Accelerating Innovation for Development
Innovation, the process of developing ideas into products and services, is a major driving force in global economic growth and development. Historically innovation has been done within institutions, whether companies or non-profit organizations. Innovation generally tends to be a closed process, relying on a limited pool of human resources and knowledge (albeit expert knowledge) and largely driven by companies, individual innovators or specialized research/designers rather than by those who are ultimate users of the innovations.
Innovation has been moving from a “closed”, inward-looking or “supply”-driven process to a more open and networked process: open to new ideas, knowledge, resources from outside the institutions – from external advisors, from enthusiasts (“the crowd”), from other fields, from overseas (even outsourcing is in a sense “open”), and from customers and end-users. According to economist Henry Chesbrough, creative knowledge is widely diffused, and innovation structures that support a solely internally oriented, centralized approach to research and development are becoming obsolete. Our connectivity today offers an unprecedented opportunity to harness global creativity and add value for products and services.
The private sector has driven this experimentation and expansion of innovation models – companies from Toyota to EBay have applied “open and user-driven” processes to their product development and the results have been revolutionary.
Open and user-driven innovation models have also emerged over the years from the non-profit sector, and have very effectively leveraged the skills and knowledge of creative local citizens as designers of and contributors to products and services. While some non-profit organizations and companies are increasingly embracing open and user-driven innovation, these models are not being widely applied to meet the needs of poor or vulnerable people. The wave of momentum on open and user-driven innovation has just begun to reach the development sector.
The aim of the Foundation’s Innovation Initiative is to:
- identify and demonstrate that open and user-driven innovation models are effective and efficient innovation processes for the needs of the poor, and
- to significantly increase the application of these models to the needs of the poor.
Through this initiative, we will support the application of open innovation and user-generated models of innovation to the needs of poor or vulnerable people worldwide.
The Rockefeller Foundation Innovation Team Leader is Maria Blair; Bio
Email the team: Innovation_dev@rockfound.org
Innovation Models
Open Innovation (Crowdsourcing)
A model that sources innovation resources from outside an institution. more
The RF-InnoCentive Partnership is an example of open innovaiton.
Collaborative Competition
A unique approach that combines two seemingly contradictory approaches: competition and open collaboration. more
User/Customer-Centered Innovation
User/customer-centered innovation is another innovation model, and one that has been used by institutions in participatory agricultural research over the last decade. more
User-Generated or User-Driven Innovation
This is innovation that originates from end-users themselves and is therefore likely to be culturally and socially well-suited to their particular problems and needs. more
Positive Deviance (CBS News video)
Driving Creative Innovation for the Poor
An essay covering new sources of creative knowledge and resources on SciDev.net by Tara Acharya; Further coverage: Business Week
News & Events
The Rockefeller Foundation and InnoCentive Renew PartnershipJune 23, 2009; Press release
Q & A: Judith Rodin
Innovation--Not Just a Product, a Process
Summer 2009; Stanford Social Innovation Review
Simple Ideas Cut Superbug Rates
March 23 2009; CTV.ca
Positive Deviance helped reduce drug-resistant staph infections at three US hospitals. more
InnoCentive Solver in Fight Against Malaria
January 28, 2009; Press release
Solution using wax and human sweat will be in pilot production by Spring. more
NY Times Year in Ideas Highlights
'Positive Deviance'
December 14, 2008
A Positive Deviance program aims to identify individuals within small communities who have devised clever coping strategies to avoid problems afflicting their neighbors. more
If You Have a Problem, Ask Everyone
July 22, 2008; New York Times; EXCERPT
One critical element is encouraging organizations to take novel innovation approaches in the first place. That was the task that drew the Rockefeller Foundation to InnoCentive. more