Stories
At GKI, we believe in the power of words to influence and inspire action. We actively pursue humility, curiosity, and reflection in our work as we share our insights, experiences, and resources with the broader community of decision-makers, change-makers, and practitioners.
From Static Stages to Dynamic Networks: The Future of Conferences
Networks are hyper-connected, resource-sharing, decentralized powerhouses with the potential to drive long-term social change. Conferences are cornerstones of knowledge exchange and professional development. They bring together brilliant minds, showcase expertise, and ignite conversations. Yet, conventional conferences often fall short of capitalizing on the full potential of these collective gatherings. You’re familiar with the formula: a…
Learning’s in our DNA: GKI’s Learning Collection 2023
As an organization, GKI prioritizes learning. We celebrate exploration and create opportunities to learn from one another. As we head into the holiday season, our team looked back and shared what challenged our thinking in 2023. In our second annual learning review (see last year’s here) below you’ll find a range of books, podcasts, and…
Do This, Not That: Crowdsourcing a New Blueprint for Innovation Competitions
In late October 2023, we attended the annual SOCAP Global conference, which convenes investors, entrepreneurs, and leaders across the social impact investing world to tackle today’s toughest challenges. Our delegate-led session, Learnings From Innovation Competitions: Developing Better Models for Systems-level Change, quickly set the stage on the topic before jumping into group discussions to crowd-source insights. The 24…
Introducing the New Online Toolkit: Systems Innovation – An Interactive Learning Journey
Introducing AI4Resilience’s Systems Innovation Toolkit: a comprehensive online resource for innovation ecosystems. Tailored for a wide audience, it offers systems mapping, actionable advice, user-friendly templates, and more. Dive in, collaborate, and enhance your innovation journey.
[The Business Standard] Elevate Youth Initiative of ULAB: Empowering urban humanitarian innovation
The Elevate Youth Initiative by ULAB is a yearlong pilot programme that addresses the needs of the country’s growing youth population and their struggles with limited economic prospects, access to education and safety
Celebrating Leadership Transitions
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Seema Patel is handing the baton to incoming CEO Steve Smith. We’re excited to begin this next chapter with Steve and are grateful for all Seema has done for the organization.
How to run a great open innovation competition? Our advice is to SCAMPER
If you work in innovation, you probably know the acronym SCAMPER (Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, and Reverse). SCAMPER is an ideation method that invites innovators to take a product or solution and turn it on its head. You can throw out ideas about how things are done currently and consider what…
[The Business Standard] Field Ready: Empowering locals to supply emergency response materials
Field Ready, a not-for-profit organisation, is working on enhancing the capacity of local small and medium enterprises so they can make products that meet the standards requirements of the humanitarian agencies
Systems-informed solutions should be our new bar, even if we’re still chasing the white whale of systems change.
On their own, the solutions generated by innovation labs, accelerators, and competitions won’t solve complex problems. Champions of the innovation ecosystem have realized that sometimes our methods and incentives encourage individual solutions when we need partnerships and collaboration instead. Adopting a systems thinking approach with long-term planning, deep collaboration, expertise, and patience is crucial. However, these qualities…
[DhakaTribune] ULAB wins USAID AI4 Resilience Grant
Four organizations, with ULAB being the only university among those, received grants to solve critical challenges in the Bangladesh humanitarian innovation ecosystem using systems- and design-thinking technologies