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TEDx Talks
Published: 2015-12-16
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W51BsasAx8I
WNED good morning and thank you for being here especially those that have traveled some distance to make me feel a little less nervous in a way my talk today is about resisting temptation because it is so alluring and so tempting to have a great idea and to want to launch a pride check to help people you don't even know halfway around the world I know I
did it I spent a decade working on local development projects in Fiji with an incredible group of scientists and local partners we had the world's greatest idea for sustainable development in the coastal villages along with excellent funding coverage in important magazines and we sold the product cultured live rock to the Georgia aquarium we were on fire we're gonna start some serious ripples our great idea our
great project our giant failure I was perplexed but soon discovered I was not alone new global development projects started with the noblest of intentions from small NGOs to Peace Corps projects the high profile ventures often disappoint in the long run one laptop per child is the iconic can't miss great idea it was going to revel I grew pollution eyes education and raise test scores FHWA hundreds
of millions of dollars and zero measurable benefit when great ideas meet the chaos in complexity on the ground the results are often ruinous you see new global development projects are almost always practice like venture capital there is a great idea in through the eyes on a project donors and a launch whether soccer NGO in Latin America or the hundred and twenty million dollar millennium village project
in Africa these are all high risk startups and even high promise start ups in the United States those with venture capital funding of more than one million dollars fell more than seventy five percent of the time why on earth would we think the new global development startups in other languages and cultures in institutions would fare any better and these failures matter more than those in the
Silicon Valley if SpaceX or Segway or Napster collapse ma'am founders investors move on to other projects those of Belfast and often are even praise and start up failure can be a badge of honor in the global south in contrast abandoned or zombie toll Lapua farms or play pumps or sports clubs leave behind donor fatigue distrust her feelings and litters the environment with the carcasses of failed
projects a banker friend convinced me that there is a better way the community bank model they can have success rates as high as ninety nine percent how does a community bank model increase accessories from twenty five percent to ninety nine percent first instead of investing time and money in startups provide expansion capital to existing successful organization and second instead of investing in the next great idea
invest in long term relationships with effective local leaders it was an epiphany rather than trying to start up our own ripples we should be looking for existing ripples and help amplify those ripples in two ways this shift would dramatically increase the efficiency of the billions of dollars donated to international development and charities each year my friend was so confident about this model I seized the opportunity
and as a good academic urged him to fund a long term experiment on process innovation he'd very generously accepted and our experiment was born what our experiment does is really very simple identify invest and inspire identify appropriate organizations to partner with invest in those organizations just give them money to expand their good work and inspire their community and the world about their motivational work through powerful
documentary film we decided to focus on a niche and we chose performance oriented organizations for you we believe that high level performance provides a ladder of inspiration teamwork identity dreams and career opportunities this includes a range of activities in sports the arts and more what our experiment really does is inverts and twist the traditional model in the traditional practice of global development projects the idea the
leader the innovation a senior partner the super hero is from the global north and the junior partner or sidekick is in the global south we invert that model by identifying the ideas innovation leadership the super heroes within the marginalized communities of the global south and we are always the support partner or the side kick to them a traditional model is based on the start up of
great ideas we had a twisted out model by providing expansion money to existing organizations with a long record of success and we have an extensive face to face vetting process no startups we were curious about how many of these organizations actually exist dynamic leaders and organizations using high level performance to transform you and for more than a decade what if there weren't any it be the
end of my experiment the quickest experiment might experiment minda my career we were thrilled with what we found stead of searching across the globe we initially focused only in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro except for realizations for youth are critical importance in the favelas due to violence and inequality life is challenging there to give you an idea of the difficulties of life in the favelas
and the need for transformative organizations Amnesty International reports that from two thousand and five to two thousand fourteen on duty police officers killed five thousand one hundred and thirty two people in the city of Rio de Janeiro largely young people in the favelas in this difficult environment we were thrilled to encounter organization after organization that fit our criteria and that now are our partners these partner
organizations demonstrate the potency of inverting and twisting the model first the inversion I do use innovation in leadership must be organic and local so rusty now and his great friend Rameau's had a dream building a world class badminton training facility in the humble favela of shit cremia badminton in soccer mad Brazil from two guys who had never played badminton this is a mine you mentally crazy
idea starting with a single juror court seventeen years ago so I shall and Rommel's had day by day and brick by brick constructed in impressive facility with four indoor badminton courts a library a computer center a cafeteria and a dormitory kids loved badminton but there is a huge dilemma the athletes from the favela we get crushed the tournaments by the elite teams some ASEAN knew that
if the kids are going to continue to work four to five hours each day they had to compete have fun and win outside experts arrived train the kids for success training regimen that included lots of jumping rope and calisthenics so I asked you out instinctively knew that this would bore the kids and he would lose them and he nixed the outside experts which left his dilemma
how would Sebastiano in Rameau's who never played badminton train the kids for success for their dreams the answer samba dancing you now know that I am a poor samba dancer but so where the kids and shit cremia it is a myth that all the kids in Brazil can somebody acts the incredible dynamic local process innovation samba badminton in three phases phase one a five step process
of samba dancing to get the kids in incredible shape and with lightning quick footwork face to begin to use the racket integrating the movement of the racket with the movement of samba dancing and phase three begin to play badminton eventually dazzling lightning quick badminton so what was the result of this somber badminton process innovation in the favela should cremia the most recent national badminton amid in
Brazil took place in because she has to school in September of this year twenty eight min artists athletes travel nearly forty hours by bus and slept on the floor of a rented two room house one shower they were at a competitive disadvantage to the other two hundred and five athletes but they had the advantage of the quickest feats the kids from the favela train through samba
dancing dominated winning twelve gold medals nine silver and nine Bronx athletes from the doctors no trouble Brazil and the globe playing badminton at the highest level even winning medals in the Pan American Games because they ignored the outside experts and relied on local leaders and local innovation local leaders in innovation our fragile flames the communities of former colonies if an American shows up with our big
idea and are swagger and our exceptionalism we stock up all the oxygen and smother local leaders we need to oxygen a local leaders and nourish their flames of innovation and now the twist by working with established successful organizations one can accomplish so much for so little and so quickly and with such a high success rate it is so much better than a startup me not to
send their best players to tournaments around Brazil and around the world in a favela where many have never left Rio de Janeiro it is life changing to travel to a distant tournament in Mexico or Brasilia or southern Brazil to expand the benefits of this transformative experience we provide resources to take younger kids determined and sponsor some of the older kids who are not the top players
Liu Huan is an amazing samba dancer and a very good badminton player but not in the top echelon we sponsor Lou want to %HESITATION turn into little Brazil and he killed it winning a bronze medal and earning a significant monthly badminton stipend from the Brazilian government his life is being changed for very very little now what is the story of Sebastian now and the doctors and
the kids make it inspirational documentary film right identify invest inspire are award winning director Katia loon is finishing with her team that won our powerful documentary film this week and we're super excited thank you this story of Sabah's German doctors is replicated throughout the favelas of Rio and throughout the world any any of these partners stories could of been share today junior my niece yes and
the social and professional circus very Chris share GM idea a youthful ninety four and the jungle music with dance of say Kenya Luiz in the training of audio visual visual professionals in cinema no so Eliana Miren so many with university entrance exams and dance in red is a Monday and Gucci Fraga who has been transforming the favela a beagle for twenty eight years through music dance
and theater training these heroes and organizations have started E. sensual ripples and sustain them for more than a decade through sweat and tears and hugs an incredible innovation and against long odds so what can you do when you travel with your friends university club church or family do not think that you love the people of Guatemala or Gondia and you're gonna start up a new in
G. O. to transform you resist the urge instead ask people to introduce you to locals core doing incredible things for their community a port down small organizations unexpectedly receiving even modest amounts of money find this staining and miraculous we need to leave aside our desires a start up our big idea abroad our quest to enhance our resumes by starting a new international project and our assumptions
