Identify, innovate and inspire

The grand challenges programme started in 2003 to identify questions of highest public health relevance

Earlier this week, Ethiopia launched a ‘Grand Challenges Programme’ joining the ranks of the US, Canada, Brazil, Israel, India and South Africa as well as the African Union. The grand challenges programme, while having an audacious mission of improving human well-being through innovation, is remarkably simple in its conception. It is about creating a platform that enables anyone with a bold idea to solve some of the most stubborn developmental problems facing the nation. Ethiopia, despite its financial challenges, is showing both vision and foresight to foster innovation, entrepreneurship and a determination to solve its problems.

The grand challenges programme started in 2003 at the Gates Foundation, with the help of other funding partners, to identify questions of highest public health relevance and create an opportunity for testing transformative ideas, regardless of who comes up with them. Over the years, the model has been replicated in several other countries with great success. The idea of the programme is simple. Funders (public and private) pool their resources, identify the problems of highest impact with the help of experts, create opportunities for innovators (in both technical and non-technical sectors) and in doing so find solutions that are most suitable for the local landscape. This simple model has created a new space for innovative minds, among scientists, professionals and the general public and has inspired other strategies by the US and other governments to create programmes, including “Grand Challenges for Development” and the “Ebola Grand Challenge Programme”. These programmes continue to create numerous solutions that are saving lives of vulnerable people all around the world.

It’s time for Grand Challenges Pakistan. The public and private sectors need to create a platform to identify the problems, encourage innovators and inspire us to solve our challenges. Let me explain why it is a small investment with potentially high dividends. First, like many developing countries, Pakistan has its share of public health challenges — maternal and child health, sanitation, urban and rural health disparity, access to quality care and many others. We may not be able to solve all of them overnight, but we certainly need to start by recognising that our people, in and outside the domains of research, can provide unique solutions to our problems if we provide them with a platform and incentive. There is a substantial body of evidence demonstrating that prizes and incentives, even small ones, do allow us to be creative and sharpen our skills.

Second, there has been some strong activity in the technology incubator sectors, including Plan9 in Lahore and Peshawar 2.0. While success is certainly forthcoming, a large majority of these have not engaged in the public health challenges facing the nation. Incentives in both cash (funds to innovate) and kind (advice and mentorship) will encourage innovators to look beyond apps and software technology to come up with unique technological, social and financial innovations to address our problems. The three domains of innovation, entrepreneurship and health, while disparate and operating in their own spheres, can come together through a grand challenges platform and create a whole that is bigger than the sum of the parts. Given the depth of our problems and the large population affected, the ability to scale and create viable sustainable entities in and outside Pakistan is certainly an added incentive.

The third and final point is about inspiration. We are in desperate need of national unity to target our problems. The problems in public health neither know political boundaries nor do they care about celebrity statuses. They belong to all of us. We have to own our problems and establish a national platform that remains fiercely apolitical and aims to target our grand challenges. This is our best bet to ensure sustainability.

I strongly believe that we have the human capital and the intellectual capacity to identify, innovate and inspire. The problems are ripe and the timing is right. There are plenty of positive examples in and outside the region to learn from. The only missing part is our willingness to rise above the political storms to do the right thing. We should be able to do at least that much for our future.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 10^th, 2015.

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