Making space for innovation at the British Embassy in Colombia to inspire FCDO
An innovation mash-up to inspire tech-led problem solving
At the Frontier Tech Hub, we believe that playfulness, brainstorming, and testing are important ingredients for innovation. With that in mind, the goal of our Ideas Generation Workshop wasn’t for FCDO staff to create refined or excellent ideas that could actually be applications to our programme. It wasn’t even to come up with technically possible or viable ideas. Instead, would-be pioneers had the opportunity to experiment, ideate, and play in the hope that we might spark an idea with potential merit, that we could then support them to develop further.
The process is simple: Start by crowdsourcing some challenges that FCDO staff are seeing and experiencing around the world (e.g. tackling misinformation). Then, apply a frontier technology (e.g. blockchain) via a public service (e.g. transport), to a chosen challenge in a new and innovative way.
We have now run this ideation workshop both in-person and virtually
When members of the Frontier Tech Hub team travelled to Colombia, we ran our interactive ideation workshop in the Embassy in Bogota. The room had great energy, and ideas emerged around immense challenges: reducing deforestation, sustainable energy transition, agrofinance, and biodiversity. In this short video about our visit to the Embassy, you can see for yourself how the workshop went down, and hear from the Deputy Head of Mission Tim Hemmings on the importance of holding space for FCDO staff to generate ideas.
We obviously can’t visit every Embassy, so we hosted the workshop online as well. FCDO staff joined our interactive event from around the world. From Mexico to the United Arab Emirates, Ghana to Sweden, Indonesia to Canada, FCDO colleagues from 23 countries and 6 continents came along to explore new ideas and ways of working. Jumping into the virtual exercise, a range of hypothetical ways in which frontier tech might be used to address challenges emerged when small groups of FCDO colleagues ideated together.
Here are some of the intriguing ideas that FCDO staff who joined our ideation workshops came up with
To combat severe injuries from road traffic incidents, Internet of Things sensors in helmets could disable a motorbike engine when a helmet is not being worn by the driver and passengers.
To reduce plastic waste, at-home 3D printers could enable domestic-level recycling and repurposing of single-use plastic that local waste infrastructure struggles to handle.
To tackle devastating impacts of floods and other natural disasters, Internet of Things sensors could work to detect incoming threats, and coupled with Artificial Intelligence, could broadcast more helpful safety messages to populations based on their real-time location.
To improve traceability in cattle ranching in Colombia, a platform combining satellite imagery with microchips could be used to track cattle in real-time which will also prevent cattle rustling, and provide data around animal behaviour and health monitoring.
Are you Interested in applying but remain unsure about how to come up with your own idea?
The Frontier Tech Hub has limited slots to run the interactive ideation workshop with more FCDO teams. This would be a virtual 1-hour session in the time period in which applications are open (18 April - 18 May). Contact us to book your own Idea Generation Workshop.
Do you already have the seed of a great idea that you’d like to develop?
Are you currently working for the FCDO? Wherever you are based, in whatever role, you can apply to the Frontier Tech Hub programme.
Applications are open right now, until May 18th.
We are running application workshops on May 2nd (10:00 BST) and May 4th (16:00 BST). You can come along to get support on your application, and you can also request an expert coaching call for further 1-1 support on your idea.
For invites to the sessions above, information on coaching calls and how to apply, contact us.