CGI day 2 recap (so far)
Here are some of my favorite highlights from CGI so far:
Today's CGI sessions were very exciting. Panels and breakout sessions focused on innovation and how it is becoming more pervalent in the citizen and government sectors, and this has allowed them to partner with one another along with the business sector.
Earlier in the morning, Bill Drayton spoke about the future of collaboration, the importance of increasing the percentage of changemakers not only in countries (which he talks about frequently) but also in companies and the new question is: how will these changemakers work together?
Judith Rodin, President of the Rockefeller Foundation highlighted Ashoka's Changemakers as a great platform for sourcing innovations. Changemakers is Ashoka's oinline platform for collaborative competitions, which invite innovators to submit their ideas to solve particular social problems. In the same session Muhammad Yunus spoke about mobile technology as the most important vehicle for innovation in the area of poverty alleviation.
The "Driving disruptive innovation from the bottom of the pyramid" breakout session was really fantastic and emphasized the need for including communities as partners in innovation. Ashoka-Lemelson Fellow Harish Hande was part of this session, he pretty much summarized the feel of the day when he said "I honestly believe that solutions for the BOP will not come from top of the pyramid." He also brought up a really interesting point, which was the need to address "the poor" as a segmented community, not with a one-size-fits-all approach since the disposable income of someone who earns $1 a day would differ from someone who earns $2 a day.
Jackeline Novogratz from the Acumen Fund said that it was important to offer BOP consumers products that are not just functional but that have great design too. This comment reminded me of Amartya Sen's "Development as Freedom," which argues that increasing incomes for the sake of increasing incomes means nothing. The importance of increasing income is that it opens up choices for individuals, increasing their freedom. So Novogratz's comment means that offering access to great products at very low prices can be a shortcut to providing greater freedom to low-income individuals.
Another cool topic prevalent throughout the day was women empowerment. ExxonMobil announced a partnership with Ashoka's Changemakers on sourcing innovations in technology to improve women's economic livelyhoods.
What did you think were the best moments of CGI?
