In partnership with TRANSFORM (a partnership between Unilever, the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, and EY), and together with our brilliant local Kenyan research partners - Laterite, ProCol Africa, Busara, and Ideas Unplugged - we engaged directly with hundreds of stakeholders and local entrepreneurs, to map the current state of the informal economy and collaborate on a shared vision for the future of work in Kenya.
As the Covid-19 pandemic took its grip on the world in early 2020, global demand for oxygen surged. Pure oxygen in cylinders is expensive, and proved hard to find. Simple technology exists to turn ordinary air into medical-grade oxygen - but that technology is fragile, and manufacturers couldn’t see viable or profitable ways to build something tougher. By bringing people together to discuss the issues, we helped to pinpoint a crucial problem - and a simple solution, which saved thousands of lives.
As part of our work with the Africa Smart Towns Network of 11 cities across Africa (aka ASToN), Brink worked with the City of Matola in Mozambique on a project to increase tax income for the city council. Local officials were convinced that tax non-payment was because citizens were choosing to avoid paying taxes; but when they dug deeper, the team found very different reasons - and came up with creative new service ideas to experiment with.
We live in times of converging crises, exacerbating the number of people with unmet needs. The current global humanitarian system is struggling to effectively and efficiently respond - new ways of working must be adopted in order to drive real change. Creating Hope in Conflict: A Humanitarian Grand Challenge is the first innovation challenge to focus on humanitarian crises caused by conflict. Launched in 2018, partners collectively contributed USD $38 million to enable humanitarian actors and agencies, local emergency responders, and the private sector to work alongside affected communities to respond more nimbly to complex humanitarian emergencies. This Humanitarian Grand Challenge identifies and scales innovations to help people affected by humanitarian crises caused by conflict.
