What will the world look like in 2064? David Mackie’s Skoll Foundation short asks that very question of technology and media luminaries like Joi Ito of the MIT Media Lab, Elon Musk of SpaceX and Tesla, and Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post, among others. The pronounced moment of pause all have before trying to answer the question is telling of the possibilities and perils facing the future of our planet and its people.
At InSTEDD , we work to enable others to use the best of technology for social impact. Access to increasingly variable and affordable technology seems to be growing at a fast pace, and this is because there are relentless teams working to make it so. To fulfill our mission, we need to help those at the front line of development and emergency response harness the best and most appropriate innovations. To reach that objective involves shaping our programs based on what tomorrow will look like. We therefore ask ourselves and those we work with to consider what the world might look like in 50 years to guide our efforts more effectively.
Looking back, Looking forward
To be able to make reliable predictions, we start by looking for patterns in humanity’s past progress that are likely to continue uninterrupted into the future. These “constants” are timeless struggles and desires people have grappled with for centuries or more. This includes parents wanting a better life for their children , self-organized groups of people pushing for progress against establishments with vested interest in keeping the status quo, and the struggle to eliminate old “us” vs. “them” illusions while avoiding the creation of new ones.
If we assume these struggles will continue over the next 50 years, barring any planet-wide disruptive event, a changing technical and environmental landscape is the central variable which influences what the future looks like. While new inventions cannot be predicted, there are visible lines of innovation pushing forward new technology.
To move from past, through present, and into future, we locate these lines of innovation and imagine where they will intersect with other indicators. For example, when is the cost of a diagnostic test less than a bus ticket to a clinic? When is % of mobile ownership reaching that of literacy rates? These intersecting lines represent opportunities for qualitative progress, and shifts in power balances. Thus by drawing out lines of innovation, we can continue our future thought experiment. Here are a few innovation lines which InSTEDD is engaged in:
Services for Connected Beneficiaries
Back in 2010 InSTEDD was working on broad-scale projects to help beneficiaries get critical information fast — such as where to get help after disasters or notifying them when to head to a clinic. The evaluation of these projects backed one of our core beliefs, that the “beneficiaries” — citizens, patients, families, and individuals hold a lot of the power and potential to help themselves, and that scalable mobile tools are key to unlocking this potential.
The challenge for scalable mobile programs is that they demand responsive, adaptable design — you can’t boss your regular population around as if they were employees, and their needs may change instantly due to emergencies or disasters. Thus the mobile tools which shape the future will be designed to empower program owners to constantly re-imagine, re-configure and adapt the design of their beneficiary interactions with no external technical assistance.
The InSTEDD iLab Southeast Asia, for example, holds regular day-long workshops which transform NGOs thinking from how to improve a mobile app interface, to how to create a national-scale-ready mobile system that they can own and adapt as it moves forward. Mobile operators are the enablers so that these projects excel and scale, and can be replicated worldwide.
Connected Diagnostics & Internet of Things
It sounds like a cliché to say “data saves lives”, but when a piece of data answers the question: “are you sick with a potentially life threatening disease?”, then the answer is yes. The world of molecular diagnostics is undergoing a fascinating explosion, from the evolution of small and cheap tests, to diagnostics based on processing signals available through sensors in regular smartphones, to molecular tests that can process large number of gene sequences in minutes in field-ready devices for a few dollars per test.
These efforts to transform molecules into bits of data are amazing, but the potential for this line of innovation depends on the bits of data being read by the right person at the right time. Long wait times at clinics, issues with power, and paper-based workflows all conspire to having patients’ samples lost, misplaced, and spoiled — and the diagnostic results never make it to its intended destination. Leading diagnostic manufacturers are helping to establish a better foundation for how the data can lead to improved health impact, health systems management (like supply chain, HR, etc) and improved device reliability.
InSTEDD has worked on this line of innovation in its collaboration with Cepheid to design and build their RemoteXpert product. Cepheid worked with field partners and is automatically collecting millions of (still) anonymous but actionable diagnostic data points that have already given tremendous insight into how to better combat the spread of Tuberculosis. The product is about to leave its beta stage, and will be an exemplary leader for how the “Internet of Things” can have life-saving impact in the poorest areas of the world.
Long-Term Digital Infrastructure
Another line of innovation driving exponential gains is in the establishment of long-term, dependable, locally owned digital infrastructure: a combination of data and services that can be relied upon as a foundation to build additional waves of services.
InSTEDD is supporting the co-creation of one such “digital infrastructure” across Africa and Asia in the form of the first Health Facility Registries — what clinics or hospitals exist, where they are, what services they provide and what capacity and infrastructure they have for patient services. Again private mobile operators are key stakeholders. InSTEDD has worked with Ministries of Health and NGOs to establish umbrella agreements with carriers and mobile operators to consolidate mobile gateways, simultaneously reducing ongoing costs for national-scale projects, and reducing barrier of entry to new ideas.
Who will shape the future?
If we can begin to imagine what the future of technology might look like, the next question is to consider is who will be leading on the timeless struggles of humanity? As the costs fall for digital technology, the classic challenges are being taken up by a new era of grassroots superheroes determined to make invisible threats visible, and act on them in real time. Their evidence based, local to global work cultivates the knowledge and expertise needed to tip and harness the intersecting lines of innovation. Who exactly will these new superheroes be? Here is one organization honored at the 2014 Skoll World Forum InSTEDD believes exemplify what the new crop of superheroes will look like.
Planet Labs
Planet Labs has designed and started deploying mini satellites taking imagery of the world with a goal of having (in the next year or so) free imagery updated every 24 hours for every spot of the planet. This is a game changer understanding deforestation, water levels, displaced populations, disaster response, etc
The future remains unwritten, but the lines are already being drawn and the Planet Labs of the world are taking up the good fight, and InSTEDD will be there to support them. Yes, nobody can see what will happen over the next 50 years, but it is worth considering how we will get there and who will lead the way forward. Our future depends on it.
InSTEDD is a Silicon Valley based 501c3 non-profit that designs and uses open source technology tools to enhance collaboration and improve information flow to better deliver critical services to vulnerable populations. In addition to its California headquarters, InSTEDD has iLabs (Innovation Labs) in Phnom Phen, Cambodia and Buenos, Aires Argentina.
