Latin America Redux

Nearly a year ago to the day, I returned from a trip through six Latin American countries--Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Columbia, and Mexico--searching for prospective students and partnerships for Carnegie Mellon's Heinz College campus in Australia. I learned during that month-long journey that common perceptions (at least mine) of a Latin America in relative poverty, suffering from governmental ineffectiveness, and experiencing continual economic chaos are largely overblown and many countries in the region were thriving in the midst of a global financial meltdown.

Well, I've just returned from Latin America again (same countries with the exception of Brazil, just not enough time this year) even more impressed with the region's progress and dynamism. For over three weeks, I gave lectures at universities, governmental organizations, companies, and public venues on social innovation and the forces influencing innovators throughout the world, particularly those focused on new ways to address basic human needs like clean water, food, shelter, health care, and education.

One presentation, Extreme Innovation: The Future of Products That Could Save The World, highlighted products aimed at supplying basic human needs in radical ways and included:

• A definition of Extreme Innovation, building on decades of academic research and practical examples: "Products that defy conventional boundaries on cost, functionality, or other dimensions valued by end users, resulting in unexpectedly high social and economic impact."
• "Power Shifts" outlining some of the forces currently at work providing challenges and opportunities to innovators including demographic, urban and economic changes, technology influences, and the ongoing climate change debate.
• Some product examples including the LifeStraw, One Laptop Per Child, and Adaptive Eyecare's innovative glasses.

The other presentation was entitled Forces of the Future: The Big Trends and Breakthroughs That Will Reshape The Planet. It's based on the premise that we can probably all agree that the problems that we can define today seem somehow bigger, the forces at work seem somehow more chaotic, and the solutions that emerge seem to require more innovative approaches that at any other time in history. What's perhaps comforting is that this belief has been a consistent theme in every civilization throughout recorded human history, about 27,000 years.

However, that doesn't stop us from one nagging question: whether the ideas, leaders, and institutions that exist in the present are better suited for a world now several centuries behind us? And, if that's the case, are the ways that we've traditionally tackled the challenges of our time hopelessly flawed and irrelevant for what we face in the future?

One thing that emerged in my thinking as a result of putting this lecture together is that design, technology, and the simultaneously decreasing cost of both bits and atoms is creating some very new ways to solve complex problems. One example is the recent DARPA Network Challenge to find ten red balloons randomly distributed throughout the US with the first person or organization to identify the location of all the balloons winning $40,000. Using a "recursive incentive structure" that built on existing social media tools, a group from the MIT Media Laboratory Human Dynamics Group located all ten balloons in just 8 hours and 56 minutes, showing the power of social and computer networks to address complex problems in orders of magnitude less time. See an interview of MIT physicist Riley Crane, the leader of the winning team, on a recent segment of the Colbert Report: http://civic.mit.edu/news/media-labs-riley-crane-on-colbert-report.

The interest in Extreme Innovation and the issues surrounding it seems limitless throughout Latin America and many of my presentations were to standing room only audiences (I think it's the topic, not the presenter!). Looks like Latin America could be on my speaking tour schedule for years to come!