The Distribution of Ideas and Innovations

The theme of the third week of Foundations of Social Innovation and Enterprise is Solutions and Enablers to Deliver Basic Human Needs, which focuses on the innovative technologies used to guarantee a certain degree of standard of living for people in third world countries. Some of these innovations are used to help deliver clean water in innovative ways that use their environment to take the place of time-consuming and inefficient methods like chlorine tablets or less reliable filters. Other projects also use solar power or even gravity to bring heat and power to areas that would otherwise possibly be too remote to otherwise have those needs fulfilled. These ideas are quite often very well thought-out and solve the problem in creative and sometimes awe-inspiring ways but by having a reliance on an overseas producer can have distribution or dependence issues later.

This particular problem is illustrated in the TechCrunch article Where in the World Are The 1.2M Raspberry Pi Microcomputers, which looks at who has been purchasing the easily-programmed Raspberry Pi Microcomputers since their release. TechCrunch found that much of the devices were shipped to developed nations like the United States or United Kingdom, which was somewhat surprising considering the potential for low-cost education and innovation that comes with the highly-customizable and user-friendly computing platform. Raspberry Pi and similar innovations lower the high entry cost for citizens of developing countries to interact with the rest of the world, educate themselves and raise their standard of living, but that potential  will never become more than theory as long as distribution channels for innovation don’t improve.

With that in mind, some of the innovations utilizing apps in conjunction with technology people already have are particularly interesting because they are able to deliver innovation without as many problems with distribution. Since users already have the hardware, their only concern is the software, which can be downloaded remotely as long as there is some type of reception. An app like iCOW, which provides information to small-scale farmers allows them to have a reminder that keeps them on-task with the maintenance of their herd and helps to preserve their livelihood while also allowing them to improve their efficiency and cattle management. Most importantly though, is the fact that this innovation for farmers is able to be delivered remotely using technology they already have.

The most promising innovations are the ones like the Inye computer tablet mentioned in the Africa Innovations article, which are developed in Nigeria and are able to provide computing power at a paltry £200 and utilize the infrastructure that is present for their ability to provide entry to the world wide web but to do so in a way that is tailored to that particular setting’s needs while also skirting around how to get those computers to the people who would use them. While Raspberry Pi the other projects are very promising they have distribution problems, making developments like Inye seem more holistic and self-perpetuating than a possible over-reliance on foreign intervention.