CREATING SUSTAINABLE BUSINESSES IN THE KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY

Overview of 2012 communications campaigns

Prepared by the infoDev communications team in October 2012

Christine Ampaire, MafutaGo! co-founder, accepts the Ringmasters Award at the Mobile World Congress 2012.

growing innovation

infoDev Program Manager Valerie D’Costa discusses women’s entrepreneurship at the European Development Days 2012. Next to her is Ms. Heidi Hautala, Minister for International Development of Finland.

leading thought

MedAfrica wins first place at the 2012 Worldwide Ericsson Application Awards.

enabling growth

Philip Wilson, CEO of infoDev beneficiary Ecofiltro, addresses a native community in Solola, Guatemala.

unleashing entrepreneurship

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SUMMARY OF RESULTS TO DATE

Innovation everywhere

“The new reality is that the future [of innovation] is far from home.” - Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble, Reverse Innovation

As we designed the CSBKE program, the world was on the cusp of an unprecedented transformation. The old arrow of innovation, from developed nations to developing ones, was already showing signs of wear, and in the last few years, we have seen it all but shatter.

From Slideshare to M-PESA, it is now common for trade-defining startups to come out of developing nations. As more of our beneficiaries take their ideas from mind to market and meet with ballooning success, we have found a unique communications opportunity, not just to report results, but to use them to show people everywhere one thing:

“Business is your playground too.”

Today, more and more entrepreneurs are ready to dream big. Now when two Kenyan women want to help exploited farmers, it’s within their grasp to launch M-Farm. Now an Indonesian woman can work on opening not a family restaurant, but a growth-oriented fermented coconut drink business—the difference between employing five people and five dozen—or five hundred. We believe this shift in thinking, more than any single effort in the part of multinationals and agencies, will usher in a new era of SME-driven growth worldwide.

This belief, at the heart of CSBKE, is mirrored in our communications efforts. Though it feels good to be praised by the likes of The Economist, CNN, The Atlantic, and CNET, we have worked hard to find loud, new ways to communicate CSBKE achievements through the voice of our thousands of beneficiaries: in local front pages, in tweets and in Facebook messages, in regional TV broadcasts and in blog posts. Our multipronged campaigns have netted us several hundred mentions over the last year.

Our efforts have brought us to audiences near and far. Most major CSBKE events, launches, and publications have been featured in the World Bank homepage and on blog posts, newsletters, and various other internal and external platforms. Beyond that, our most salient knowledge products continue to draw hundreds of new visitors every month—not just development practitioners, but entrepreneurs, researchers, and technology and innovation enthusiasts from all over the globe.

Our approach is to let communities cover our work in the way that interests them, and then take note. Take this recent article, from the independent daily Sudan Vision. At first glance, it is a testament to the reach of our brand and our activities. But beyond that, it stands out as one spontaneous account of our work in Africa, written by someone who learned about CSBKE and was impressed enough to tell his community about it—in his own words.

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The new compass of innovation points from South to South and from the ground up. Though reporting results, acknowledging the partners’ contributions, and building linkages remain strategic goals, our greater vision compels us to keep our message close to our community’s heart.

Therefore, our communications efforts aim not just to guide and inform, but above all, to listen. To listen to the voice of our evolving stakeholders, and to adapt.

Key coverage stats

The following pages summarize the communications pushes and results around CSBKE highlights. For quick comparison, consult the coverage stats below.

• Opening of the ICT incubator in Tanzania: 5+ local news reports• Launch of mLab Southern Africa: 10+ news reports• International Women’s Day Op-ed: 12 international media mentions• Open Innovation Africa Summit: 40+ mentions in international and African news outlets• m2Work Challenge: 22+ international and local mentions• IC4D 2012: Maximizing Mobile: 90+ international reports• m2Work Hackathon: 40+ international and local reports• Launch of mLab East Asia: 12+ news reports

To learn more

For up-to-date samples of coverage of CSBKE activities and other infoDev work, visit:

http://www.infodev.org/inthenewshttp://www.infodev.org/en/Highlights.html

Notable coverage of our partners

Though we strive to make our beneficiaries household items in their own community, with their grit and success they have consistently drawn the most visible players in the international press to cover them—and our programs.

From startups (M-Farm, Kopo Kopo, MafutaGo!, MedAfrica, Safari Yetu) to grantees (mLabs, mHubs, Mobile Monday) to partners (TOPICA, iHub)—each example from our community strengthens the CSBKE brand locally, globally, and within the World Bank.

Key facts• Top global visibility: BBC, The New York Times, The Economist, The Next Web, The Washington

Post, Al Jazeera, and more• Organically generated, stakeholder-driven coverage

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Note: To view an article about this subject, click on any area in the picture above. Each tile will take you to a different article.

International Women’s Day op-ed

On the occasion of the 101st International Women’s Day on March 8, 2012, Finnish Minister for International Development Heidi Hautala and World Bank Vice President of Financial and Private Sector Development Janamitra Devan penned a joint op-ed on current challenges and opportuni-ties for women entrepreneurs.

The piece praised CSBKE and gave a vivid portrait of results by highlighting the example of M-Farm. It showcased public-private cooperation between the government of Finland, the World Bank, and Nokia, and it positioned us for future outreach around women’s entrepreneurship. The story was also widely circulated in the World Bank’s Intranet and in internal newsletters.

Interestingly enough, meeting the op-ed release window involved negotiating with the Editor in Chief of Project Syndicate—a leading independent syndicator with 475 affiliates in over 150 countries—to go against usual practice and accept an embargoed opinion piece. We believe in the work of CSBKE, so we never give up on an opportunity to spread the word.

Key facts• Distributed through Project Syndicate• Placed in 12 high-profile international media outlets

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m2Work Challenge

With funding from the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), infoDev and Nokia joined forces in the first half of 2012 to run the m2Work Challenge, a search for ways to unlock the job-creating potential of the 5 billion mobile phones in developing countries.

Though the challenge attracted high-profile coverage, including reports by the BBC and Alhurra TV, the most significant driver of traffic—and of idea submissions—was a grassroots blitz in partnership with our network of mLabs. Fittingly, a large amount of coverage focused on the winners of the challenge, hailing them as exemplary to their regional peers.

The competition provided excellent opportunities to promote our public-private partnership (PPP) within the World Bank, such as blog posts by mobile expert Vili Lehdonvirta and m2Work runner-up Alexander Shakaryan. These helped us preach the gospel of mobile microwork from the perspective of mobile technology practitioners as well as direct beneficiaries of our program—especially as Shakaryan’s achievements multiplied in the months after the challenge closed.

Key facts• 22+ reports in local and international outlets, including the BBC• Long ripple effect: several mentions in June through October 2012

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Open Innovation Africa Summit 2

In another noteworthy instance of a PPP, Nokia and infoDev held the second OIAS in Kenya in May of 2012. We convened over 150 thought leaders from across Africa to glimpse the future of innovation in the region.

The event was a high-visibility platform for our Program Manager Valerie D’Costa, Am-bassador Sofie From-Emmesberger, and Nokia VP Jussi Hinkkanen to discuss leader-ship and innovation by Africa, for Africa.

The successful event also strengthened ties with the World Bank country office in Kenya.

Key facts• 40+ media mentions• Excellent high-touch, high-value outreach• Remarkable activity on social media

At a glance: social media outreach

• 413 tracked tweets around “open innova-tion africa summit” and #OIAS

• Total Twitter reach: 673,000

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IC4D 2012: Maximizing Mobile

The World Bank and infoDev’s flagship broadband publication, the third IC4D report—produced and promoted in close cooperation with the Bank’s ICT Sector Unit—focuses on the potential of mobile access and applications to transform whole sectors in developing nations.

With over 90 mentions in local, national, and global outlets, the buzz around IC4D reaffirmed our place at the cutting edge of ICT4D research.

What’s more, the coverage has sparked runaway interest in the publication and its findings. The report was downloaded over 2,300 times in the first 45 days after its release online on July 17, and traffic to the infoDev-hosted copy of the PDF has held steady in the following months.

Reporters and readers alike responded strongly to the finding that three-quarters of the world now has access to a mobile phone—a message that has helped amplify the communications around our broader mobile agenda.

Key facts• 90+ media reports, including in The Atlantic, Mashable, CNN, CNET, and The Washington Post• Thousands of initial downloads with sustained interest over months

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m2Work Hackathon

In a follow-up to the m2Work Challenge, we mobilized our network of mLabs and mHubs to run a 48-hour coding marathon across five sites on September 15 and 16.

In the span of just six weeks, we secured local partnerships with Microsoft, RIM, Nokia, Qualcomm, and others, and we convened over 300 participants who programmed a total of 61 mobile microwork app prototypes.

The event showcased our community’s amazing drive and notoriety, as is reflected in the substantial local coverage it attracted.

Key facts• 40+ mentions in regional press and blogs• Coverage highlighted cooperation with

the private sector

At a glance: online/social media blast

The Hackathon was a coordinated, fast-paced global event. To allow the knowledge and excitement to spread between sites, we deployed cutting-edge online and social media tools where our community traded up-to-the-minute information on the event.

• Twitter (#m2Work) - Total tweets: 893 - Unique tweeters: 209

• Facebook - Total likes: 210 - Total reach: 34,816 - Friends of fans: 65,478

• m2workhackathon.org - Visits: 5,569 - Unique visitors: 3,028 - Pageviews: 19,396 - Region with most visitors: Nepal (1,896)

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Launch of mLab East Asia

Following the m2Work Hackathon, we launched mLab East Asia, the newest addition to the mLab family, in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam on September 17.

Expanding the mLab brand into a new area involved forging new relationships on the ground. We chose to promote the event through our consortium partners; their local network and know-how allowed us to build ties with the local press, including hard-to-reach outlets with no English version and little or no online presence.

Coverage of the launch was amplified by a groundswell of interest in the m2Work Hackathon, creating a case study for similar promotional opportunities around future launches. Interestingly, the cross-promotional value seemed to flow in both directions—in spite of the other mLabs’ firmer roots with the press, the East Asia chapter of the m2Work Hackathon received the most coverage out of the five sites.

Key facts• 12+ media mentions, including various local newspapers with no online version• Boost from m2Work Hackathon

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