Innovation

Pact is always looking to the future. The work we do today shapes the world of tomorrow, and we believe that innovation is critical to amplifying the impact of traditional development programs. We define innovation as the intentional application of creativity, human-centered design and local and external knowledge to improve our programs and processes to catalyze transformative ideas that accelerate results.

Innovation at Pact uses a three-pronged approach: We build enabling environments for innovation to bubble from Pact's country offices. We create external relationships with new partners to co-create new solutions. And we use empathetic, participatory techniques such as human-centered design to bring communities and end-users to co-created solutions in a transformative way.

WHAT WE DO

Innovation Capacity Development — Pact works with groups and organizations positioned to strengthen their adaptive capacity through providing innovation trainings that unlock new possibilities for the organization and create enabling environments for innovation to thrive.

Innovation Incubation and Acceleration — Pact believes that the best solutions are locally created and owned. In order to scale the impact of these solutions and ensure sustainability, Pact uses a six-month incubation framework to support local entrepreneurs during startup. This includes structured innovation capacity development in the form of customized learning labs, connections to mentor-experts, fundraising, administrative guidance and market linkages to access investment capital.

Innovation Facilitation — Pact specializes in managing virtual innovation events such as innovation challenges, design thinking bootcamps and hackathons. These timebound, high-impact events are designed to accelerate the ideation and prototyping process, resulting in greater collaboration, quicker decision making and de-risked investment.

Open Innovation — Utilizing a powerful yet intuitive online platform, Pact can break through silos and collaborate with stakeholders around the world in order to bolster efforts and efficiently, effectively strengthen proposal design and project work.

Innovative Technology Integration — Using digital development principles, Pact practices user-centered, empathic and ethical design in prototyping and testing new technologies.