Open Source Innovation

This is pretty cool.  IDEO and the Gates Foundation put their heads together and came up with a toolkit to help communities problem solve.  Using what IDEO calls “human centered” tools, this “how to” guide works acts like a consulting team in a box.  Only better.  It acknowledges the challenges of developing ideas when the meeting of minds requires the crossing of a language bridge.  The toolkit is free – downloadable in .pdfs.  And its been tested, in its early development phases  with IDE in Cambodia and Ethiopia, with Heifer International in Kenya and in its current format by Vision Spring in India among others.   The beauty of an open source format though is that development and testing is never done.  Feedback from designers using the four-part toolkit around the world is coming in and IDEO has plans to incorporate the input to enhance the next round.