5 big questions on innovation

Life-saving innovation for children has always been part of UNICEF’s DNA. We’ve been changing the game in the international development and humanitarian sectors by innovating at scale for decades, introducing solutions like oral rehydration salts in 1975, considered one of the most significant lifesaving innovations of the 20th century, saving hundreds of millions of children's lives.

Since 2015, UNICEF explicitly pursued innovation within a corporate strategy. We established the sector’s first Global Innovation Centre, launched the first Venture Fund, and introduced the first Crypto Fund. This has enabled us to push boundaries with frontier technologies such as AI, blockchain, drones, and machine learning, and develop a track record of effectively applying innovation for problem solving at scale.

Building beyond this foundation, the Innovation Nodes work I lead focuses on possibility-led innovation to unlock the potential of previously unknown areas of innovation for children in underserved communities. Through a process of systematic discovery and initial knowledge-based derisking, Nodes allow us to investigate "known unknowns" and "unknown unknowns" in fields like precision health, next generation renewable energy, and biotechnology, as well as practices like emerging business models in social innovation. This transdisciplinary approach allows us to engage and equally inspire others to act along the new frontiers that can contribute to transformative change for children worldwide.

Every resource is precious in the development and humanitarian sectors, so it is more important than ever that innovation demonstrably delivers value to our core business. Measuring what truly matters and communicating impact effectively are therefore also more vital than ever.

Urgent and immediate needs take priority and the challenges facing children tend to overwhelm the available resources. It’s not surprising that time poverty Is another challenge, and its implications on an operating environment that can nurture testing, learning and iteration. Innovation and the time to engage in are fundamental parts of core work where the concrete results are evident.

These factors place pressure on time horizons for innovation to evolve and mature, and especially to deliver at scale. “At scale” has truly global meaning for an organization like UNICEF, which works in more than 160 countries and territories. Ground-breaking innovations will struggle to emerge or deliver profound social impact for children if we’re unsuccessful in addressing these impediments

Innovation is an explicit part of UNICEF's organizational strategy, competency framework and accountability and governance structures. It is also an implicit part of organizational culture -- not being the preserve of the few, but the business of all, with relevance and value across every function and level of the organisation.

Opportunities to innovate to deliver results are integrated in so many aspects -- from orientation and professional development opportunities, to incentivized innovation challenges for intrapreneurs, and structured programmes to support business units in integrating innovation into their strategies and plans

We also recognize that our innovation culture drives not only our organisational success but also influences broader global ecosystems of which we are a part.

Our Innovation Nodes work is entirely future-focused, looking at a 3-10 year time horizon. There are a number of possibility spaces that we are excited about, but the two I’m might be surprising if you were expecting me be typical and choose among emerging technologies.

One is unlocking greater value from existing innovation investments than is currently being realized by reducing the gap in science-policy-society interfaces. This is about unlocking new markets, novel applications and use cases. Currently, researchers may not fully grasp the potential applications of their technologies in unfamiliar contexts. Policymakers may lack access to expertise on emerging technologies and be less effective in their policies, incentives and regulation. Development practitioners may struggle to explore unknown domains of emerging science and connect these to the challenges and contexts they know well. Young people may not be meaningfully engaged in exploring the implications of science, technology and innovation on their lives. We’re working on closing these gaps.

The other aspect is new and emerging business models for innovation for sustainable development. We are particularly interested in financially sustainable models that can continuously deliver social impact without depending on extended charitable funding. Understanding and applying these models to create and capture value so that that transformative impact for children can be sustained would be significant in our industry.

The terms interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary are frequently used, but it is transdisciplinary approaches that evidence shows are particularly well-suited to addressing complexity and complex sustainability challenges. No matter what industry you’re in, the world is increasingly complex and so this is a particularly useful strategic approach.

By “transdisciplinary,” we mean taking a purposeful approach to drive sustainability by working across different fields, collaborating, integrating, and jointly creating knowledge in a diverse and multi-directional way. Not without its challenges, a transdisciplinary approach helps with the sweet spot of investigating how emerging technologies can meet future challenges effectively while considering the unique and changing variables of different communities, markets and contexts.