Reference

Reference

What it takes to make an innovation successful at grassroots/community level?

According to Trent and Chavis, the success of an innovation in its ability to bring change to a community relies on three different features: the scope, the scale and the sustainability.

The scope is the first element to be taken into consideration for a successful innovation because it has to be appropriate to generate good results.

The scope:

- A careful analysis of the problem is necessary to answer the needs of the user. The root causes giving the idea to develop an innovation is therefore one of the main steps.

- Local people have a very important role to play in this regard because they know the system barriers and service gaps that could possibly affect the implementation of the innovation.

- Effective planning and evaluation of the innovation's realization has to be done to efficiently generate results.

The priorities in this innovation have been established by OLPC and not from the intended marketplace, the education systems in third world countries. It is clear that only few people in those countries can afford a cheap laptop. OLPC should have worked with the actors able to purchase the laptop to maximize their sales and therefore reach the maximum of people.

Also OLPC looked down on the education systems and considers that a laptop is the best investment for children in the third world. Listening to the local population and paying attention to studies would have led to the conclusion that a cheap laptop is the most profitable tool improve education systems in the third world. A laptop does not necessarily bring better school results. Other solutions, cheaper are more efficient. 50 cents Deworming medication in Kenya, per student per year has been found to increase school enrollment rates by 20% and 25%, respectively.

The scale: There is a tension between the results and the scale an innovation challenges. Aiming a too large scale can lead to a limited success and disappointment, and therefore no community change.

- The desired community change must be articulated and measured

- The population concerned by the innovation must be prepared to this change (Data).

Finally, in 2005, Negroponte predicted that 150 million of XO laptops would be shipped annually by 2007 while only 1,5 million have been delivered.

The goal is to provide laptops to the most of the people, without considering the quality of the innovation.

The initiative is close to be considered as a failure for some communities because of the rush in which it has been implemented. In Uruguay, the laptop governmental project, called CEIBAL was supposed to be the lasting legacy of the former president Vasquez. In order to start the project as soon as possible, the 50 000 first laptops were in English.

Finally, there is a remaining problem linked with the scope. If the criterion for this innovation to be successful is to improve the education system, why would a government spend money for only a part of the population while the rest still struggles?

The sustainability:

It's the most important factor regarding the success of an innovation; otherwise the implementation will be a failure, as the invention. Clear expectations and the level