What is Accelerate Impact?
Accelerate Impact is a new, global initiative from the Aga Khan Foundation which stimulates the co-creation of innovative solutions with communities to increase our collective impact.
Research has shown that the best ideas arise from diverse teams with both lived experience and a variety of expertise. Multidisciplinary teams with diverse backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives tend to be more successful in accelerating innovation.
But what is social innovation? What is it all about? Social innovation is about improving value for the people we serve -- it’s about creating solutions that have the potential to deliver greater impact, more cost effectively, sustainably, and at scale.
Through partnerships with communities, civil society, businesses, and government, Accelerate Impact will not only promote the design and co-creation of new solutions but also help scale and replicate those solutions that have the most potential to be impactful and sustainable over the long-term.
Ultimately, the goal of Accelerate Impact is to bring meaningful and lasting improvements to the quality of life of the communities AKF serves.
Accelerate Impact focuses on
Design
Strengthening collaboration between diverse stakeholders, and spurring new ways of solving problems using design as a strategy for stimulating the development, experimentation and testing of innovative solutions and programmes.
Capacity
Equipping teams with the mindset and skills on how to design innovative programmes using approaches like Human-Centred Design, co-creation and systems thinking. Empowering staff from all organisational levels to become more innovative, creative, adaptive and entrepreneurial.
Ecosystem
Fostering an enabling ecosystem and a community of practice where innovation is open and accessible to everyone. Providing opportunities for talented, creative people from across the organisation to have the necessary resources to take smart risks and apply their knowledge to test new ideas.
Partnership
Building partnerships with the private sector, foundations, implementig organisations and non-traditional actors to bring and leverage new ideas, expertise, technology and funding.
Learning
Promoting a culture of continuous learning through cultivating user insights to better implement, share, and expand on knowledge.
Evidence and Scale
Using evidence to identify the most promising solutions and provide additional support to innovations that prove their impact, cost-effectiveness, and potential to scale.
