By Alison Walkley
13 June 2009 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: The Incentive2Innovate X Prize Conference that took place at United Nations headquarters from 08-09 June, 2009 brought together leaders from the private sector, foundations, non-governmental organizations, and the UN to highlight innovations for solving global problems and achieving the Millennium Development Goals. The last leg of the conference focused on global development and what can be done to increase innovations in the least developed countries (LDCs).
Moderated by Michael Green, Co-Author of Philanthrocapitalism: How the Rich Can Save the World, four leaders in collaborative development explained their organizations and how competition can spur advancement globally. In his book and his moderation, Green inquired, “Can prizes and open collaboration lead to enterprise solutions in developing countries? Are innovators ready to take on the challenge of Africa?”
Charlie Brown, executive director of Ashoka Changemakers, explained his company’s mission: “Changemakers is a community of action where we all collaborate on solutions… Solutions are all around us, sometimes they’re just really hard to see. We just have to have the right framing to figure out what we’re asking for.”
At Changemakers, Brown said he is working to “build up people in the community” through competition. At present, they have engaged people in over 120 countries to connect with each other based on ideas and innovations. It is competition that lies at the heart of this community and helps people solve important issues.
Among the examples of Changemakers’ competitions, Brown used the promotion of women’s fitness in emerging markets in the Middle East through a partnership with Nike. The proposal reads, “The first sports for social change program in a Palestinian refugee camp providing a safe space for girls’ and women’s empowerment through sports.” Brown credited the fact that Changemakers’ competitors find solutions in approximately four months to the “power of competition.”
Andreas Widmer, co-founder of the S.E.VEN (Social Equity Venture) Fund, explained that, at his organization, “everything is done competitively. We operate under three guiding principals: One is we’d like to define poverty in slightly different terms. What does it mean to be poor? We say that being poor is the state of being excluded from networks of productivity and exchange. Two, is to lead from ideas. In my experience, leapfrog ideas come from integrating from inside different domains. Innovation often happens at the periphery. The third idea we’re thinking about is to use appropriate technology. Just because there is a technology, doesn’t mean you have to use that technology at any price to get there…We focus on small to medium sized enterprises [SMEs]. Very little is being done to finance emerging markets.”
Widmer told MediaGlobal, “There is what I would call an ‘SME gap’ for investment. It’s the yawning gap of the mid-size companies where financing is most required. Microfinance and social entrepreneurs have primarily focused on the poorest of the poor and multinationals cover the high-end of investments, but it’s the mid-sized sector investments that will have the greatest effect on sustainable prosperity, yet are sorely lacking. (Ninety-five percent of all OECD companies are SMEs, and they employ about 70 percent of the workforce in those markets, so it is reasonable to expect that an emerging market economy would find significant and sustainable growth if it could bolster its SME population).
As far as competition goes, Widmer opined, “Competition fosters initiative and spurs innovation. Countries that don’t believe in competition are poor, and countries that embrace competition have the highest rates of productivity growth in the world.”
Widmer revealed his own judgment going into developing markets. “I tried to find the best entrepreneurs in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean,” he said. “I thought if you go into emerging markets, you can’t relate. Who are they relating to? I found that there is no difference. Our entrepreneurs are exactly the same in Africa. I was prejudiced, but I had to let go of that because I was totally disproven.”
Ferris Thompson, vice president of marketing and sponsorships for X Prize, told MediaGlobal, “The conference went incredibly well! The speakers, attendees, and our partners⎯BT [Global Services], the Templeton Foundation, and the UN Office of Partnership ⎯came away energized and inspired by the dialogue on innovation and incentivized competition. We look forward to continued engagement on the subject of innovation and collaboration through various web applications, as well as future small-group events, in an effort to build on the successes of this week.”
