On 19 September, the 9th Book Talk Series was held at the OSC Headquarters in Addis Ababa: a deep dive into “Beyond the Idea” by Vijay Govindarajan & Chris Trimble. Mary Nguveren Igbazua, Multilateral Initiatives Coordinator for Knowledge Democratisation guided participants through the challenges of executing innovation within organisations, highlighting its relevance to Endogenous Technology Development.
In “Beyond the Idea”, the authors focus on the often-overlooked side of innovation—execution. While many organisations excel at generating ideas, it’s the journey from imagination to impact that truly defines success. The conversation touched on the parallels with the OSC mission to bring systemic innovation across the Greater South.
This 9th OSC Book Talk Series examined the three models of innovation—Small Initiatives, Repeatable Innovation, & Customised innovations—and how they address different scales and complexities of projects. The discussion brought insights into how the OSC can build a culture of innovation by integrating diverse practices in the implementation and scale of its flagship programmes to advance reform and strengthen technologies birthed from the Greater South and tailored to offer solutions to problems within this region.
The discussant, Ahmed Abdul-Basit, Chief of Section for Software Research and Development, shared his experiences as an innovation manager, managing rapid innovation projects over the last 2 years, highlighting lessons learned and insights for the future development of OSC’s endogenous technology programmes.
Watch the video here to learn more:
