Innovation Stories
Three Interviews
The potential for innovation exists in every industry. And it is driven by people who can visualize doing something in a new and more effective way – which often runs counter to the way things typically have been done in their fields. To capture a glimpse of what drives innovative people in various industries and of how they communicate their ideas, Perspectives turned to recognized innovators in three fields: healthcare, design and education. We posed three questions to each of them.
Here are brief descriptions of what earned each person a reputation as an innovator, along with their responses to our questions.
Ruth C. Browne, MPP, MPH, ScD
Innovator in Urban Healthcare
New York, N.Y.
Ruth C. Browne is CEO of the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health, a nonprofit health education organization founded by the late tennis legend Arthur Ashe. Since 1992, Dr. Browne has led the organization to develop programs that provide healthcare information to underserved urban communities by partnering with such unlikely venues as hair salons, barbershops, Laundromats, and tattoo parlors and body piercing salons. She has received grants from the National Institutes of Health to train hairstylists and barbers to talk to their clients about breast, prostate and cardiovascular health. She also is an associate professor in the College of Health Related Professions and the College of Medicine’s Departments of Medicine and Preventive Medicine at SUNY Downstate Medical Center.
Perspectives: What do you think has been your most innovative contribution to your industry, and how did the idea originate?
Browne: I believe innovation is about raising the level of discussion and thinking about healthcare from a multidisciplinary approach. The Arthur Ashe Institute was founded on the idea of addressing healthcare from a grassroots perspective; that is what Arthur Ashe wanted. So, our innovation has been in trying to take advantage of community assets, such as hair salons, tattoo and body piercing artists and Laundromats, to deliver healthcare information. Since 1996, we have worked with more than 250 hair salons and barbershops in Brooklyn to train stylists to help educate their clients on health issues such as diabetes, asthma, smoking, cancer and nutrition. We also have done pilot programs in tattoo shops and Laundromats. While the traditional model of asking people to come to a health fair has not worked, through these programs, we have been able to reach large numbers of people in a short period of time.
Our effort in working with nontraditional venues comes from a belief that if we can engage people who are in the community, they are going to be there even when we aren’t. It also came from looking at earlier health education efforts in nontraditional places, including salons that targeted African-Americans. Part of our innovation has been to take it beyond a few places and to saturate multiple community venues with health information and to keep the efforts going for longer than a decade.
Perspectives: How did you communicate that idea to others and, especially, to the business world?
Browne: The Arthur Ashe name helps. If we’re talking to anyone over the age of 30, they probably know who he is, so they’re interested. It definitely helps when we approach health institutions about partnerships. As for communicating the idea to stylists and barbers, we started by mapping the community to see what assets (i.e., salons and other locations) existed, then we approached them.
Communicating the idea to the people we were asking to deliver health information was not always easy. For tattoo salons, specifically, we had to get over their thinking we wanted to come there to talk about unsanitary conditions. Once they understood why we were really there, they soon realized that it could help their business. The fact that we were there talking about health topics implied that getting a tattoo at their salons was safe.
Today, we also communicate the idea through videos of other salon owners and stylists talking about their experiences and through articles that share other examples of how the program works.
Perspectives: In your experience, what have been the most important elements for generating creativity and innovation?
Browne: A major element has been constantly having a new infusion of people who have been impacted. As I mentioned earlier, innovation is about raising the level of discussion, improving interventions and taking a multidisciplinary approach. That brings us new ideas from different perspectives. For instance, the hairstylists we have worked with have offered their own ideas for recruiting their peers to the program. We were able to recruit famed African-American stylist John Atchison to work with us early on, and he came up with the idea to give away spots in his haircutting classes, valued at $800, as an incentive for stylists to join the effort. That quickly brought in dozens of stylists to go through the training to be able to talk to their clients about proactively managing their health.
Larry Chen
Designer of an Award-Winning Solar-Powered Electric Bicycle
Taichung, Taiwan
Larry Chen loves airplanes and is an aeronautical engineer by training, but he is noted for his bicycle designs. Chen designed a solar-powered electric bike that was awarded the top prize in 2008 in the 12th annual International Bicycle Design Competition. His design, aimed at people who bike to work, uses a solar chip that provides 25 minutes of ride time and recharges the battery during an eight-hour work day. This year, Chen took second prize in the same competition for his “Anytime” folding bike design, which features a removable power pack. Chen is manager of T-One Design, a small Taiwanese company that designs bicycle accessories. Earlier this year, Fast Company magazine named him to its list of the “100 Most Creative People in Business.”
Perspectives: What do you think has been your most innovative contribution to business, and how did the idea originate?
Chen: My most innovative contribution so far is my design of “Sunny Day,” which was awarded the grand prize at the 12th International Bicycle Design Competition (IBDC). This competition is all about innovative design concepts. My concept leads a new way of using free energy for commuting transportation while we are facing the energy crisis.
Using solar energy to power a bicycle is not a new idea, but my idea is to use solar energy to charge the battery while the bike is not being used. This is perfect for commuters since they only use their bikes 10-20 minutes a day and leave the vehicle for eight hours. This idea was from the mobility expert who proclaimed the new concept of electric vehicle -- a small battery just enough for daily use, which the user has to charge every day by plug, with the weight reduced and the energy saved. Whenever people see this bike, their first reaction is to doubt the capacity of the solar panel because, so far, people still have the old way of thinking that a vehicle needs to be ready for use all the time. But they forgot that most of the time, you are not using it. This concept really woke me up and changed my thinking. Some solar panel makers in Taiwan have started to work with bicycle makers on this design, and I hope we can see it on the market in the near future.
Perspectives: How did you communicate that idea to others, especially to the business world?
Chen: There are many ways to communicate the idea to others in the present age, but the most effective way has been through the competition. The IBDC was held by the Cycling and Health Tech Industry R&D Center and sponsored by the Department of Industrial Technology, Ministry of Economic Affairs, Republic of China (Taiwan). This is a worldwide design competition. It attracted 9,652 designers from 86 countries in 13 consecutive years, so it is well known in the bicycle business. I‘ve attended this competition since 2000, and I failed six times before I got the grand prize in 2008. Once I got the award, it was easy to communicate the idea. I’m using the power of online media to communicate my idea, but I don’t have my own personal blog or use Twitter – I don’t have time for that. Because the idea was certified by the competition, there are many commentaries on Web sites or blogs by people who follow the bicycle design industry.
Perspectives: In your experience, what have been the most important elements for generating creativity and innovation?
Chen: I would like to say dissatisfaction with reality. I’m not a person who is easily satisfied. I’m the one who always complains – this is my nature. I’m a negative person, but I know how to use this negative power. Dissatisfaction is a huge power that drives me to think about the solution, and I believe there is always a better solution. I also believe that dissatisfaction is the most important element of evolution in human history.
Shai Reshef
Education Entrepreneur
Israel
Shai Reshef is an entrepreneur with 20 years of experience in the international education market. His latest venture is the University of the People (UoPeople; UoPeople.org), the world’s first tuition-free online academic institution, which opened its virtual doors in April 2009. Reshef is founder and CEO of UoPeople. He also is currently chairman of Cramster.com, an online global study community helping hundreds of thousands of students with their homework. And he previously founded and served as chairman of the Kidum Group, the largest for-profit educational services company in Israel, which he sold to Kaplan in 2005. Between 2001 and 2004, Reshef chaired KIT eLearning, a subsidiary of Kidum, the e-learning partner of the University of Liverpool and the first online university outside of the U.S. Reshef also made Fast Company’s 2009 list of the “100 Most Creative People.”
Perspectives: What do you think has been your most innovative contribution to business, and how did the idea originate?
Reshef: University of the People has been my most innovative contribution. The need for improved and accessible education is an issue that unites countries, cities and states around the globe, and I believe that UoPeople has the potential to fill the jarring gap between the haves and the have-nots.
My idea for University of the People stemmed from over 20 years in for-profit education, as well as extensive international travel. As the founder of KIT, I realized that the tools for providing accessible higher education were out there, but the price was too high. Then I began working at Cramster.com and discovered the strength of online study communities. Witnessing first-hand the power of technology to advance education, I knew there was the potential to adapt these principles to create a high-quality, low-cost and global pedagogical model – so I did.
Perspectives: How did you communicate that idea to others, especially to the business world?
Reshef: When I established UoPeople in January this year, there were only a handful of people who knew about the initiative. Since then, however, UoPeople has gained worldwide support from prospective students, the media, organizations and individuals alike. The United Nations’ Global Alliance for Information and Communication Technologies and Development has been a huge champion of this initiative since the beginning, along with our world-renowned Advisory Committee and dedicated staff members, who work tirelessly to make democratized education a reality. I am also proud to report that our first class of students, who began in September, is composed of hundreds of young, enthusiastic minds from dozens of countries.
While I am thrilled with the response to date, spreading the word about University of the People was not an easy task and the job is far from complete. UoPeople is designed for individuals in the poorest and most remote places on earth – those who are the hardest to reach. Bringing UoPeople to these populations requires extensive outreach via the media, on-the-ground organizations and local advocates.
Perspectives: In your experience, what have been the most important elements for generating creativity and innovation?
Reshef: Creativity and innovation are often associated with the new, but I believe that these qualities can stem from the adaptation of tried and true techniques, principles and tools. UoPeople is a clear example. By applying the principles of social networking – an incredibly widespread and successful practice – to academia, we have in turn created an entirely new learning model that reaches an entirely new sect of people.
