innovations in government & policy

Are we on the same page about innovation?

Innovations in Government & Policy

/38Are there new solutions to the sanitation crisis?

India has about 600 million people without access to sanitation. Public services are dysfunctional and being abandoned as planned infrastructure. And yet community sanitation is the only stop-gap before the vision of “a toilet for each household” is realised.

Tackling the Urban Sanitation Crisis for Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Redesigning Last Mile Malnutrition Diagnosis & Treatment for International Rescue Committee

Access to some of the remote villages in war-torn South Sudan is often a few days of travel on foot. Coupled with the low levels of literacy, providing last mile diagnostic and treatment is a major challenge for public health services.

How can we equip community health volunteers to reliably diagnose and treat malnutrition?

Government to People (G2P) payments in India amount to USD 100 billion annually. A massive public program is underway to give every individual a bank account, a unique identity number and transfer government benefits directly into these accounts.

Transforming Financial Impact of Subsidy Transfers for Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP)

Has the user benefited at the last mile?

What is the nature of these contexts in which innovation is required?

These are all complex systems with fundamentally similar challenges

These are all complex systems with fundamentally similar challenges

challenge of Behavior

The motivations and attitudes that drive peoples’ behaviour, are often at the heart of the change we are looking to bring about.

These are all complex systems with fundamentally similar challenges

challenge of Behavior challenge of Technology

Far too often, technology is pitched as the solution instead of being seen as an enabler.

These are all complex systems with fundamentally similar challenges

challenge of Behavior challenge of Technology challenge of Policy

Achieving scale for promising innovations in this sector cannot be done without steering policy in a new direction.

These are all complex systems with fundamentally similar challenges

challenge of Behavior challenge of Technology challenge of Policy challenge of Systems

These are problems with multiple externalities and any solution must take into account a complex web of stakeholders and relationships.

These are all complex systems with fundamentally similar challenges

challenge of Behavior challenge of Technology challenge of Policy challenge of Systems challenge of Patience

The temptation for an innovation “quick-fix” has to make way for a sustained engagement, requiring patience and perseverance.

What role can human centered design play within these complex systems?

Too often human centered design is seen only as a method

empathize define ideate prototype validate

a Practice that depends on user as its source of inspiration and guidance.

a Team that shares values of curiosity, empathy, and collaboration.

a Process that embodies values of learning, iterating and adapting.

When applied to innovation mandates within complex systems, human centered design must additionally be understood as a set of principles rooted in:

Quicksand’s articulation of the human centered design process is summarised through three simple tenets

Our Process

Meeting People

Telling Stories

Crafting Experiences

Meeting People

Our Process

Framing an opportunity through the lens of peoples’ needs or desires is our entry-point in the innovation journey.

Meeting People

Telling Stories

Our Process

Stories have the power to bring together teams and provide a rich, fertile ground for insights, ideas and inspiration.

Telling Stories

Crafting Experiences

Our Process

A well designed product or a system is a standout experience first. Articulation of this experience can create a clear roadmap for how an opportunity may be brought to fruition.

Crafting Experiences

Tackling the Urban Sanitation Crisis

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Case Study

The Potty Project was focused on understanding sanitation in urban slums in India from a user-centered lens.

The study, explored people’s experiences around sanitation and hygiene in urban slums - in particular, the motivations, behaviors and attitudes that influence the choice, as well as use of facilities for defecation and other sanitation related activities.

Ahmedabad • Bangalore •

Delhi • Mumbai •

Pune •{}

Individuals

Household

Community

Service

Framework for Research

GovernmentManagement

Commerce

Usage ratio

Land Ownership

Individual Landlord Private Contractor NGO Community

Rent Owned Pay per Use Monthly Pass Free

1:1 1:25 1:50 1:Many 1:All

Private Government

Sanitation Spectrum

Slum Typologies

Observation at Facilities

Observation at Homes

Conversation with Stakeholders

RESEARCH APPROACH > Tools & Methodology Coding & Synthesis

Insights & Hypotheses

INSIGHTS • Gender segregation at community toilets is often superficial & does not ensure privacy and safety for women.

INSIGHTS • Convenience and access to water sometimes dictates choice of sanitation, more than the need for privacy.

INSIGHTS • Women tend to club together activities like bathing self & kids, washing clothes and utensils.

INSIGHTS • Adolescent girls stop using children’s toilets much earlier than boys their age.

INSIGHTS • For women, menstrual waste is a bigger cause for “shame”

INSIGHTS • Caretakers are ill-equipped to run repairs and maintain optimal running condition in the toilet.

www.pottyproject.in

Scenario Development

• The operating models for these sanitation facilities

Individuals

Household

Community

Service{}

• The business models for these sanitation facilities

• The design of communication within and around these sanitation facilities

• The design of community sanitation facilities in urban slums

Key Areas of Intervention

Scenarios: Facility Design

Scenarios: Communication Design

Scenarios: Operations & Maintenance

Scenarios: Business Models

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Way Forward

SAMMAAN • Dignity & Respect An urban sanitation infrastructure project designed with rigorous impact evaluation in mind

Bhubaneswar & Cuttack

Pilot Locations

48

Project Sammaan is an urban infrastructure project that seeks to design & build improved sanitation facilities in the cities of Bhubaneswar & Cuttack.

• 119 toilet facilities (92 community sanitation facilities & 27 public sanitation facilities) will be built in Bhubaneswar & Cuttack

• 60,000 + people in Bhubaneswar & Cuttack are expected to directly benefit from this

• Scale up through a toolkit that helps urban local bodies replicate the design & process

• Rigorous evaluation through a randomised control trial that tests the impact of innovations on toilet uptake

• Timescale for design, implementation & testing: Jan 2012 - Dec 2015, including capacity building through a program management office at Bhubaneswar

Project Overview

• Software Innovation • Rigorous Impact

Evaluation & Ongoing Monitoring

• Community Mobilization

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Quicksand Design Studio

Jameel Abdul Poverty Action Lab

• Technical Assistance

• Partial Financial Support

• Hardware Innovation

• Software Innovation

• Partial Financial Support

• Implementation Assistance

Bhubaneshwar + Cuttack Municipal

Corporation

Project Consortium & Roles

50

• Hardware innovations being tested

Base : Feature gender-segregated toilets, wash areas & menstrual waste incinerators Enhanced : Base layer features plus bathing areas and retail spaces

• Software innovations being tested

Privately Managed : Organisations with prior experience manage and run the facility Community Managed : A professional group is set up from within the community & trained to run the facility

Key Features of the Randomised Control Trial

51

Are there learnings from human centered process being applied to design of complex systems?

It has taken four years to move through bureaucratic and political hoops to secure land, tendering and administrative approvals. Five years out and the first set of toilets are yet to be built.

18 / 38

LESSON 1 The paradox of prototyping at scale

The complexity of design and planning at scale left no room for the project

team to take a more measured approach through prototyping.

LESSON 2 The fault lines between rigorous evaluation and design process

The rigorous evaluation methodology and the necessary constraints it imposes, are inimical to the iterative nature of design.

LESSON 3 Balancing innovation with public accountability

Public accountability was of paramount concern to the city government anchoring this project. The innovation imperative was therefore severely bounded and had to be located on the side of caution or “reasonable risk”.

LESSON 4 Complex multi-stakeholder engagement

For a large infrastructure project of this nature, multiple stakeholders are a given. How do you manage innovation and design mandates with stakeholders having poor innovation “literacy” and capacity?

Are there contexts where human centered design has delivered?

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Tackling the Urban Sanitation Crisis for Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Despite setbacks in implementation, Project Sammaan has been invited to contribute to the community and public toilet guidelines under the Swachh Bharat Mission at Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India. It has contributed to the water and sanitation strategy at Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation especially in areas of policy advocacy and urban sanitation markets. The rich, visual and multi-media documentation of the research insights and implementation process has been referenced by sanitation practitioners worldwide.

World Bank approved a USD 150mn credit to Indian states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh for inclusive rural growth projects. Out of the World Bank funding announced, USD30 million in each of these states will be used to set up one stop shops at the village level. These will serve as the front-end for a range of service providers to deliver G2P, P2G (People to Government) and basic financial services to the rural poor. Many of the ideas that came out of the research now have funding and government backing.

Transforming Financial Impact of Subsidy Transfers for Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP)

Redesigning Last Mile Malnutrition Diagnosis & Treatment for International Rescue Committee

The final set of tools developed for last mile diagnosis and treatment of malnutrition in South Sudan will be tested through an RCT by end of 2016. Based on the work done with Quicksand, IRC has secured funding to plan and design the study. The eventual goal is to include it as part of the public health program in several countries in Africa.

Quicksand is a design strategy & innovation consultancy headquartered in India, and working in emerging markets.

We work with global corporations to envisage new business opportunities.

We work with international development partners to drive social impact through innovation.

We explore and incubate open networks for creativity and collaboration.

Our Experience

a Consulting Practice working with a diverse set of clients on strategy and innovation.

a Lab, incubating and supporting various independent projects such as B.L.O.T, Blindboys, Off Grid, Kites and GamesLab.

founders of UnBox Cultural Futures Society, our attempt to build momentum around inter-disciplinary collaboration.

a member of REACH, a global consortium of design research and strategy firms.

We are set up as >

Consumer Technologies Google, Facebook , Nokia, Samsung

Consumer Goods Unilever, Coca-Cola

Cultural Industry British Council, Dutch DFA, Goethe Institut

Education & Livelihoods Cisco, International Youth Foundation, One World South Asia

Financial Services IDFC, GIZ, The World Bank

Humanitarian International Rescue Committee

Water & Sanitation Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, PATH, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

Our work spans a variety of sectors >

www.quicksand.co.in ayush@quicksand.co.in

@helloQS

linkedin.com/company/quicksand-design-studio