Trend #2: Mobile solutions will focus on individual empowerment

5 Trends in Social Innovation

It’s no secret that mobile is king. Cell phone ownership rates have skyrocketed in the last decade. Developing nations are now skipping landlines and moving straight to mobile technology.

Globally, mobile-broadband penetration was expected to reach 32% by the end of 2014 — four times higher than 2009. Mobile broadband remains the fastest growing market segment, with continuous double-digit growth rates in 2014. By 2020, 90% of the world’s population will own a cell phone.

The massive growth of mobile has been the primary catalyst for a whole new category of social innovations focused on community and individual empowerment. In 2015, its implications on social solution design will be more present than ever.

Empowerment solutions promote individual and community control, political efficacy, improved quality of community life and social justice. Rather than providing a service to an individual or community, they provide the necessary tools and infrastructure that individuals need to serve themselves.

“If you can start to bring core health services to the smartphone … then you’re going to start seeing a pretty fundamental shift in the health-care system,” said Samuel Sia, associate professor of biomedical engineering at the Columbia University in a February 2015 Skoll blog.

Sia is referring to a new device for smartphones created by researchers at Columbia that can test for HIV and syphilis and provide accurate results in 15 minutes. Dr. Antonio Urbina, who wasn’t involved in the project, told the Daily News that the app is a “game-changer” which is “going to empower individuals to take ownership of their own health.”

MedicMobile, a mobile app that enables health workers to register pregnancies, track disease outbreaks faster, keep stock of essential medicines, and communicate about emergencies. And Empatica, a computing company that develops wearable devices with medical quality sensing, like this watch for patients with epilepsy. Wearers get an alert when an unusual event happens like a convulsive seizure.

mHealth innovations like these that support the achievement of health objectives focused on patient empowerment “have the potential to transform the face of health service delivery across the globe,” according to the World Bank.

“Social innovation is providing people with the tools necessary to have greater power in society. Across the board, social innovation uses creativity to empower people leading to improvements in livelihood, health, education, social justice, and emergency relief.” — Emily Coppel, BRAC USA

Individual empowerment solutions have already made massive leaps in personal finance. Mobile banking has swept many African communities, where limited access to money or capital has inhibited individuals abilities to take control of their finances.

M-Pesa, the mobile based money-transfer and microfinancing service, is now serving tens of millions throughout Africa. 60% of Kenya’s GDP is now transacted on M-Pesa, and nearly 7 in 10 Kenyans (68%) who own a cell phone say they regularly use their mobile device to make or receive payments. Half in Uganda say this as well, according to a 2014 Pew study.

Inventure is a mobile innovation that is making microfinance loans smarter.

The blend of mobile banking and microfinance solutions have been identified as a significant means of individual empowerment, especially for women, who disproportionately lack formal bank accounts yet are largely responsible for managing family finances. Many organizations, like BRAC, Kiva and FINCA, that offer microfinance as a social solution have started to adopt mobile-banking platforms as an alternative delivery channel to reduce costs, facilitate greater outreach to rural areas, and increase existing customer convenience.

We expect to see mobile-focused individual empowerment solutions being embraced to address social problems of all sizes in 2015.