This paper shares findings and insights from across IDIN's research program. The paper introduces and clarifies the concept of local innovation and shares two key pathways through which local innovation contributes to local development in the contexts that were included in the research.
This report summarizes the research of IDIN 2017 Summer Research Fellow Jessica Huang, who conducted qualitative field research in several indigenous communities surrounding Lake Atitlán in the Sololá Department of Guatemala. This report presents a stakeholder map which was developed as well as findings from community focus groups exploring topics related to local innovation, including the perceived impacts of IDDS projects and factors influencing collaboration within and between communities.
A team of students from UC Davis D-Lab partnered with the Association of Organic Farmers of Boa Vista do Acará (APOBV) to build an oil distillation device as a follow-up to IDDS Amazon in 2016. They designed an oil distiller that can be built with local tools and materials, operate in humid conditions with fire as the primary energy source and produce oil at high quality in a high quantity to sell to tourists in local markets. This report chronicles the development and testing of this device.
This report outlines the research of IDIN Summer Research Fellow Meghan McCormick, who spend her summer in Conakry, Guinea working to identify and map the city's entrepreneurial ecosystem. The report shares the methods she used to do so, key insights from her research with a variety of local stakeholders, and reflections on the city's innovation ecosystem. The directory of ecosystem players that emerged from her work can be found here.
This report presents the research of IDIN Summer Research Fellow Juan Constain, who researched an Innovation District in the Colombian city of Medellín as part of a larger project leading to his Masters thesis. This report documents and maps the players in the district and examines the strategies used to develop the district, paying particular attention to the role of the district in furthering or eroding economic and social inclusion of residents in the surrounding neighborhoods.
The IDIN logo is a visible and recognizable symbol of the International Development Innovation Network (IDIN) brand. By consistently applying the logo on all program communications from 2013-2017, we have built public awareness and promoted the program’s work.
The following guidelines govern the use of the IDIN logo and corresponding brand after most official program activities close on September 30, 2017. Please review this guide if you use the IDIN logo or name on any digital or print materials, and adjust your materials accordingly.
This paper highlights some of the difficulties experienced by volunteers and members of the general public when coordinating a response to an emergency in Pakistan, and discusses a participatory approach to investigating the requirements of an online emergency response platform that links volunteers with donors. The approach builds upon the use of a prototype platform in a simulated emergency situation with real users to test assumptions and learn about the design requirements for such a platform. The paper details the design process and the features of the prototype, and the feedback it received from users.
This handbook presents insights and methodologies from recent biomass cookstove R&D programs at multiple institutions to achieve higher performance, lower cost, and improved usability. This handbook will help cookstove designers and enterprises to integrate the latest R&D innovations into their products and support further innovation.
This handbook was written by a team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology D-Lab, led by Dan Sweeney, with research and editorial support from Megha Hegde, Kendra Leith and Amy Smith, in partnership with the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves. This was inspired by their work with small- and medium-scale cookstove and fuel manufacturers, including at the International Development Design Summit for Cookstoves in East Africa in 2017. Participants used design thinking and cookstove R&D to develop creative solutions to challenging problems in household and commercial cooking in the region.
This dissertation by KNUST student Benjamin Donkor evaluates the performance of a mixed mode solar dryer with a backup heater. The dryer was evaluated on the parameters of drying rate, efficiency, and drying time with and without the backup heater.
This dissertation by KNUST student Dickson Duah evaluated the performance of two rice threshers originally produced in a Creative Capacity Building training in Konongo, Ghana. The threshers were evaluated on the parameters of speed of threshing drum, rate of threshing, capacity, efficiency, losses and drudgery. The foot-operated thresher was found to outperform the hand-operated thresher on all parameters. The student also made recommendations to improve the design of the thresher for better performance.
