Reflecting on the past in order to move forward

Five pieces of advice for future Pioneers

Livestreaming gives the chance for FCDO staff to explore the use of frontier technology by building a team around an idea for technology and social impact.  Pioneers are FCDO staff who have joined the Livestreaming programme to test and learn about frontier technologies in action. Sign up to the Frontier Technologies Hub Network to hear about opportunities to become a Pioneer yourself, and hear more about the applications of frontier tech in the FCDO. 

What will your future self thank you for today?

Everyday we have the opportunity to support our future selves with tiny actions: changing the brakes on your bike to prevent a future accident; getting out into the sun before the rainy season kicks in; closing your computer at the end of the day.

Looking back and reflecting on what's happened in the past can be a powerful exercise to learn from, and these lessons can equip our future selves with greater insights. The Frontier Tech Hub's  latest cohort of Pioneers are only just getting started in their pilot journeys. Yet they are already recognising things they would have done differently were they able to start again.

These reflections are not new, but sharing them collectively is. Many of the pieces of advice you’ll read below directly align with similar reflections we’ve heard from previous pioneers in the past. 

One sentiment carried through from our previous community meetup: “It’s good to hear that it’s not just me here facing challenges.”

Here are five pieces of advice for current and future pioneers: things to consider when filling out a Livestreaming application form, or building a team and kicking off a pilot journey.

Test your assumptions, both technical and otherwise

“When we wrote the proposal it was all about the tech. We made an assumption that it would be fine on the market side, but the problem right now is engaging the farmers themselves. We didn’t think about those scenarios.”

On this programme, it’s never too early to start testing your assumptions. Some pilots begin by testing the technical assumptions (like how to get to a minimum viable product, or mapping transaction costs), and others start with the assumptions they hold about the markets or environments they’re looking to test within.

Two pioneers discussed these differences in their pilots: Vinay’s is based in Venezuela, and Lotti’s in Nigeria. Two different continents, but incorporating the same technology (blockchain) in the same sector (humanitarian).

“She has gone straight into engaging humanitarian actors,” said Vinay, “but on my pilot we’re starting with more technical improvements. Our assumption is that engaging actors will be easier for us, but maybe we’re wrong.”

Acknowledging these differences in approach early on is so valuable, and resulted in the other pioneer offering to help: “Maybe I can share my learnings with you.”

Lotti’s implementing partner is also eager to start testing the more technical assumptions. But she is focussed on looking first at how to engage the sector: “The engagement has to be really carefully crafted in order to get that buy-in. We don’t want the humanitarian community to freak out.”

Engaging stakeholders will take longer than you think

You might remember from our previous community write up that getting buy-in on your steering committee is hard, but important. One pioneer has since had some great progress on this front having had some really positive meetings after targeting some specific teams.

Many of the pioneers mentioned here advised spending time early on understanding who relevant stakeholders could be for your pilot team, with clarity, in order to plan who to reach out to and how to gauge their demand or interest. Tapping into expertise and experience that you don’t necessarily have in your pilot team is critical in order to test solutions which are fit-for-purpose. 

For some pilots, engaging the government in particular will be challenging.

“There’s no way we could do it without the government,” Sudeshna told us. “[because] the end beneficiary is the people of India.”

Sudeshna’s team is looking to use blockchain technology to improve land ownership records in India, and convincing the government of the need and value of this initiative has been a challenge. They found there to be an existing initiative, and have pivoted to integrate with what was already in place.

They’re not the first to have to integrate a pilot instead of designing something new. A previous implementing partner, Pradeep, told the Hub recently about how they had also learned that they wouldn’t be able to change existing processes within the Indian Government.

‘‘I’ve always believed that tech is an enabler, but at the end of the day you cannot change internal or external processes, and working with the government is going to take years (or even decades in some cases). We had to establish credibility first. We had to show political value.”

Pradeep’s project was working to digitise and distribute food rations following the mass migrations as workers left Indian cities to travel home in the wake of Covid-19, but had to spend 2 months creating a by-passing mechanism that the government would enable: “This was one challenge we didn’t foresee.”

‘‘Our focus was not on tech initially, but understanding the situation on the ground. We found out how much it was costing for beneficiaries to actually access their benefits... People were having to lose half a day's salary to stand in lines to get access to benefits… at minimum wage that's 175 Rupees. The government was aware, but no one had quantified it. That was an eye opener. That’s what established the credibility…and made it easy for us to get further permissions.”

Working with a bigger implementing organisations sometimes can pave routes to government engagement, but local organisations provide better value for money and motivation

Sudeshna ultimately decided that working with a large international organisation would make this process easier early on. “They already have an established relationship with the government. That made it a little easier for us to establish that relationship ourselves. That foundation was there.”

We heard from Esohe who described the benefits on the flip side: the power of working with local implementing partners, who her team had engaged from the beginning of their application process.

“The value for money is incredible,” she told us. “They are stretching 70k in ways I didn’t feel possible.”

The majority of implementing partners who work with pioneers as part of Livestreaming fit in this bracket of smaller, local organisations and the hub recommends doing this if it’s a viable option for your pilot. Previous pilot teams have spoken about the value of collaborating with organisations who can speak to the local context and ensure local ownership of the tech or solution tested beyond the pilot timeframe.

Of course, there are huge differences in how local implementing partners in the Global South operate, compared to big Global North consultancies. The way the Livestreaming programme is structured means that implementing partners are reimbursed periodically, instead of paid upfront. This has financial implications for the former.

“Local implementers don’t have money at the beginning and there’s been a long to-and-fro to see if we can finance them. I got it signed off but we haven’t figured out how to do it down the line.”

Unfortunately we don’t have a straightforward answer to what Esohe has raised here. It’s not the first time it’s come up though, and we’ve been finding workarounds where it’s needed. We can make mid-sprint payments or arrange smaller reimbursements upfront, but these are all considered on a case by case basis.

Our advice to future Pioneers would be to be aware of this dynamic, and discuss your situation with the Hub early on so that we can find a solution together. It can sometimes hold up pilot progress but this doesn’t change the incredible value that local implementing partners bring to projects.

“These are local, young people trying to solve their country’s problems. It’s very cool. But we need to have the systems to be able to support them.”

Make space for translation

Frontier technologies are complex, so to understand what they are and how to harness them takes time. Part of the Livestreaming journey not only involves engaging stakeholders, but also translating knowledge and transferring understanding between them. Emmeline is now embarking on her third pilot, and she had valuable insights to share from her earlier experiences on the Livestreaming programme:

“There was a lot of translating between the implementing partners who were coming in with the high tech, and the children (end beneficiaries) who just cared whether they were going to get stuff on their phones.”

And within the programme itself, language can be taken in different ways. We use agile methodologies which come with their own terminologies.

A sprint refers to a time-boxed period where a team works to complete a set amount of work, but this can imply a need to work at speed: one pioneer admitted that it can feel like they’re failing if they don’t go really fast. Yet, for another pioneer, this same feeling had helped to focus their implementing partner in the past.

The advice shared is to “give each other space and clarification up front about this,” and be mindful about what works for your team at the time.

A big thank you to Vinay, Lucy, Esohe, Lottie, Sudeshna, Phil and Emmeline for sharing this advice.

Frontier Tech Hub

The Frontier Tech Hub works with UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) staff and global partners to understand the potential for innovative tech in the development context, and then test and scale their ideas.

https://www.frontiertechhub.org/
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