By Samrawit Gougsa
PSI is devoted to “thinking outside the box” in the work that we do, so USAID’s Innovation Lab caught our attention from the start. The $1 billion initiative brings together scientists, corporations, universities and charities in an effort to determine and test new and better ways to fight global poverty.
Last week we had the privilege of hosting a brown bag event where USAID’s Global Development Lab’s Director of Engagement and Communications, Alexis Bonnell, led us through several fun and interactive challenges that involved dried spaghetti, boiled eggs and marshmallows.
Yes, food. It caught us by surprise too, but the workshops demonstrate lessons the Lab has learned about how to identify and empower innovative people and organizations- something we are always eager to learn about.
Here are our 3 takeaways from the event:
1. Development is Changing
Global development has changed over the last 25+ years due to enhancements in technology and generally the nature of our businesses and influences have altered. As Alexis explains, our children today will “most likely live in an age where we print organs.” Being able to do so would be amazing, but how are we harnessing all this change to ameliorate global development? Alexis explains.
2. Failure is Key
The first exercise Alexis made us perform was the Marshmallow challenge. Each team was given a marshmallow, a piece of string, a length of tape, spaghetti and scissors and had to build the largest free standing feature on top of a smooth surface within 18 minutes. It was hard, and only 2 out of 7 groups managed to have their structure stand independently, but what proved interesting was the fact that kindergarten students have consistently been the most successful at this exercise. Why? Because they don’t fear failure. Listen below to Alexis’ explanation.
3. Watching How Others Work Will Make Us Work Better
In the second exercise, each team had to create a bridge between two chairs using only A4 sheets of paper, making sure that the bridge was stable enough to balance a hardboiled egg. The team with the longest bridge after 10 minutes would win. The twist with this exercise was that after the 10 minutes we were allowed to look at other teams’ structures and change ours based on what we saw. By doing this most teams were able to double the length of our bridges in half the time. Alexis explains.
The general consensus once the meeting was over- other than agreeing that a marshmallow is heavier that it looks- is that innovation is a key player in enhancing development. It is vital that we embrace this movement so that our work ultimately provides a greater impact that benefits the people we serve in the developing world. After all, they are our priority.