Social innovation is key to improving the territories, especially in developing countries. This paper analyzes the elements of local knowledge that facilitate the generation of social innovations in the case of the Municipal District of Quito (DMQ). Local knowledge is analyzed in three dimensions: human, structural and relational. It is shown that all of them are a source of social innovations, being at the base of the organizational reform, territorial structure, the digital agenda and the process of diffusion of these innovations to other territories.