Ideo has started a non profit connected to the Gates Foundation amongst many other NGO’s. Designers both in-house and beyond can apply to participate.
Founded in 2011, IDEO.org has been busy creating change where change is desperately needed. Take a look at some of our recent projects and get as excited as we are about designing solutions for social impact around the world.
https://www.ideo.org/projects/history
1>>>
The Ripple Effect project: Innovations solutions to improve access to safe drinking water.
Social innovation seeks to create transformational change in under-served, underrepresented, and disadvantaged communities worldwide. At IDEO, we use design thinking to address issues such as poverty, nutrition, health, water and sanitation, economic empowerment, access to financial services, and gender equity.
Our projects involve clients in both the private and public sectors. To help them develop effective solutions, we create not only products and services, but also the entire system that supports them. This often means spending considerable time in the field, living and working with the people we’re striving to assist. We routinely partner with local leaders (who act as our trusted advisers) to ensure that all concepts and solutions are practical, culturally appropriate, scalable, and sustainable.
This means that before introducing anything new, we figure out what really matters to the target population—and what will motivate them to accept and adopt our solution.
2>>>
IDEO.org worked with the Bezos Family Foundation to design a campaign about the importance of early learning and engaged parenting, with a focus on supporting families in low income communities.
https://www.ideo.org/projects/early-learning-with-the-bezos-family-foundation/completed
“We’re trying to turn everyday interactions into opportunities for brain development. Shopping at the grocery store can be like a visit to a museum and singing can be the new reading. It all helps promote brain development.” Robin Bigio Ideo Fello
The latest brain research shows that the more parents engage with their children during the first five years of life, the more prepared they are to learn once they get to kindergarten. Many of the children showing up for kindergarten who are unprepared to learn live in low-income families. By providing tools, information and assistance that parents need to be their children’s first teachers, we can help low-income parents build their children’s brains, and create a future of more and better opportunities.
3>>>
Frameworks for improved nutrition
http://www.ideo.com/work/frameworks-for-improved-nutrition/
Obesity in the U.S. has reached record-breaking levels, especially among children and teens. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), an estimated 17% of children and adolescents aged 2-19 are overweight. Resulting from an imbalance in the number of calories consumed and those expended, this epidemic involves genetic, behavioral, and environmental factors that could lead to serious health problems later in life.
The CDC, a sentinel for global health and wellness, strives to provide people with reliable health information and the benefits of strong public and private partnerships. Recognizing the growing obesity epidemic, the CDC and the Academy for Educational Development engaged IDEO to conduct a workshop relating to research done around lower-income women and exercise. The brief workshop led the CDC and IDEO to another congressionally mandated project for social impact—looking at fruit and vegetable consumption among tweens.
Currently undergoing this sixteen-week project, IDEO and the CDC are examining ways to change the habits of an entire generation of tweens—a group far more likely to change attitudes and behaviors about health before they become life-long issues. To date, IDEO has begun observations with a number of stakeholders and change agents, including nutrition experts, participants at the Edible Schoolyard, and children and staff members at 826 Valencia, a non-profit organization working at the forefront of examining new models of tutoring and tween behaviors. While still in the early phases of development, and with final deliverables still undefined, the team is looking at communication, product, or service design possibilities to promote wide-scale change and prevention in the battle against youth obesity, and the promotion of fruit and vegetable consumption.