Edith Wilson's blog

Great New York Times story going viral today on how villagers around the world are finally getting electricity in their homes with solar devices.  With this tiny bit of power, they can charge cell phones, get news, study at night, check market information for crops, and stop using carbon and so much more.  This is one area where in the past 10 years, Development Marketplace competitions identified and funded early stage projects, so we should all be proud.

A college student designs a battery-powered small microscope for only $240?!  Loved this news from the Rice 360: Institute for Global Health Technologies.  Reminds us that innovtaion cannot thrive without actual invention of new things. 

So here's another view of the gathering last week, from New York Times and International Herald Tribune reporter Stephanie Strom...  Interesting how she appreciated the humor and relaxed nature of the FailFaire -- she's right, making people comfortable when they are talking about frustrations and deadends is important. 

www.nytimes.com/2010/08/17/technology/17fail.html

On Thursday, July 22, the World Bank Institute is launching a special e-issue of Development Outreach magazine whose theme is "The Power of Innovation," and we're inviting you to help us tell how innovation can be a game changer in solving the biggest global development problems.

Get involved by signing in to a special webinar on Thursday that will be led by WBI Innovation Practice Team Leader Aleem Walji, one of the lead authors of the Development Outreach special issue.

The webinar begins at 3 p.m., but sign in early -- by 2:30 or 2:45 p.m. -- because the number of participant slots is limited to 100.

In a post-crisis world, innovation may be the single most important driver of economic growth and competitiveness. The time is right to move development forward through creative uses of technology. We now have the capacity to scale up innovative approaches to meet the needs of people at the bottom of the pyramid when traditional markets fail to do the job.

How to do all this is detailed in "The Power of Innovation."  Top experts tell how to mobilize innovative solutions to reduce poverty--smarter, better, faster, and differently.

A vital part of daily life is changing fundamentally all over the world, including how innovative ideas spread.  

Is social networking an enabler in international development?

The World Bank’s data will now be available in French, Spanish and Arabic! This is huge.  It is going to empower local researchers, academics, grad students and civil society in a whole new way.  It changes the game for measuring government performance and pushing for openness. 

Dr. Abdelkhalek Touhami, an open data advocate in Morocco and researcher, was interviewed for his reactions to the World Bank’s announcement.

Here are the main points he made (summarized by me):

Right now in Cape Town, the Development Marketplace is holding the first of a new generation of DM activities -- an Innovation Fair on Moving Beyond Conflict tied to the 2011 World Development Report  and drawing on a pool of innovative solutions discovered during an on-line competition  (the new innovation "radar") last month which registered 2,000 users, producing 223 projects from 40 countries. 

You can follow the action and join the event virtually through this website hosted by our local partner:

http://innovationfair.ning.com/

I’ve been having some interesting conversations with some of our favorite people like Mari Kuraishi, Jim Koch and Marla Capozzi, about a topic we don’t probe much in development: what we do with an innovative project fails.

In Silicon Valley, as Mari and Marla reminded me lately, you earn your spurs trying and failing. It is almost easier to get funding if you have failed a few times. Venture capital firms assume you learned some valuable things in the process. It’s a credential. But in development? Failing with a donor’s money? Even when you said you were piloting something or trying something new? Surely you failed because you didn’t get the job done, weren’t smart enough, or ran into politics.

Big changes happening in education:  Great article on Innovating the 21st century University by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams.  And take a close look at the New York Times Knowledge Network, a brand- new approach that combines a global brand, knowledge, university partnerships, on-line learning, and vast marketing expertise. Think what this could look like in five years, and what is now possible to deliver to the developing world.

Maybe this explains why last week Alex Herder, a 25-year old friend and entrepreneur in animation about difficult topics like HIV prevention, told me, "You know in ten years, no one is going to be paying tens of thousands of dollars for four years at a university." I am beginning to believe him.  Think how that would level the playing field between rich and poor -- and it's already well underway.

Here's how it all connects to the Development Marketplace mission.  Innovation depends on knowledge.  Lack of access to knowledge has always been a severe constraint for developing countries.  But the signs are clear -- university-level education is becoming much more available to a global audience.  Aleem's post two days ago about the decentralization of knowledge frames the changing situation nicely. 

The opportunities and challenges for those of us based in organizations such as the World Bank Institute engaged in capacity development and training delivery to developing nations are enormous.  Can we keep up?  Even more importantly, will we lead?