01.Christopher Fabian and Erica Kochi – developers of RapidSMS

Christopher Fabian and Erica Kochi are 33 year old technologists who run UNICEF’s innovation unit. An example of their innovation is the RapidSMS -  a system that uses mobile phones to improve speed and quality of data collections, health and education services.

RapidSMS came to light when Christopher and Erica decided on a system to track distribution of around 63 million insecticide-treated mosquito bed nets to stop the spread of malaria in places like Nigeria.

If we  ever wondered, how they could start this unique venture, Erica says, “Starting an innovation group and having a startup within a very large organization are probably the riskiest things we’ve ever done. There isn’t really any structure to support us. But we just thought it was a good idea so we said ‘Let’s do it.’ And thankfully, we did have support in the end.”

On the other side Fabian says, “I think the riskiest thing that I did last year was presenting a failure fair at the UN. We’re lucky to have the support of our executive director and people inside UNICEF who recognize that with every success there is a string of failures.”

“However, it’s still hard to get up in the front of cameras, in front of reporters to talk about the things that didn’t work. But talking like that and thinking like that is really important to change the way we do development.”

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