The World Bank is supporting disruptive innovation through a project in Indonesia that looks to uncover the "real" needs of rural communities regarding clean energy to look for innovative approaches to address these challenges, rather than offering existing technical solutions.
9 March 2012: A World Bank project in Indonesia seeks “disruptive innovation” to address the clean energy needs of rural communities.
The Indonesia Green Innovation Pilot Program tries to uncover the clean energy needs of rural communities by understanding their underlying energy-related problems rather than simply asking them what technologies they want. Through the INOTEK Foundation, the project will launch of a 2-year pilot program to support innovative clean energy design and technology in Indonesia. The first stage of the program will will hold consultative workshops and needs assessment surveys to identify energy problems in rural communities and discover their fundamental needs. There is also a “call for challenges,” asking users to collect problems linked to energy in rural Indonesian communities via an online portal. The next stages will use the project findings to identify market solutions to these challenges, looking for disruptive innovation that addresses the “real” needs of rural communities. [World Bank Blog Story]