Gavi's advice for engaging Silicon valley on global health

SAN FRANCISCO — A select group of technologists, investors, academics, and others recently received an invitation to a roundtable discussion and networking lunch with Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. The invitation to the lunch in Menlo Park, California, read like a playbook for how to engage Silicon Valley in global health and international development. Berkley opened with scale, offered to make global connections, and sought partnership, rather than just funding. “If we are to succeed we will need your help,” wrote Berkley. “As technology leaders, investors, and entrepreneurs, we believe that the solutions to many of these challenges are in many ways aligned with your own goals and are therefore asking for you input.” Devex caught up with Berkley in San Francisco to discuss his tips for engaging with Silicon Valley. “The Gavi model is special,” Berkley told Devex. “We purchase vaccines for 60 percent of the world’s kids and we work with those countries to try to build systems to deliver those vaccines.” The work by necessity is equitable, quantifiable, and scalable, he said, and those terms resonate here in Silicon Valley. “The big thing here is being able to go to scale,” he said. “It’s about trying to use technology to change the paradigm, and that’s what we’re trying to do.” With its Silicon Valley engagement, Gavi is avoiding common mistakes, such as filling a trip with meetings that may not result in real outcomes. Gavi is building on best practices, including defining global health challenges as market opportunities. The idea is to get a buzz going, said Berkley, whose staff made a few trips to the Bay Area ahead of his visit last week to meet with stakeholders and make sure Gavi saw a return on investment. Berkley’s email defined what Gavi does in Silicon Valley speak. He started with scale, introducing himself as CEO of a public and private joint venture that “has mobilized more than $20 billion since 2000, immunizing 640 million of the poorest children against deadly infectious diseases and preventing 9 million deaths.” His letter includes not only asks, but also provides offers, such as the connections Gavi can offer to the World Health Organization, the United Nations Children's Fund, and the World Bank, as well as the pharmaceutical industry and 100 governments. And the invitation conveyed a sense of both urgency and opportunity, connecting Gavi’s work to the Sustainable Development Goals, which is a better framing for development in Silicon Valley, where the word “development” is often confused with software or fundraising. The success of the SDGs, he wrote, “will help unlock an estimated $12 trillion of untapped potential in low-income countries, in the form of new markets.” In his interview with Devex, Berkley brought up some of Gavi’s existing partnerships to point to what is possible. Because the organization purchases vaccines for 60 percent of the world’s children, the organization knows how to craft partnerships for vaccine delivery. This puts Gavi in a unique position to partner with startup technology companies looking to connect with governments or corporations to take their solutions to scale. One example is the partnership between Gavi and Zipline, a drone company based in Half Moon Bay, California. Zipline was part of the first national drone corridor in Rwanda and is not expanding to Tanzania. “We have experience in the past with technology companies where they could go to scale in some of our countries to make a difference and show the value of their technology, which is much harder to do in a highly regulated environment where it’s much harder to make something happen at scale,” he told Devex. It won’t always be easy; while it makes sense that startups such as Zipline may want to partner with Gavi, other participants from the lunch told Devex it might be harder for Gavi to form partnerships with Silicon Valley technology giants. Many such companies see global health partnerships as corporate social responsibility, rather than core to business. Moving forward, the Gavi team is working to identify technologies they believe can make a difference in their work — not new ideas that need to be prototyped, but rather innovations that have been piloted, have shown promise, and now need to be taken to scale, Berkley said. Devex delivers cutting-edge insights and analysis to the leaders shaping and innovating the business of development. Make sure you don't miss out. Become a Devex Executive Member today.