Gender & Innovation Think-a-thon

with Safe Space Africa and Human Development Innovation Fund (HDIF)

Background

HDIF was founded by UK's Department for International Development (DFID) to provide grants to businesses, NGOs and research institutions for scaling innovations in education, health and water, sanitation and hygiene. Every year, HDIF planned an Innovation Week with different partners in Tanzania working in the aforementioned sectors. In 2019, Safe Space Africa was chosen as one of the partners and we hosted the Gender & Innovation Think-a-thon event to generate quick ideas and solutions for more gender-inclusive and women-centred innovations using human-centred design principles.

The event brought together different stakeholders, including high school students, government officials, thought leaders, management-level officials, policymakers, officials from organizations and women in leadership working in the innovation sector, community development, technology, education and development. My role as the Founder and Lead Behavioral Researcher and Designer was to engage participants in a lively brainstorming session to generate and collect insights on gender inclusivity in scaling and sustaining innovations in Tanzania and more importantly answer the solution-centred question “How might we bridge the gender gap in Innovation and Technology in Tanzania?

Part 1 - Video Presentation & Discussion

We kicked off the event with a short video that documents the gender and innovation ecosystem, and what has been achieved thus far in Tanzania. After watching the video, we led the attendees through a discussion to get them into a participatory and creative mood. Discussion questions included:

1. Seeing that the innovation ecosystem is still in its early stages, how can we interpret the challenges that the female leaders of tech giants in western countries within our local context? Do their challenges apply?

2. How have we seen gender bias manifest or even normalized in the Tanzanian context and how can we overcome such stereotypes?

3. According to the 2017 Global Gender Gap report by the World Economic Forum, men earn 39% more than the average woman in Tanzania for the same job. In fact, Tanzania has the 24th largest gender pay gap out of 34 other African countries that were ranked in this report. How might we solve the gender pay gap in Tanzania, taking into account cultural, traditional and social gender norms in the country?

4. Many people have argued that in third world countries, there are more pressing issues of alleviating poverty, creating jobs, quality education, healthcare etc. In the 2017 HDIF report titled "Making Innovation Work for Girls and Women in Tanzania," it is reported that at age 13, 18% of girls nationally are not attending school, rising to 34% at age 14, and 44% at age 15 (compared to 16%, 24% and 34% for boys of the same age). Just over one-quarter of adolescent women aged 15–19 are already mothers or pregnant with their first child, virtually ending their opportunity to attend school. To what extent can we argue for allocation of resources towards creating spaces for women in STEM and innovation on a national level?

Part 2: The Think-a-thon (a Marathon of Innovative Thoughts)

After the video segment, we divided participants into 4 groups assigned by a color tag they pick up when they entered the room. This random assignment allowed for more organic networking and the exchange of ideas from different perspectives. Each group was then led through a speed brainstorming event focusing on one of the following How Might We question.

How Might We Bring Women and Girls into the Innovation Design Process

This means moving beyond women and girls participating in discussions or being called to meetings, etc. Think about examples you’ve seen or heard about in which women and girls really engaged meaningfully in the design process.

Probing Questions:

How would innovators set up the process?
What would the women and girls be asked to do, answer and/or create?
What is the “secret sauce” that would inspire the women and girls and give them the space to meaningfully participate?
Why should innovators care about having women and girls meaningfully engage and make it happen?
When innovators move from design to implementation, how can women and girls continue to be meaningfully engaged including in generating ideas for adaptation?

Are there examples of innovations that - in addition to meeting women's and girls' needs - increase their opportunities to make decisions about their lives? If there are no existing examples, how might we create such an opportunity?

Probing Questions:

What kind of innovation could catalyze women and girls to see themselves differently?
Could these innovations also impact how other people see them - particularly husbands/partners, parents, leaders?
What is it about these innovations that would create this kind of change?
Can these effects also change the ways in which women and men, and girls and boys interact with one another (gender relations)? If so, how?

We know that lack of money often limits an innovator from realizing their dreams. What, specifically, are the other constraints and how do they affect women and children? How might we overcome these constraints?

Probing Questions:

In the case of money and other answers, what are creative solutions we should develop and advocate for?
What are specific barriers we are likely to face and what are the specific solutions to try? Consider the role of funders, the government and the innovators themselves. Consider possibilities that haven’t been tried yet and that seem wild…it’s worth a try!

Is it possible that designing, implementing and scaling innovations could actually cause harm for women and girls? How might we ensure that women and girls are protected?

Probing Questions:

What kind of harm?
How would it happen?
Are there other groups of people that could also be harmed in this way and if so, which people and how would that happen?
How can innovators, users of innovation, funders, government, the private sector and others help to reduce and eliminate the potential for harm created by innovation?

Some photos from the event...

Results

After the brainstorming, each group presented their ideas and the wider group voted on the most impactful one. Ideas and insights ranged from gender mainstreaming in media, including more women and girls in the design process, financial inclusion programs for women entrepreneurs to including entrepreneurship training in academic curriculums. The top 3 ideas were highlighted in HDIF's report on Gender and Innovation as recommendations to governments, higher institutions and policymakers.

Reflection

Diverse voices enrich intervention design

The event was very successful and enlightening mainly due to the mix of voices that we had in the room. We had high school students debating and exchanging ideas with country directors of international NGOs and high-level government officials. Everyone left the event feeling like they truly learned something new and inspired to take action.

Probing questions lead to more insightful discussions

Behavioral design focuses a lot on developing the best 'How Might We' questions, which is an important part of the design process. I have also found that developing strong probing questions for the main How Might We question helps to focus and add depth to the discussion while also covering the breadth of the topic.