Welcome to the January 2018 edition of the DIY Update. Read on to find out about teaching people skills to solve local challenges in Tanzania, our research on how to support local innovators, two new challenge prizes, plus more news and views.

Profiling the development innovators

As part of our series looking at innovators tackling development challenges in unexpected ways, this update features Twende, a social innovation centre that is helping people to design and make their own technologies that solve community challenges in Tanzania.

Development news and blogs

1. From open innovation to new funding models, what methods can development organisations use to identify and support local innovators? We’re exploring this question with a research project in partnership with UNDP in Thailand.
2. Find out about our Challenges of Our Era Summit (happening in Milan on 6-7 March 2018), where for one of our key themes ‘Feeding the 10 billion’ we’ll be convening experts and stakeholders to discuss the challenges of global agriculture and nutrition.
3. We’re designing two new challenge prizes to transform nutrition and livelihoods in India and Bangladesh, with support from the Global Innovation Fund. Find out more about them and how to get involved.
4. We present the final module in DIY Learn, our online learning programme in innovation created with the Open University, in which we explore how to run a Creative Workshop in order to create fresh thinking around an issue.
5. How is technology changing the way that governments measure poverty? This blog outlines some thoughts on its potential to make measurement cheaper, more comprehensive and better at reflecting human experience.
6. Nesta CEO Geoff Mulgan talks about his new book Big Mind: how collective intelligence can change our world, which describes how human and machine capabilities working together can help us solve the great challenges of our time.

What’s inspiring us

Here we share a selection of thought-provoking content on innovation and development from around the world that has come across our radar recently. For the first edition of 2018, we’re focusing on ideas and trends set to shape development innovation in the year ahead:

• The Centre for Global Development has made a series of predictions about opportunities and challenges for the development world this year - read more and listen to a podcast for their take on what will make waves in 2018.
• Every month in 2018, +SocialGood will be focusing on a different emerging technology and its potential impact on global development goals. Read more in this Medium piece and follow their content here.
• In 2017, the first global Unleash hackathon was held to develop scalable solutions to the challenges set out in the SDGs. Learn more about their approach and the solutions they are testing, and get involved in this year’s edition in Singapore.
• Open data has become pivotal in mapping and responding to humanitarian disasters. This Devex article gives a comprehensive overview of the technologies and the collaborations (both between humans and between humans and machines) that have the potential to make a difference in this area going forward.

Connecting with us

For updates on the DIY Toolkit, innovation and development, follow us on Twitter @DIYToolkit. More resources on Nesta’s work can be found on our website, Twitter and Facebook.

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