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The paper aims to understand the stages of the social innovation process and how it can be used for sustainable development.

This single case study used multiple sources, especially data from extensive field visits and selective in-depth interviews. Direct observation, web content analysis, journals, annual reports and news articles were also used.

The findings show that BRAC institute of skills development (BISD) adopted a unique formula for the social innovation process: problem identification, new idea, design prototype, pilot, perfect and scale up. This study also finds that BISD has a significant socio-economic impact in Bangladesh. The impacts of BISD are associated with several United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including SDG 1 on poverty, SDG 4 on inclusive learning, SDG 5 on gender equality and women empowerment, SDG 8 on decent work and economic growth and SDG 16 on social inclusion.

The discussions of this study ultimately pave a clear roadmap for policymakers, practitioners and academics to improve mechanisms for sustainable development through social innovations in emerging countries.

This paper provides a practical application of the social inclusive innovation process theory by which vocational training institutes can scale their sustainable impact. More knowledge is needed on how organisations can implement social innovation projects in emerging countries. This paper provides exploratory evidence to fill this gap. It demands a promising area of interest to investigate further research on the compatibility of social innovation in skills development programmes to gear up the status of an underprivileged community.