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Challenge Design Workshop(s)

The Global Knowledge Initiative

Facilitated by:

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I

Unpacking the Development Challenge

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What is the Market Failure we seek to address and why does it persist?

Identify 2-4 reasons why or barriers that is keeping the market failure in place.

Challenge/�Market Failure

Considering

Program Design

Options

Worksheet

What are the Market Failures we see?

Problem Framing

Identify 2-4 bright spots that is a signal of change?

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Start

Clarifying Value, Objectives, Outcomes

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    • A competition to help better define the problem set and existing barriers to innovation
    • A competition to create a design or mock up of a future solution
    • A competition to showcase current best practice or exemplar
    • A competition to mobilize a community, create relationships and partners or develop skills with a target audience around a problem or approach
    • A competition to invite, discover new thinking and approaches to a problem
    • A competition to develop new research, solutions or identify existing solutions to a well-defined problem

Data, Insights, Learning

Design or Ideas

Recognition

Engagement, Collaboration or Capacity

Early Stage Solutions

Late Stage Solutions

Dissemination/�Impact

    • A competition to determine the best pathways for technology delivery, scale, market expansion
    • A competition to achieve a specific result, regardless of approach

Risk and Investment

High

Low

Number of Solutions

Low

High

Competition Sponsor Primary Objective

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Potential Outcomes of Incentive Challenges

Viable system shifts with Incentive Competitions!

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What are the Objectives are you trying to achieve with the program?

Objective Setting

Prioritized Objectives

Considering

Program Design

Options

Worksheet

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What is the Value we are trying to create across different levels in the system?

Value Identification

For Society:

For the Network:

Solver Teams:

For the donor or sponsor:

Value Addition

Considering

Program Design

Options

Worksheet

For individuals:

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II

SOLVERS, INCENTIVES AND REWARDS

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Who are the solver participant segments that that is best placed to take action/solve? Who will be eligible?

Participant Targeting

Target Participants

Considering

Program Design

Options

Worksheet

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What motivates the target participants? What rewards would incent participation and action?

Motivations & Incentives

Participant Motivation

Considering

Program Design

Options

Worksheet

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NON-FINANCIAL

What rewards do we have access to that would be meaningful to achieve objectives and incentivize solvers

Motivations & Incentives

FINANCIAL

Controllable

Rewards

Considering

Program Design

Options

Worksheet

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III

SOLUTION SELECTION

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Incentive challenges can catalyze innovation and so much more…

Services

Products

Systems

GKI | 2021

Spaces

Innovation can be used to describe some things that are needed to drive systems change: but what else might you want to incentivize?

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Shifts that cause Systems Change: FSG Six Conditions of Systems Change

Policies: Government, institutional, and organizational rules, regulations, and priorities that guide the entity’s own and others’ actions.

Practices: Espoused activities of institutions, coalitions, networks, and other entities targeted to improving social and environmental progress. Also within the entity, the procedures, guidelines or informal shared habits that comprise their work.

Resource Flows: How money, people, knowledge, information, and other assets such as infrastructure are allocated and distributed.

Relationships & Connections: Quality of connections and communication occurring among actors in the system, especially among those with differing histories and viewpoints.

Power Dynamics: The distribution of decision-making power, authority, and both formal and informal influence among individuals and organizations.

Mental Models: Habits of thought – deeply held beliefs and assumptions and taken-for-granted ways of operating that influence how we think, what we do, and how we talk.

Source: FSG Evaluating System Change Efforts. Where to Start. Webinar February 2020

Policies

Practices

Resource Flows

Relationships & Connections

Power Dynamics

Mental Models

Structural Change

Relational/ Transactional

Transformational

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What is the “solution” or “action” we seek?

Solutions Scan

Type of Solutions

Considering

Program Design

Options

Worksheet

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What are the attributes of viable or successful solution? (either already in the market or needed)

Solutions Criteria

Criteria for Judging

Considering

Program Design

Options

Worksheet

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Who is best placed to validate the solutions?

Credible Judges

Credibile Judges

Considering

Program Design

Options

Worksheet

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Program Phasing

How many phases will you construct? And what is the purpose of each?

  • What determination is being made at each phase?
  • How much time will solvers need to develop their submissions? (paper vs. prototype vs results)
  • What criteria will be most critical to judge at each phase?
  • How can you ensure the process is fair, equitable and inclusive?
  • How does this process reinforce program objectives? (How does it not?)
  • What opportunity is their for value-addition in each phase
  • How will we keep momentum, celebrate and motivate in each phase?

What stage gates make sense for this model

Selection Phases

Concept Note Intake

Full Application Intake

Eligibility Screen I

Eligibility Screen II

Concept Note Review

Break

Full Application Review

Break

In-Person Interview

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Partnership Planning

Design Phase

While you can run a competition without partners, they are more effective with partners.

Sponsoring Partners

Invests financial resources, provides expertise and networks, guides strategic direction, and identifies new opportunities for programming and investment.

Resource Partners

A partner who commits to supporting the overall program objective and aligns their existing efforts or co-invests in new activities (the investment can be in-kind).

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PARTNERSHIP ARRANGEMENTS

There are numerous partnership types and arrangements you can integrate into your prize competition:

  • Co-sponsor/Founding Partnerships
  • Research and University Partnerships

  • Local Government and NGO Partnerships
  • Testing and Implementation Partners
  • Distribution and Delivery Intermediary Partnerships

  • Marketplace Promotion Partnerships
  • Co-investment Partnerships/Advanced Market Commitment Partnerships

Partnership Arrangements

  • Media Partners

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IV

Competition Planning

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Solver Targeting

Outreach and communications strategy:

  • How will you recruit solvers?
  • How will you engage the public
  • How will you signal to other stakeholders your leadership in this space?

How do you want the public to engage with your prize:

  • Awareness
  • Engagement prize
  • Co-creating/commenting on the format or solutions
  • Voting on the solutions (People’s Choice)

Campaign approach:

  • Solver mapping
  • Social media campaign (Twitter, LinkedIn)
  • Google AdWords
  • Newsletters and emails
  • Thought leadership in the technical field and among local influencers (guest blogs)
  • Contests
  • Twitter chats
  • Webinars
  • PR firm for media placements
  • Attendance at relevant conferences and events

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Solution Collection

METHOD OF COLLECTING IDEAS

  • What is an acceptable submission given the design and purpose

  • Virtual (Email or Platform)

            • Language considerations
            • Bandwidth considerations
            • Evaluation method considerations
            • Behaviors you want to incent based on your prize design
            • Timing and staffing considerations
            • What other teams are doing (economies of scale vs. program design)
            • Extent to which you would like value-added services, which can include prize design services, a pre-existing solver pool, in-house judges, moderators, communications and outreach services, intellectual property negotiation assistance
  • In-person, aka pitch or prototype or result validation

            • Design labs and workshops
            • Evaluation method considerations and judging availability
            • Behaviors you want to incent based on your prize design
            • Timing and staffing considerations
            • Extent to which you can enable participation and inclusion
            • Written deliverable vs presentation vs. prototype vs. results (or phased)
            • Nomination or self-selection
            • Individual submission, team, organizational or partnership

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Judging and Selection

What is your evaluation criteria?

How are you addressing program and institutional goals (ie gender inclusivity, sustainability, environmental impact)?

How would you like to conduct your judging process?

  • How can we ensure the judges understand what is required of them?
  • How can we take bias and assumption out of the process? triangulate scoring?
  • How many judges will review how many applications?
  • How will the judges provide feedback?
  • How will the judges conduct their evaluation?
  • Will you have a scoring formula?
  • How will you orient judges to your program and goals?
  • What are judges’ incentives for participation?
  • What do judges see?
  • Apart from evaluations, do judges have other responsibilities?
  • Is it important to have VIP judges?
  • What backgrounds will your judges have?

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Awards-Incentives

Financial: Purse Distribution Considerations

  • Pay for Performance (or No Money)
  • Winner Takes All
  • Upfront seed money and large purse at conclusion
  • Splitting the Purse
  • Sponsor vs. Public’s choice

Financial: Prize Size Considerations

  • What is appropriate for the market/will not subsidize a program?
  • What level of maturity are you expecting from the solutions?
  • What is the intellectual property expectation?
  • What degree of involvement will be required of the innovators?

Non-Financial incentives (directly provided, outsourced or networked):

  • Leadership Development
  • Mentoring and Coaching
  • Profile raising/publicity
  • Networking opportunities with peers, partners, advisors, etc
  • Technical advice and support
  • In-kind support
  • Travel
  • Financing to reduce risk

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Acceleration and Other Value-Add Rewards

Critical or Optional? To what extent are acceleration activities critical to helping competition winners achieve the strategic objective?

Juncture and Duration? At what point in time and for how long should acceleration activities take place?

Award Terms and Management? How will acceleration activities become part of or separate from the awards? Acceleration activities can operate as part of awards if written into the terms, can be an additional and/or optional set of activities that complement the award, or can operate as an independent set of activities.

Access? What will trigger winners’ access to acceleration activities? Will decisions about who receives acceleration support be made on an individual case-by-case basis or for an entire cohort of winners? Is there differentiated support based on the stage of innovation or geography? Will costs be covered by a portion of the award, through cost-share, or through additional funding from USAID or Partners?

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V

Other Implementation Considerations

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PRIZE PROCESSES AND TIMELINES

Ideation, Recognition, Engagement/ Delivery

Ideation, Recognition

Point Solution

Point Solution

Point Solution, Engagement/ Delivery

Application Process

Single application submission process.

Concept note + select few invited to submit full application.

Concept note + select few invited to submit full application.

Finalists invited to testing/ prototype (can design multiple testing stages).

Concept note + select few invited to full intake.

Application + semi-finalists invited to testing.

Finalist refinement + finalists final testing.

Concept note + select few invited to full intake application.

Semi-finalist testing + finalist refinement + final testing + paired partner implementation.

Length of Intake/ Evaluation/ Testing

1 – 3 months

1-6 months

6-21 months

6-21 months

12-24 months

Funding Stages Options

Full prize purse delivered at program conclusion

Full prize purse delivered at program conclusion

Some seed funding after full intake to encourage prototype development.

Final purse delivered at program end.

Some seed funding after full intake to encourage prototype development.

Final purse delivered at program conclusion.

Some seed funding after full intake to encourage prototype development.

Additional funding to support implementation tweaks.

Final purse delivered based on the most successful field implementation

Various Models

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BUDGET

A prize budget should address the following:

  • Operations, including staffing and overhead
  • Purse
  • Costs associated with a Communications campaign, launch, recruitment, celebration
  • Outreach activities (workshops, conferences, promotional events, paired co-design)
  • Platform (if appropriate)
  • Travel (for staff, judges, innovators)
  • Field testing (if appropriate): site and materials
  • Seed funding (if appropriate)
  • M&E (if conducting external assessments and reporting)
  • Acceleration resources
  • Research and design

Prize Budget Elements

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MONITORING & EVALUATION

Monitoring and Evaluation revisits the technical design question of “what does success or an ideal outcome look like?” and answers if the prize and solution(s) contributed to that goal

Desired Outcome

Example Short-Term Metric

Example Longer-Term Metric

Attract new actors to field or context (engagement)

% of participants (and winners) who have never previously worked in given field or context

% of participants continuing to work in field or context after life of prize

Build global communities to foster collaboration (engagement)

# of participants, # of countries represented

# of new partnerships (formal or informal) among participants continuing after life of prize

Develop specific, needed technologies or solutions (innovation or technical area)

% improvement in performance by winning solution/technology over previous standard

# of people that access solution or technology

*Plus specific impact measures of solution/technology

Stimulate markets

$ value of product sold or delivered during course of prize

% increase in consumption and/or production of product or service

*Plus specific impact measures of access to product or service

Monitoring and Evaluation

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Determining your program goals for the innovation in turn influence your intellectual property considerations:

What are program goals:

  • Wide and free dispersal
  • Incenting an innovation ecosystem
  • Consistent improvements/upgrades to the product

Who is paying for the innovation?

Who is distributing the innovation?

Once you determine your program goals, various Intellectual Property arrangements are available to you

Sample Intellectual Property regimes:

  • Open source/Creative Commons
  • Paying to purchase innovation/IP entirely
  • Allowing the innovator to retain IP
  • Hybrids models, ie freemium

Engage your RLA and OAA in the process

➲ We can share sample language for all Intellectual Property scenarios!

Intellectual Property

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TIMELINE

Some considerations in developing the timeline for implementing the prize:

  • Given the previous implementation decisions, how much time will it take to operationalize your prize
  • Staffing considerations (ie, the end of a fellowship or maternity leave)
  • What are key dates (commitment days, conferences, that you can hinge announcements on OR holidays that must be avoided)?
  • Does funding expire after a certain date?

Timeline and Workplan

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Date

Must Dos

Resources

Public Launch and Landing Page

Full Call & Platform

Recruitment and Approvals

Eligibility, Judging & Selection and Award Preparation

Winner Announcement & Disbursement

Phase

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VII

Other Resources

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External Resources