Tech4Dev Conference: Translating Innovation Into Social Impact

New technologies are of limited value if they are not accessible. Thus the crucial challenge lies not only in promoting innovation, but in translating innovation into social impact. This was the theme of the fourth Conference on Technologies for Development (“Tech4Dev”).

Co-hosted by the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the conference took place from 2-4 May at the SwissTech Convention Center in Lausanne. It featured more than 75 speakers from the fields of humanitarian assistance, medical technology, disaster risk reduction, information and communications technologies, energy, and urban development.

With the conclusion of the UN Millennium Development Goal (MDGs) and the launch of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the past year has been a period of assessment and reflection around sustainable development. The world has made tremendous progress in reducing poverty and disease, but there is much further still to go. Technological innovation, which has always been central to sustainable development, will play an even more essential role in sustaining progress and tackling new hardships posed by climate change, rising conflict, and massive population displacement.

Amidst the wide range of perspectives at the conference, two messages stood out:

Make Engagement Meaningful

While there is no lack of rhetoric about “community engagement” in development, it seems the lesson is often repeated but never really learned. Michelle Reddy, a PhD candidate at Stanford University (US), pointed out that the role and extent of community involvement has not been well-defined or standardised and, as a result, is frequently less than meaningful. In her own research, she has observed that “oftentimes, at the end of a project, there is some sort of event where the results of the evaluation or the program are presented to communities” and this ticks the box for community engagement.

The World Intellectual Property Organization’s WIPO Green AND Re:Search platforms could present a counterpoint to this approach. According to Yesim Baykal, a senior program officer in WIPO’s Global Challenges Division, these initiatives take as their starting point the need to “facilitate technology transfer using IP as a tool rather than a barrier.” WIPO receives needs assessments from its member states, but the needs identified by governments often differ from those on the ground. So the Global Challenges Division works directly with communities, municipalities and companies to pinpoint the types of technology transfer that are most in demand and provide online marketplaces and “matchmaking” events to help fill those gaps.

One example is the Re:Search database, which promotes access to IP and technology for researchers in the Global South working on malaria, tuberculosis, and over 20 neglected tropical diseases. Meghana Sharafudeen, an associate program officer at WIPO, says that Re:Search’s basic operating principle is: “Tell us what you need and we will find someone within the network who can meet that need.”

These needs may be for training in a specific technical skill set; for a piece of equipment or a compound; or for access to data by other researchers that is not currently being developed for profit (e.g. negative results), but that can provide valuable background information or prevent someone else from reinventing the square wheel. Re:Search also arranges for researchers on sabbatical to be hosted at institutions like Novartis and the University of California.

The WIPO Green and Re:Search programs are intended to address vast disparities in access to technology and resources that exist between the Global North and South. Yet Baykal and Sharafudeen acknowledge that the programs work within the existing IP, addressing specific problems for individual researchers or communities on a case-by-case basis, without disrupting existing power dynamics.

Participation is voluntary, with private companies and public institutions sharing data, donating equipment, and hosting researchers at their discretion, the speakers said. WIPO maintains a set of guiding principles that participants must accept. For example, products created through WIPO networks must be sold royalty-free (at least in developing countries); network members should take level of country development into account when negotiating prices; and WIPO strongly discourages reach-through agreements (in which companies that share IP via the network claim a share of IP rights by extension over new knowledge or products developed using their original IP). However, WIPO has no enforcement mechanisms to ensure adherence to these principles, though they have received no complaints of violations to date.

But the benefits of this kind of collaboration stretch beyond knowledge and technology transfer, Sharafudeen said. “[WIPO] talk[s] to a lot of the researchers who say ‘we spent years sending proposal requests to [major funders] with no answer and then suddenly we did this one collaboration with a Merck or a Novartis and immediately our application gets through to the next stage. Now we have the networks and we know who to talk to’,” she said.

Be Creative … and Have Fun

WIPO’s matchmaking marketplaces also demonstrate a second major theme of this year’s conference: the need to be creative in how we approach partnerships and engagement.

Barbara Bulc, one of Tech4 Dev’s keynote speakers, reminded us that most children do not hesitate to approach others on the playground. Yet as adults, we tend to lose this openness to creative collaboration. People become siloed in their own sectors and learn to envision potential barriers and conflicts more easily than they envision opportunities. Bulc emphasised that in order to break out of this pattern, we must cultivate creative and compassionate leaders.

The playground metaphor also recalls one of the most effective spurs to innovation and creativity: having fun.

Pontus Westerberg, digital projects officer at UN Habitat, presented a project called Block by Block, which uses the computer game Minecraft to engage community members in urban planning. The game, which is easy to pick up even for those new to computers, allows users to virtually (re)designing public-use spaces to meet community needs. The 3D visualizations generated in Minecraft are far easier for a general audience to understand than standard architectural drawings, empowering community members to more comfortably discuss their proposals with local authorities. The excitement of learning a new computer game is an effective hook to engage young people, which in turn helps engage their parents and fosters a sense of ownership over the project and the space.

Block by Block has more than 20 projects completed or underway around the world, including in Bangladesh, Kosovo, Kenya, the Philippines, Haiti, and Mexico. The UN Habitat team is actively exploring ways to extend the program in different contexts, including for earthquake recovery in Nepal and potentially partnering with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in refugee camps.

And Block by Block is taking steps to engage the larger global community. Mojang (the makers of Minecraft) and parent company Microsoft have established a charity to support the project, which also raises money through crowdfunding. So too, they have enlisted FyreUK, an online community of Minecraft players, to construct the base models of project sites that participants build upon.

In short, Block by Block epitomizes the overarching message of this year’s Tech4Dev conference: translating innovation into social impact is a challenging undertaking, but like the innovation process itself, it affords plenty of opportunities for connection and creativity – and even fun.

Mara Pillinger is a PhD candidate at George Washington University and a Junior Visiting Scholar at the Global Institution. She is a researcher at Intellectual Property Watch.