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Convergent innovation for sustainable economic growth and affordable universal health care: innovating the way we innovate
Author(s) -
Dubé Laurette,
Jha Srivardhini,
Faber Aida,
Struben Jeroen,
London Ted,
Mohapatra Archisman,
Drager Nick,
Lan Chris,
Joshi P. K.,
McDermott John
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
annals of the new york academy of sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.712
H-Index - 248
eISSN - 1749-6632
pISSN - 0077-8923
DOI - 10.1111/nyas.12548
Subject(s) - prosperity , civil society , software deployment , portfolio , business , social innovation , modular design , innovation management , sustainable development , health care , knowledge management , economic growth , industrial organization , process management , marketing , economics , computer science , public relations , political science , finance , politics , law , operating system
This paper introduces convergent innovation (CI) as a form of meta‐innovation —an innovation in the way we innovate. CI integrates human and economic development outcomes, through behavioral and ecosystem transformation at scale, for sustainable prosperity and affordable universal health care within a whole‐of‐society paradigm. To this end, CI combines technological and social innovation (including organizational, social process, financial, and institutional), with a special focus on the most underserved populations. CI takes a modular approach that convenes around roadmaps for real world change—a portfolio of loosely coupled complementary partners from the business community, civil society, and the public sector. Roadmaps serve as collaborative platforms for focused, achievable, and time‐bound projects to provide scalable, sustainable, and resilient solutions to complex challenges, with benefits both to participating partners and to society. In this paper, we first briefly review the literature on technological innovation that sets the foundations of CI and motivates its feasibility. We then describe CI, its building blocks, and enabling conditions for deployment and scaling up, illustrating its operational forms through examples of existing CI‐sensitive innovation.