From the Platform Moderator
12 October 2021

THE Port Association has organized the 2021 Hackathon in partnership with the CERN IdeaSquare located in Geneva, Switzerland. The goal is to combine creative minds from CERN and non-profit organizations in interdisciplinary teams to work on humanitarian technology related benefits to society.

One of our skilled workers, Junior Matumaini, technician specialized in energy and bio-medical equipment who’s working on the MSF projects in the Democratic Republic of Congo, had an innovative idea: developing a community alert system.

Goma is located near the Nyiragongo volcano and is particularly vulnerable to seismic tremors and volcanic eruptions. On May 2021, the city suffered significant damage during the last eruption of the volcano. Thousands of people had to flee lava flows and toxic gases. Too many people were not ‘so lucky’ and sadly perished due to a lack of communication. More information following this link.

Truly overwhelmed by the latest tragic event, Junior Matumaini has gathered a team with the help of The Port Association to tackle this communication challenge and offer a concrete solution to the population. They have succeeded in co-designing a network of interconnected channels to alert the community as effectively as possible in case of seismologic risks. They called it the Volcano Community Alert Systems!

Stephen Cornish, our OCG General Director, was invited to the opening ceremony. He gave an inspiring speech saying that technology and innovation must be empowered to respond to the humanitarian challenges.

Numerous other innovative projects were presented during the Hackathon event. Feel free to have a look at their pitch videos to uncover the solutions of tomorrow.
The ThinkUp team is looking forward to seeing these ideas implemented in the future.

From the Innovation Coordination
05 February 2020

Problem Statement
The starting point of the Workshop was to tackle the following statement:
We wish to to identify a set of possible solutions for improving both the equipment used and the process for transporting Ebola patients during outbreaks in Africa. During Ebola outbreaks, transferring patients from remote locations to treatment centres is very difficult - especially because of the lack of ambulances. Land cruisers and other vehicles (e.g. pick-up trucks) are used. The necessary vehicle decontamination process is very time consuming, risky and damaging to the vehicle itself.

Methodology
A workshop was held between Dec. 16 - 18, 2019 with external facilitation provided. The event included representatives from MSF, WHO, ICRC & IFRC. During the session, participants shared their current experiences in their respective organization and then methodologically worked through the transport process to come up with possible design solution(s).

Outcomes
It was evident that while current solutions deployed by WHO and MSF allow for the transport of Ebola patients to medical centers, they are nonetheless in need of serious modification to address the three main topics below:

1. Safety
2. Efficiency
3. Health Cloud
4. Cost Effective

Three main solutions were discussed during the workshop:

1. CUBE AMBULANCE (with mattress or stretcher)
2. "Bubble" [Tukul] over foldable stretcher
3. EpiShuttle

1. CUBE AMBULANCE (with mattress or stretcher): This is a simple and rapid system to turn any car into an infectious patient adapted ambulance. The cube would protect ambulance's doors, upper and lower part as well. A fully sealed transparent plastic sheeting that, once opened, has a rectangle shape. The interior of the ambulance is protected and there no risk of external leakages. The cube ambulance should be regularly checked for tears and breaks.
2. "Bubble" [Tukul] over foldable stretcher: This solution is a transparent tent that can be used to cover a patient while being transported on an adjustable stretcher - on any vehicle - also when carried by staff in remote inaccessible territories or slums, when wearing a PPE is unpractical and uncomfortable. The semi-seated position ensures that the patient can fit in a land cruiser and other vehicles. This solution prevents travel sickness by enabling patient comfort & vision. It ensures road safety by strapping the patient on the stretcher.
3. EpiShuttle: This is an existing product with a hard plastic cover that has many desirable features (adjustable seating, ventilation etc). It also includes technology that is not necessary for Ebola patient transportation (e.g. negative pressure mode).

Next steps

• A follow up meeting (scheduled for Jan. 21) to discuss possible partnership with WHO (and ICRC or IFRC too) regarding further development of the potential solution to mutualise resources and have greater economies of scale. Three solutions were identified during the workshop so the follow up meeting will try to identify the most efficient and viable solution to implement
  • Possibly reach out to EpiShuttle manufactures to possibly negotiate a more competitive pricing for the product as it is currently cost prohibitive (around $40K)
• Continue to focus on communication and awareness regarding Ebola
  • Continue the rollout of the Ebola Game app (Another innovation idea that was facilitated by MSF`s Innovation Coordination) to the wider population possible in Ebola infected regions through the different MSF networks
  • Make the Ebola Game App readily available to other international organizations in the field to roll out
  • Utilize music to further promote awareness on Ebola. A joint multi-organizational effort needs to be made to identify prominent African singers in the regions most affected by the disease to participate in this initiative

From the Innovation Coordination
13 February 2019

As you might have read on ThinkUp already, we have identified a challenge regarding the continuity of care for migrant populations. The lack of access and control of migrants over their medical data often hinders the delivery of a good quality of care. When a migrant enters an MSF health center, we are often restarting the whole consultation process from zero, even if this person was already consulted in other points of its migration route. What about finding a solution to this challenge? What about migrants truly owning their medical data and deciding to whom with share them or not?

We are very happy to let you know that we will team up with Microsoft Dream, Design, Deliver (D3) program, and with NetHope, in order to work on this challenge. A design thinking workshop will be organized in Geneva in April. If you want to know more, please send us an email to : thinkup.gva@geneva.msf.org

As usual, we will keep you posted on ThinkUp! Stay tuned...

ThinkUp, the MSF OCG ideation platform, is now available for all MSF OCG staff
17 January 2019

Today is a happy day for MSF innovation. All OCG staff are invited to connect on ThinkUp and to share their innovative ideas. ThinkUp allows you to share your ideas without filters, to comment and vote on one another ideas and to collaborate. Ideas will be developed around teams and stakeholders and most promising ideas will be prioritized and resourced.


On ThinkUp, the collaboration is organized around campaigns. For the moment we have 3 main campaigns:

1. OPEN IDEAS: this is where you can share your most wild ideas. You have a challenge, you have an idea on how to solve it, but you need some support (technical, political, resources), this is your campaign!
2. NEEDS: this is where you can post the needs or challenges you are facing. You do not have an idea on how to solve it, but you have the feeling innovation could help, then share it with the community here.
3. PROJECTS WORTH SHARING: you had a challenge or a problem, and you tested a solution to solve it? It all ended up in a great success or a big mess? Please share here your experiences and lessons learned for the community to benefit from it.

In the coming weeks and months new campaigns will be launched. Please stay tuned...

Prioritization and pitching sessions: Ideas posted on ThinkUp will go through an ideation process. After an initial review and an incubation phase, the ideas that need resources to move forward will be prioritized by a committee of directors. Once every quarter, ideas will be pitched, and the best ones will be attributed resources from an innovation envelop to do a prototype, a pilot or a feasibility study. Next pitching session is in March, so get ready and start building your ideas!

ThinkUp is live and the first ideas have been pitched to the directors
02 November 2018

If you are reading this text, it means you are among the first MSFers to use our ThinkUp platform. Congratulations!

Here is the place to post your ideas and to comment and vote on our colleagues ideas. The news of the day is that a set of 7 ideas were already pitched to our directors and 5 of them have been selected to go to the next stage.

A shorter teaser for 2 of them:

• N'Duta team in Tanzania will do a feasibility study to assess the use of innovative cooking fuel for refugees and to reduce their exposure to violence while collecting wood
• A new solution to ensure continuity of care for migrant population will also be assessed.

For more details, have look around and find these ideas! Enjoy!

From the Platform Moderators (see pic)
04 June 2018

Congratulations! You are among the few MSF staff and guests who have been given the honor to test our new idea harvesting and collaborative platform. We are excited with the prospect of working transversally on specific innovative ideas as well as needs coming from the MSF universe. We hope that the platform will enable us to harness ideas that impact our operational action in a way that make a difference to our beneficiaries. We hope to access the right experts and stakeholders in developing these ideas to fruition, through efficient communication and collaborative input. The proof will be in the pudding, so your contribution or participation will be invaluable. Do let us know if we are going in the right direction through an e-mail to innovation@geneva.msf.org or the comment section.

The ideation platform serves as a one-stop-shop for original ideas that can be shared, developed and implemented. It is complimentary to MSF existing planning process and allows you to work with other existing platforms including SharePoint and KOMPAS without logging in and out. We will soon provide you with short guidelines and videos to facilitate the introduction.

The official launch of the platform will be end of 2018. However we look forward to test and integrate your comment as we finalize the configuration in the coming months.