Anti-poverty innovations can make real progress on sustainable global development when they transition from startup to scaleup. But scaling is easier said than done, particularly when it comes to technology transfer from universities to end users.
“Academics are notoriously bad at spinning out ideas from the ivory tower into the real world,” Temina Madon, executive director of the Center for Effective Global Action, told Devex at “The Science of Scaling.” Scaling was the theme of the 2016 State of the Science conference hosted by Development Impact Lab, which is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development and headquartered at the University of California, Berkeley. “At the same time a lot of academics are trying to build institutions for spin out and scale up. USAID and other donors are constantly talking with us about scaling scaling scaling without a sense of the barriers and constraints we face. So we wanted to start unpacking what the pressure to scale means for us.”
On Monday, researchers, investors, technologists and practitioners gathered at UC Berkeley to answer big questions, including: “Why do some products and interventions scale quicker than others?” Here are some of the top takeaways.
About the author
Catherine Cheneycatherinecheney
Catherine Cheney is the Senior Editor for Special Coverage at Devex. She leads the editorial vision of Devex’s news events and editorial coverage of key moments on the global development calendar. Catherine joined Devex as a reporter, focusing on technology and innovation in making progress on the Sustainable Development Goals. Prior to joining Devex, Catherine earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Yale University, and worked as a web producer for POLITICO, a reporter for World Politics Review, and special projects editor at NationSwell. She has reported domestically and internationally for outlets including The Atlantic and the Washington Post. Catherine also works for the Solutions Journalism Network, a non profit organization that supports journalists and news organizations to report on responses to problems.
