How should social change organizations innovate? I realized that I didn’t have a lot of great examples of innovation initiated by social change organizations… but I had lots of great stories about ambitious and smart Africans innovating.This post is a fun narrative of Ethan's path from making musical instruments out of junk in art school to working with Kenyans to develop SMS/GoogleMap mash-ups to record social unrest.
His 7 Points of Innovation in Africa can help out in pretty much any environment where constraints are as plentiful as gumption and need.
"What you have matters more than what you lack (If you’ve got a bicycle, consider what you can build based on that, rather than worrying about not having a car, a truck, a metal shop.)"
ReplyDeleteI really like this point from the 7 points of Innovation in Africa. I was amazed to learn that you could creat a radio that runs on hand power instead of batties or solar powered kiosks that charge cell phones.
Innovations exist when we are forced to survive without what we think to be "game changers". I certainly learned this in my deployment to Iraq when we would go without washing machines or running water. We found ways to be innovative by using gravity to povide pressure or using the sun's rays to provide a hot shower.
"Try living for a week on $2 a day"...now THAT will force people to be innovative, and I applaud everybody in Africa who is able to accomplish that. They are the true innovators in my book, not the dude who wrote the Shazaam application for the iPhone.
ReplyDeleteI noticed Ethan Zuckerman's points on 7 Points of Innovation if Africa revolve around not forcing change just for the sake of change....and being innovative (And helpful) with what we have i Africa. Don't try to change the way people are used to living (such as fire stoves and bicycles)....make do with what they have!
It might not be as "sexy" of an innovation if people focus on the simple things rather than coming up dramatic, life-changing innovations, but it might just actually HELP someone.
In regards to innovation in the African context I think William Easterle's book, "The White Man's Burden" is pretty interesting. One of the takeaway's I got from the book, is that development programs work better when they are innovated from within and not planned from the outside. I was reminded of this by Zuckerman's comment on "lead users" pushing the limits of what tools can do by adaptation to solve different problems. I think innovation is bound to be the most successful if it is developed by the people who really understand needs and context. In my experience, in the case of international development, the drive for answering needs often come from donors with agenda's. This is a less effective driver than change that's either initiated in collaboration with the people in the community where the need exists or by programming that is economically incentivized and self sustaining. A great example of sustainable need answering development is the Aravind Eye Clinic. This there website: www.aravind.org
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