Beyond Listicles

When reading lists of successful innovations, it’s easy to forget that each item exists in a context larger than a short blurb.  The articles 6 Water-purifying Devices for Clean Drinking Water in the Developing World and Five Innovative Technologies that Bring Energy to the Developing World celebrate ideas for the impact they have, without much context for the design and distribution processes that led to their creation and implementation.

One of my favorite stories about someone who found a solution to deliver basic human needs is the story of Arunachalam Muruganantham, more commonly known as Menstruation Man.  A 2014 profile by Vibeke Venema for BBC News goes into full detail discussing the trials he went through to understand the issues facing sanitary pad users and the processes for making them.  This led to his design for a simple machine that can produce sanitary pads at a fraction of the previous cost.  One of the many things that I find admirable about his story is the emphasis on shifting access to women in rural towns by ensuring that they would have the machines to produce and sell sanitary pads themselves.

For the most part, list articles don’t have as much room available to have further insight into how featured items are distributed and what impact that may have.  I believe that this is particularly unfortunate when discussing social innovations since that larger context is important to understanding the true impact of these innovations.  For Muruganantham, the distribution of the machine that he invented is as impactful as the machine itself.  Likewise, for innovations like GravityLight and Life Sack, distribution will be just as important as the technology behind their design. 

Is new technology innovative if the distribution process isn’t?  How integral is the full context of product design and distribution in our definition of social innovation?