What is the InSTEDD iLab Southeast Asia? Find out more about how InSTEDD is thinking globally and acting locally.

Southeast Asia.

Known for it’s breath-taking white-sand beaches, the majestic Mekong River and awe inspiring historic temples.

But this beautiful natural environment also holds a far lesser-known reality; it is considered one of the world’s most fertile hot zone regions for emerging pandemic diseases.

In his landmark 2006 TED prize speech, Dr. Larry Brilliant made an urgent call for a global disease detection system that “could protect us against humanity’s worst nightmare”.

From Dr. Brilliant’s call to action, InSTEDD, a Silicon Valley technology nonprofit, was born. Early on InSTEDD’s mission was to design open source, sustainable technologies able to provide “early detection and early response.”

With a strong conviction to the approach, “if you don’t go, you won’t know”, InSTEDD explored ways to develop a local, long term presence in the hot zone region.

The result of extensive research and immersion was the establishment of the first innovation lab or “iLab”. Opened in 2008, the InSTEDD iLab Southeast Asia is an all Cambodian team of technologists and humanitarians. At the iLab, life-saving open source technologies are built with local and international partners.

These tools and design processes developed at the iLab are now being used beyond pandemics to improve the health and development of communities around the world.

To make worldwide change, we must think globally and act locally. InSTEDD’s iLabs have lived by this philosophy, working with partners big and small to help communities from Asia, to Africa, to Latin America, lead happier, healthier lives.