colombo, Kucsera, Carretero, Bacigalupo, and Radescu, 2015). From this perspective, social innovation is not only complementary to technological innovation – as it was initially conceived (Pot and Vaas, 2008) - but it brings technological innovation further, by fostering the establishment of a virtuous cycle whereby technological innovation becomes a relevant ingredient for enacting social innovation (Millard and Carpenter, 2014). Still the relationship between technological and social innovation is complex and