ELYSE MARR
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Supporting USAID's Grand Challenge Innovators

portfolio strategy  |  project management  |  entrepreneurship  |  market entry strategy  |  minimum viable product definition  |  product roadmaps  |  design for manufacturing  |  pilot design  

USAID invested 8.9 million dollars to these five innovation areas during the Ebola Grand Challenge.

USAID invested 8.9 million dollars to these five innovation areas during the Ebola Grand Challenge.

Client:  USAID Center for Accelerating Innovation and Impact 
Industry: Global Health
Locations: Uganda, Sierra Leone, Guinea, USA
Date/Duration: March-June 2016
Role: Creative Lead and Client contact while at Dalberg Design
Project Status: continued support by DIG designers 

 

Please visit microsite to see the full portfolio of projects from the Ebola Grand Challenge.

 

Ebola Grand Challenge

The USAID Global Health Bureau invested 8.9 million dollars to 14 different innovations in the Ebola Grand Challenge. For all 14 innovators in the Grand Challenge portfolio, I assessed their individual team needs and identified their barriers to scale. I narrowed in on a portfolio of seven product innovators that had the largest potential for impact that could benefit from design support. For the seven high-potential innovations, I scoped, budgeted, and staffed separate projects ranging from 2-6 months long. Each innovator's needs were distinctly different -- ranging from challenges on manufacturing and scaling production of physical goods, developing a route to market by understanding procurement, sales and distribution, and mapping system of users and use cases.  

  1. EpiTent from Makerere University.  (see full case study).
  2. Personal Protective Equipment from IPP & Kappler
  3. mHero from IntraHealth
  4. Smart Pods from Baylor College of Medicine
  5. Highlight from Kinnos
  6. DripAssist from ShiftLabs
  7. SteraMist from TOMI Environmental Solutions

I specifically supported the Care Settings Innovation investment area for USAID, which included Makerere University and Baylor College of Medicine. For these innovations we focused on developing and minimum viable product, getting a first customer with the right use case to pilot the product, and also design for manufacturing at scale. 

 

Zika Grand Challenge

The following year, I managed the same procoess for the Zika Grand Challenge. This is currently an on-going project for Dalberg Design. 

Zika is a systems challenge, where many players need to be engaged to stop the spread of the disease. Here are 8 different potential users that the Grand Challenge innovators needed to consider in their designs.

Zika is a systems challenge, where many players need to be engaged to stop the spread of the disease. Here are 8 different potential users that the Grand Challenge innovators needed to consider in their designs.

Reflections // Learnings

  • Global Health is about aligning in partnerships and it rarely is a sustainable model.  In global health, a buyer (government) is not a user (hospital). A user (hospital) is not a beneficiary (patient). A solution to a clinical need does not always help the user's needs and there's not always a market-based approach. The Embrace case study was when I started realizing the challenges of global health.
  • We need to focus on supply chain innovations for global health. Supply chain ability to rapidly meeting demand in a global crisis - is our biggest challenge for future global health threats. It's not a lower cost medical device or a thoughtful communication tool. It's about getting critical medical supplies as fast as we can to the outbreak. Without exception, all the Ebola innovators will struggled with with the logistics to get their products to the crisis.