Rapid COVID-19 Innovation: A Collaborative Response to the Unique Challenges of COVID-19
Rapid COVID-19 Innovation: A Collaborative Response to the Unique Challenges of COVID-19
By Dr. Michael Soderling
We are all inundated with COVID-19 information. Numbers, death rates, wear a mask/don't wear a mask, spatial distancing and hand washing. It's all about containing this pandemic but there doesn't seem too much about innovative ways to deal with it. What can a day worker in India do when their very life and the lives of their family members depend on them going to work to earn enough to buy food for the next day? How can "developed" nation governments and their public health authorities demand that farmers stay home when crops need to be planted or harvested that will sustain their families now or in the future? There are no easy answers.
The Innovation Team at the Winter Launch Lab, composed of both Frontier Ventures and WCIU colleagues, is working in collaboration with Health for All Nations to develop a way to respond to this global crisis. We are working with leaders at the frontlines of the crisis in multiple, global settings to innovate specific solutions to the challenges in their contexts.
We are doing this through what we call Quick Response Innovations. (QRI) This was developed with the help of Lowell Bliss (of Frontier Ventures and WCIU), Director of Eden Vigil. Lowell has had years of experience doing this. He learned the process from the Kansas Leadership Center, (KLC) which itself was the product of the Cambridge Leadership Associates in Boston. The process combines many elements that already exist within our own innovation process in the Winter Launch Lab "t.co.lab" initiatives (Transformation Collaboratives). In short, a QRI is a sort of t.co.lab distilled down to a specific, immediate issue, in this case, related to the multiple challenges COVID-19 presents.
For example, we recently went through the QRI process with someone working with refugees in a center in Germany. Katie I'll call her, faced an adaptive leadership challenge, a complex problem, concerning her ongoing outreach to an Iraqi female refugee, living in a community of 200. She has been meeting with Aabid (not her real name) in her "apartment" (sounded like a one-room space with minimal facilities) and they have been reading through the Bible. Now she is told she cannot continue visiting Aabid and Katie fears she will lose the trust/relationship she has been developing with Aabid and her child. Katie also desires to fill in gaps in care that the government is unable to meet during this time. As a result of the QRI process, Katie is weighing several possible courses of action. Through innovation and design thinking, Katie went from a place of feeling stuck to a place of empowerment and support.
We are also walking alongside a doctor who is working in a mission hospital in Asia whose challenge revolves around finding solutions to best protect his staff while still providing compassionate and quality care to patients in the hospital. Still others in our academic community are working with leaders in slum communities to navigate the unprecedented times we find ourselves.
We wanted to let the FV/WCIU community know about this initiative so that you can be praying for us and especially for those who must deal with this global crisis in some extremely challenging contexts. In the near future, we hope to widen the circle to other organizations, agencies, and leaders in the interest of our own specific response to COVID-19, and our desire to help others succeed.
For more information contact The Winter Launch Lab: winterlaunchlab@frontierventures.org
https://www.winterlaunchlab.org/quick-response-innovation