Good ideas get better when shared!

This post was originally published on MSNBC.COM’s Future of Technology Blog

By: John Roach

Imagine a pot or jar that you could carry to any water source in the world, fill it up and be guaranteed a container full of clean and safe drinking water.

Such a pot is the goal of a new a challenge issued Nov. 17 to inventors in developing nations by the University of South Florida’s Patel School of Global Sustainability.

Contaminated water causes more than half of the world’s diseases such as cholera, typhoid and diarrhea, killing an estimated 1.5 million children a year, according to world health officials.

The “Smart Pot” challenge is for a technologically advanced, yet low-cost and easy-to-use water purification system that fits seamlessly with the pots and cans already used to collect water.

The treatment of the water will happen automatically at the point of collection. Users, who already have difficulty retrieving the water, won’t have to take any extra steps.

Philanthropist Kiran Patel believes a prototype of the Smart Pot is feasible within a year.

The challenge is open to applicants from academic and research institutions, consulting firms and NGOs registered and located within developing countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Pre-proposal submissions are accepted through March 2012. Five short-listed applicants will get $8,000 to prepare full proposals. The winner will get an additional $100,000 to build a prototype.

For more information, check out the Patel School of Global Sustainability.

Here is a great example of how mobile money programs can be integrated into a Feed the Future project.  Imagine the potential for such mobile money programs in WASH or IAQ.  Check out this post below and please share your comments on how mobile money technology could be integrated into a WASH  program.  Do you know of examples or studies on sanitation services being paid for via cellphone?  What about paying small scale service providers?  How could we leverage this technology for a WASH in Schools program?

Good ideas get better when shared! 

For a primer on mobile money check out USAID’s report on Enabling Mobile Money Interventions. It provides a nice overview for those looking integrate a mobile money component into development programs.

-Mike Pezone, WASHplus Technology & Innovation Specialist

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This post was originally posted on USAID’s Impact blog

by Renuka Naj, Supervisory Development Outreach and Communications Specialist

As part of Feed the Future, USAID in partnership with Centenary Bank launched a state-of-the-art mobile banking unit.  This unit will bring financial services to more than 300,000 farmers and agri-business enterprises in Amolatar and Amuru districts of northern Uganda.

This mobile banking unit will provide financial services to more than 300,000 farmers and agri-business enterprises in northern Uganda. Photo Credit: Nathan Swedberg, USAID/Uganda

Under a 50-50 cost-sharing partnership, USAID and Centenary Bank each invested $210,000 for the purchase of the armored truck that will provide a vital service for clients who had little or no access to financial services in their communities.

The mobile unit will be fully staffed by Centenary Bank personnel, including tellers for opening and operating savings accounts, and loan officers.  The mobile bank will travel weekly to 25 locations, including rural trading centers and markets, providing a range of financial services.  About 4,000 people are expected to open accounts in the first year, with the numbers increasing to more than 10,000 in the next three years.

USAID has been working with farmers and producer organizations across Uganda for more than 15 years.  Through Livelihoods and Enterprises for Agricultural Development (LEAD) project, USAID is transforming Uganda’s agricultural sector from subsistence to commercial farming in line with the priorities of the Government of Uganda.

The mobile banking unit will broaden the impact of USAID Uganda’s Development Credit Authority Loan Guarantee Program, a credit facility offered through Centenary Bank, whereby USAID encourages rural lending by sharing some of the risks on agriculture-related credits to Ugandans.

The blog post below was published here by Kim Scriven of the Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in Humanitarian Action (ALNAP).   ALNAP, as a unique sector-wide active learning membership network, is dedicated to improving the quality and accountability of humanitarian action, by sharing lessons, identifying common problems and, where appropriate, building consensus on approaches.   ALNAP has a specific initiative on humanitarian innovation.  You can read more about it here and be sure to download their report 2009 study. 

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By: Kim Scriven –

I spent a fascinating day on Tuesday facilitating a workshop on Supporting Innovation in Humanitarian Organisations. The ALNAP workshop, hosted by World Vision International in Geneva, built on research ALNAP has undertaken in recent years, and used this as a basis to focus on the challenges and opportunities of innovation for humanitarian agencies.

We in ALNAP have long been making the case that innovation can lead to improved humanitarian performance, and it is pleasing to see it firmly on the agenda for humanitarian actors. But supporting innovation in principle is very different from delivering innovations in practice – particularly for large operational agencies whose primary concern must always be their ‘bread and butter work’ delivering aid in difficult contexts.

I’m also aware of the specific challenges facing operational agencies seeking to promote innovation. The 2009 ALNAP Study identified that, as agencies have grown over recent years, the spaces for innovation have shrunk, and the sector has seen a growing conservative streak.

Most of those participating in the workshop recognised this picture, although many organisations are increasingly open to the potential opportunities for new technologies (particularly information and communication technologies) to improve humanitarian operations.

The workshop explored case studies and approaches to how these challenges can be overcome. There was particular interest from the group in what new light an innovation perspective could bring to some intractable problems which continue to face humanitarian agencies, for example beneficiary participation, the use of evidence in decision making, and the challenges of effective leadership.

Despite their complexity and unpredictability, successful innovation processes often include the following five key elements, [click to continue…]

Editors Note: This article was originally posted here by The Washington Post

A child living in a slum plays on a swing under a bridge on the bank of Bagmati River in Kathmandu October 17, 2011. (NAVESH CHITRAKAR - REUTERS)

By Dominic Basulto

At the United Nations, a new exhibit from the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum — “Design With the Other 90%: Cities” — highlights the types of innovations from developing markets that are improving the ability of citizens to live in densely-populated, urban environments where resources ranging from water to education are in scarce supply. At a time when the conventional wisdom holds that the flow of innovation is from the developed world to the developing world, is it really possible that any of these innovations — many of them specifically created for the world’s worst “slums” — will ever make their way to the United States?

Already, some areas of the U.S. might have more in common with the vast urban slums of the developing world than many of us might be willing to admit. (If you visit the exhibit at the UN, check your preconceptions at the door.) For example, in one of the maps created for the exhibit called Informal Settlement World Map — a team of researchers at the Harvard Graduate School of Design mapped out the growth of slum households worldwide, based on five different criteria: inadequate housing, insufficient living space, insecure land tenure, lack of access to water and lack of access to sanitation. While the bulk of these “slums” are located in regions we might expect — Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and South East Asia — there are also glowing orange triangles of slums stretching from the California-Mexico border all the way to Texas and then up and down the Eastern Seaboard.

The UN exhibit showcases innovations that help citizens improve their access to basic necessities — including water, sanitation, food, health, transportation and education. There are also innovations that help marginalized groups — typically women and children — become included in the growth of these urban settlements. Two of the more well-known examples include the M-PESA mobile payment system, which originated in Kenya, and the Digital Drum, which offers almost a steampunk approach to technology — a recycled steel drum encasing a laptop computer, which is then powered by solar panels instead of electricity.

There are already potential takers in the world’s richest cities for these innovations. The Vertical Gym — originally created for the slums of Caracas, Venezuela — has been considered by local authorities in places like the Netherlands and even New York City, where these fitness facilities could be used for local public schools in cramped urban conditions. When one sees innovations like the Floating Community Lifeboats for schools, libraries and clinics in Bangladesh — one wonders whether these boats might ever be used by low-lying U.S. coastal areas in the wake of future, devastating hurricanes.

It is likely we will see some of these innovations implemented in the near future. After all, the first installment in the “Design for the Other 90%“-series brought us One Laptop Per Child and the LifeStraw. Without a doubt, the future trajectory of global growth over the next two decades is the urban mega-city, whether it’s on the East Coast of America or the East Coast of India. There are now 1 billion people living in “informal settlements” around the world and this number is projected to double within the next 20 years. Now, it is the choice of policymakers to decide how we accommodate this massive growth. Most likely, socially responsible innovators need to stop thinking in terms of the top 10 percent of the world’s population, and instead, re-shift their focus to the other 90 percent. In other words, they must learn how to slum it.

I recently attended a presentation organized by USAID’s Bureau of Global Health entitled  “Creating meaningful products, services, and experiences in social marketing” by Robert Fabricant of frog Design.  Frog Design is a global innovation firm that works with the world’s leading companies, helping them to design, engineer, and bring to market meaningful products and services.  Robert Fabricant is the Vice President of Creative for frog design where he works with a global team of strategists, interaction designers, industrial designers, technologists and design researchers. He is charged with helping to extend frog’s capabilities into new markets and offerings in areas like healthcare and transportation.  He spoke about frog’s evolving approach to leveraging social media to drive behavior change, drawing upon frog’s experience in the USA and South Africa using case studies to illustrate frog process across the following stages of design.

In the presentation yesterday Robert referred to frog’s partnership with UNICEF’s Innovation Group.   As the audience really, mainly USAID staff, enjoyed Robert’s presentation I thought I would try and find a bit more info on frog’s partnership with UNICEF to share.   This is a good read.  Good ideas are better when shared. enjoy!

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The article below was published here by frog Design on their Design Mind blog. The Design Mind blog is written by frog designers, technologists, and strategists and provides the design and innovation community with perspectives on industry trends, emerging technologies, and global consumer culture.

By: Jaleen Francois –

As part of our Mobile Mandate initiative, frog hosted a two-day gathering that brought together key stakeholders across UNICEF and its partners to look at how mobile technology for development can help deliver, monitor and mange results for the world’s most disadvantaged children. The first-day workshop was concentrated on Community Case Management, an emerging healthcare model that enlists a new tier of healthcare provider—the Community Health Worker—to provide basic services to rural communities. How can we find ways to integrate mobile technologies, remarkably and increasingly more available in rural Africa, into these programs so that they improve Community Healthcare Workers’ abilities to offer care, and simultaneously allow better data tracking, supply distribution, and general program management?

We spent the second day expanding our look at mobile possibilities elsewhere in UNICEF’s programming. How might this technology change programs for Water and Sanitation, Child Protection, or Nutrition? We assembled a room full of experts from UNICEF Headquarters, program directors from UNICEF country offices, and mobile health experts from around the country, pushed up our sleeves, and dug in.

For any program that we looked at from Community Case Management to Hand Washing to Water Pump Safety, the question is never about the technology, or even the system—it is about the people. We sketched out scenarios that people encounter: The community health worker meets a mother with an ill infant. What is the first thing she must do? What does she say? How does the mother feel after the interaction? What obstacles does the mother still face? A district hospital manager needs to order supplies for five clinics and the Community Health Workers they oversee. How does she know how much to order? How does she know if the supplies arrived? How does she know if they are being used? Only once we understood the various goals that these users have and the challenges they face, did we start to create concepts to inject mobile technology. Even then, we kept a close eye on what it might mean to the users—people will only be motivated to use tools that make their jobs easier or more successful. What are the incentives for the Community Health Workers, or water pump monitors, or local village residents to use mobile systems?

Spoiler alert: we didn’t answer all these questions in our two-day workshop. But we did emerge with a deeper understanding of the problem, the players, and the possibilities. Over the next few weeks, frog will synthesize the outputs of the workshop into a playbook of concepts and principles that UNICEF can take to inform mobile-supported programs throughout the organization. Here’s a preview of some top-level guidelines we made to this group, but can be applied to any organization looking to leverage mobile technology for service programming:

1. When building scenarios and systems, choose the interactions that are ripe for mobile and that will also deliver the most bang for the buck. Mobile is not a panacea—it has big benefits for some interactions, but in some cases analog might actually still be best.

2. Designing for people and their everyday interactions assures that you will uncover and solve for the right problems and you will design a system that has value for the people who use it.

3. Create effective communications in and across your organization. Rather than forcing hierarchical, linear chains of communications, look for overlaps in data that can be distilled for different points in the system. As mobile can generate real-time data as it’s used, it can allow for more efficient and more broadly networked information and communications.

4. Design for the users, not just the technology. Technology changes every couple of months, while the healthcare industry takes longer to adapt. When you’re designing for mobile, you have to remember that by the time you design a system, features or capabilities might have already changed in the market.

5. If you pull knowledge from a community, you should generate helpful feedback to that same community. Reciprocity is great incentive, and mobile is great at delivering this.

6. Design for scale from very beginning.. Think about creating solutions that can be used elsewhere,  can grow with technology, and can take on more participants. In other words, don’t design yourself into a corner. Similarly, keep an eye for solutions created in one domain or part of the organization that can be transferred to another within the organization.

7. Private sector partners are great, but consider their incentives to invest. What is there to gain in the health domain? Who might be the most effective private partner?

The original post appeared here on the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

by: Nicole Wallace

“There aren’t organizations that are naturally innovative.  It’s a learned behavior.”

Richard Evans, President, EmcArts

Grappling with what it means to be innovative in the nonprofit world is tough. But given the daunting issues charities tackle, there’s no choice but to try.

With this blog, we plan to dive in and take an expansive view of innovation. We’ll report on nonprofit groups that are taking bold, new approaches to solving social problems and look at organizations that have found better ways to run their operations.

The blog will explore what charities can learn from other disciplines, such as business, design, and the social sciences. We’ll highlight new forms of financing and what they mean for nonprofits, as well as the management issues leaders face as they try to encourage their employees’ creativity.

It’s going to be an exciting ride. And if you share your innovation stories, the challenges you’re confronting, and the ideas you want to learn more about, it’ll be even better.

To get started, take a look at what some of your nonprofit colleagues have to say about innovation.  If you have something to say add to the dialogue in our comments section or here at Chronicle of Philanthropy.

“Nonprofits often look at innovation as if it were something that was frightening and alien, and as a result many of them live in a self-imposed ghetto of not-very-innovative practices.”

Andrew Zolli, Executive Director, PopTech

“Innovation is about renewal.  A lot of what progress we make is nothing more than putting some old ingredients with some new ingredients into a new mix.”

Peter York, Director of Research, TCC Group, VP Of Ser

“True innovation is rare.  Oftentimes what is mistaken for innovation are just modifications of existing systems or structures.”

Ben Hecht, Chief Executive, Living Cities

“There is a danger in seeing innovation as inpsiration of one person sitting in a dark room with a wtowel on their head thinking about the next great idea.  great innovation is a culmination of a lot of thought and the synthesis of diverse opinion.”

Gerald Chertavian, Chief Executive, Year Up

There’s always debate: Is anything that’s incremental really innovative?”

Laura Weiss, VP of Service Innovation, Taproot Foundation

“Innovation also asks the question: Can you make this happen? It’s a lot easier to talk about cool, interesting things than to actually do them.”

Anne Marie Burgoyne, Portfolio Director, Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation

“Innovation’s something everyone is striving for, but nobody actually knows what it is.”

Darell Hammond, Chief Executive, KaBoom

Photo credit: Cecilia Österberg, Exray

Alison Bick, US, received the 2011 Stockholm Junior Water Prize from the hands of H.R.H. Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden at a ceremony that took place during the World Water Week in Stockholm. The American teen has developed a low-cost portable method to test water quality – using a mobile phone.

Alison worked for four years on her project, which combines micro-fluidic devices, cell-phones, and chemical indicators to evaluate water quality. Her innovative method does not only accurately assess the bacteria content of water. It is both significantly faster and up to 200 times less expensive than standard testing procedures.

“This year’s winning project reflects truly out of the box thinking to find a solution to an important real world problem that is relevant in both a developing and developed country context. It is the result of a creative, multi-facetted, and long-term effort that was triggered by an actual problem in the local community. It has the potential to revolutionise our ability to monitor water quality in a way that is fast, accurate, more flexible and less expensive than existing technologies,” said the International Jury in its citation.

“I thought it was absolutely fascinating to speak to all the different contestants from all the different nations and cultures. It was something I’ve never experienced before. I am really excited to win such a prestigious contest. Hopefully I’ll keep in contact with the other contestants and hopefully collaborate one day,” said the winner after receiving the prize.

The international Stockholm Junior Water Prize competition brings together thousands of participants in over 28 countries.
The representatives at the international final held during the World Water Week in Stockholm are the winners of national competitions that fielded over 9000 submitted projects this past year.

The international winner receives a USD 5,000 award and a prize sculpture. The Stockholm International Water Institute administers the competition, which is sponsored globally by ITT Corporation.

Source – SIWI