Prototyping Kolba

Summary .............................................................................................................. 2

Introduction ......................................................................................................... 3

Phase one: Imagine ............................................................................................... 4 Resources ............................................................................................................................................................. 5 Recommendations ............................................................................................................................................ 5

Phase two: Assess ................................................................................................. 5 Resources ............................................................................................................................................................. 6 Recommendations ............................................................................................................................................ 6

Phase three: Prototype ......................................................................................... 7 Resources ............................................................................................................................................................. 8 Recommendations ............................................................................................................................................ 8

Phase four: Iterate ................................................................................................ 8 Resources ............................................................................................................................................................. 9 Recommendations ............................................................................................................................................ 9

Phase five: Network ............................................................................................ 10 Resources .......................................................................................................................................................... 10 Recommendations ......................................................................................................................................... 10

Design Labs within UNDP/UNICEF ....................................................................... 11 Resources .......................................................................................................................................................... 11 Recommendations ......................................................................................................................................... 11 Final thoughts ................................................................................................................................................. 12

August 2014

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Summary Kolba is a social venture incubator and a design lab based in Armenia, which was

established by UNDP and UNICEF in 2013. This report looks back at Kolba’s first

incubation cycle, between June 2013 and June 2014. It draws lessons from the

experience and delivers recommendations for Kolba’s work in the future.

The report also acts as a resource for any country office considering, or in the

process of, launching a lab. Thus, it contains advice on different elements of

running a lab, as well as English translations of Kolba’s communications content

and training materials.

Key findings and recommendations:

Kolba’s website was static, acting only as a space for information on logistics

and as an applications portal. Thus, Kolba’s Facebook page became the Lab’s

community space. The creation of a dynamic community space, as part of

Kolba’s website, might enable greater collaboration among the applicants.

Kolba engaged a team of mentors from business and academia to support the

ventures incubated during 2013 and early 2014. In future it will be

important for Kolba to share more information on the role of judges and

mentors when approaching senior business and civil society leaders. The

lack of information on the nature of the voluntary commitment may be why

some of the mentors did not engage with the venture teams for the duration

of the incubation cycle.

As part of its incubation cycle, Kolba hosted events to prototype the best

ideas submitted under the call for applications. Many of the teams focussed

on the pitches at the close of the event rather than prototyping and testing

their ideas. The Kolba team should consider dropping the mass prototyping

event from its incubation cycle and replacing it with a one or two day

workshop applying human-centred design with each team.

The four ventures which graduated from Kolba in 2013 are quietly disruptive

in their own way, but unlikely to create positive change at scale. In future

Kolba should focus its incubation cycles on specific development issues with

a view to incubating disruptive ideas. The organisational form capable of

scaling the idea should be a secondary concern.

Kolba was a useful interface with networks of active citizens. In order to

enhance UNDP and UNICEF in Armenia’s ability to connect and co-create with

these networks Kolba should consider establishing a physical co-working

space.

Alongside its efforts to promote design literacy and other skills within the UN

in Armenia, Kolba should scale-up its work involving citizens in the re-design

of public services. Kolba may also benefit UNDP and UNICEF in Armenia by

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exploring the application of behavioural science and big data to

programming.

Kolba provided UNDP and UNICEF in Armenia with an education on how to work

with start-ups and social activists, as well as how to design projects with citizens

rather than for beneficiaries. Creating a permanent interface that enables

development agencies to work with these “unusual suspects” will be central to

the future relevance of the sector in Armenia. Kolba could be this interface.

Introduction In 2013, UNDP and UNICEF combined forces to create a social venture incubator

and design lab in Armenia. Thus Kolba was established as an incubator for

ventures which were conceived, designed and led by youth. It was also

envisaged as a space where an array of stakeholders from the public, private and

social sectors could find alternative ways of generating and sustaining public

goods.

The overall vision for the initiative was to incubate home grown solutions that

tackled Armenia’s most pressing societal challenges. By providing participants

with support tailored to the needs of their social venture, Kolba hoped to create a

pipeline of high quality social initiatives and enhance the national ecosystem for

social entrepreneurship. The ventures were to be fed either into public services

directly, as more effective and efficient solutions, or to social and commercial

capital providers downstream, to help reach scale and sustainability.

Kolba based its incubation process on the insights UNDP Armenia had generated

by hosting social innovation camps over the past three years, as well as on the

work of UNICEF’s labs across the world. Kolba’s incubation process included the

following phases:

Outreach online and through workshops in communities;

Screening and selection of the best ideas submitted in response to the call for

applications;

Rapid prototyping of the best ideas with the venture teams;

Mentoring and further development of the ventures;

Networking the best ventures accompanied by grant investments.

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Kolba was not a passive grant fund; it was an active grant-investor. It worked

closely with the social ventures it incubated, providing practical, non-financial

support, leveraging UNDP and UNICEF’s other assets and capabilities for the

good of the venture.

This report looks back at Kolba’s first incubation cycle between June 2013 and

June 2014. It draws lessons from the experience and delivers recommendations

for Kolba’s work in the future.1 It examines the strengths and weaknesses of

each part of Kolba’s incubation cycle and offers conclusions on the relevance of

embedding a design lab/social venture incubator within UNDP and UNICEF

country offices.

Phase one: Imagine Kolba engaged in both online and face-to-face outreach looking for budding

young entrepreneurs who were interested in solving social problems. In order

to apply, the applicants were required to describe the problem they hoped to

solve, describe how their venture will address the problem and define what

resources they could mobilise within their community to contribute to their

venture.

The online outreach was conducted through the Lab’s website2, blog and social

media accounts (Facebook, Twitter and Odnoklassniki). Kolba’s website hosted

an average of 70 sessions per day in the six weeks running up to the applications

deadline. Concerning website traffic, 42 percent was direct traffic, 39 percent

was referred from Kolba’s Facebook account (160 page visits per day during the

same timeframe) and the remainder was driven by a mix of web searches,

Kolba’s blog, Kolba’s other social media accounts and articles/blogs on other

platforms.

Face-to-face outreach took place through a series of workshops. The team

targeted 38 marginalised communities outside of Yerevan, involving over 300

youth, two-thirds of which were female. The workshops were advertised on

Kolba’s website, as well as through UNDP and UNICEF’s network of partner

NGOs. The workshops were highly interactive (see the resources section, below,

for more details).

By the deadline on 31st August 2013, Kolba received 144 applications, over 70

percent of which were from youth based in communities outside of the capital,

Yerevan.

1 The recommendations for the future of Kolba, contained within this report, are heavily influenced by Toshi Nakamura (founder of Kopernik), Weston Headley (a strategy consultant on start-ups advising top Silicon Valley companies) and Giulio Quaggiotto (then head of RBEC’s Knowledge and Innovation Practice) who fielded a mission to Armenia in October 2013. 2 This link is to the former design of the website (which has since been re-developed).

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Resources Advice on social media campaigns;

English translations of content from Kolba’s blog, including:

o About us section;

o Participation criteria;

o Kolba’s areas of interest;

o Inspiring examples;

Slides and instructions (see notes in PPT) on facilitating outreach workshops.

Recommendations Previous outreach efforts, connected to two Social Innovation Camps hosted by

UNDP Armenia in 2011 and 2012, generated 66 and 75 applications respectively.

Thus Kolba’s 144 applications is a good return on its outreach efforts.

Nevertheless, additional efforts could have been made to engage apathetic youth

in the initiative.

Anecdotal evidence from the team’s trips to rural communities highlights the

challenge of engaging young men in Kolba’s activities. This is reflected in the

gender imbalance among workshop participants. Additional advertising of the

workshops through posters in the community, or through pre-workshop

community visits by the team could yield higher levels of participation. In

addition, positioning the Kolba team on radio and TV talk shows targeting youth

could contribute to increasing participation in the incubator.

Kolba’s website data suggests that both the Facebook account and the outreach

workshops were successful in directing visits to the platform. The team did not

invest time in Kolba’s Odnoklassniki account, which should receive grater

attention in future due to the social network’s penetration within Armenia. The

time investment in Twitter did not yield substantial website hits, but it is useful

for promoting Kolba among networks external to Armenia and for learning of

new initiatives/innovations in fields of interest.

Kolba’s Facebook page became the Lab’s community space, in part due to the fact

that the website acted as a space for information sharing and applications alone.

In future, a dynamic community space, as part of Kolba’s website, might enable

greater collaboration among the applicants and offer more opportunities for

stakeholders to stay engaged in the work of the Lab outside of its incubation

cycles. Such a change to Kolba’s website would also enable data analysis of the

connections within the community and help the Kolba team to better understand

how to serve its stakeholders.

Phase two: Assess In order to bring as many skillsets and perspectives to bear on the applications,

Kolba engaged two entrepreneurs as well as representatives of the Armenian

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General Benevolent Union, Counterpart International, the Open Society Institute,

Peace Corps, UNDP, UNICEF, UNIDO and Yerevan Municipality on the panel of

judges.

The judges were requested to engage in the entire incubation cycle, as well as to

act as mentors to some of the graduates of the programme. Some stayed for the

duration while others found the commitment to be arduous.

In order to reduce the judges’ workload, the Kolba team shortlisted the top 30

percent of the total applications. Before shortlisting, and where possible, the

Kolba team spoke to the applicants about their submission, because sometimes

an idea can sound bland on paper but come from a dynamic person, and vice

versa. Where possible the team listened to its instincts on this issue.

The judges were given three criteria for judging the applications (see the

‘Resources’ section below for more information). The judges were also

instructed to look for 'problems on the way to becoming solutions', to look for

radical innovation rather than sensible best practice, and if in doubt, to trust

their instincts. Out of the 144 applications, the judges selected 24 ideas to

progress into the next phase of the incubator.

Following selection the Kolba team conducted intensive background research

into the ideas and the problems they planned to address. In particular, the team

was looking for examples of projects or ventures that had already tried to

address the problem, and what had been learnt in the process. Kolba used this

research to advise the teams over the course of the incubation programme.

Resources Criteria for judging the applications.

Recommendations It is important that Kolba share more information on the role of judges and

mentors when approaching senior business and civil society leaders. The lack of

information on the nature of the voluntary commitment may be why some of the

mentors did not engage with the teams for the duration of the incubation cycle.

Start-up Cup provides a good example of a well-developed mentor programme.

Perhaps related to the above is the fact that some of the judges required up to

two weeks to provide feedback on the shortlisted ideas. During this time, Kolba

was receiving daily emails from the applicants eager for news. It is important to

communicate the need for a quick turnaround to the judges, as well as to offer a

clear timeline to the applicants. Three weeks between the deadline for

applications and the announcement of the ideas to be taken forward into the

incubator would be a reasonable timeframe.

Concerning talking with the applicants when they submit their ideas, it is

important to start the conversation with “how can we help?” The Kolba team

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used the questions from the application form to guide the interview, but it would

be better to let the conversation develop in an unstructured manner so that

Kolba can better tailor its support to the specific needs of each venture team.

The main objective of the chat is to get a sense of the person, whether they have

what it takes to drive the venture (for example entrepreneurial spirit and

passion to solve the social issue) and the nature of support they will need from

the incubator.

Concerning background research into the ideas, in addition to looking for past

experience, the Kolba team, with the help of UNDP experts, should consider

research into the different aspects of the problem, alternate manifestations of

the problem, the target population or market for the proposed venture, the

assets and skillsets within the target population, and the barriers to positive

change. This involves a significant commitment to research on behalf of the

Kolba team and UNDP. Perhaps, instead, the venture teams could conduct this

research as part of phase three of the incubation cycle. In addition, should Kolba

move towards thematic, problem-based incubation cycles the above research

parameters would be useful for background information in advance.

Phase three: Prototype Kolba hosted two “social business camps” at which the 24 ideas selected by the

judges were developed. Ten ideas were further developed at an event in

Vanadzor and 14 ideas were developed at an event in Yerevan. Sixty-three

percent of the ideas selected for progression were submitted by residents of

communities outside of the capital.

All 144 applicants were invited to participate in an event and to join a team. In

advance of the events, the Kolba team delved into its database to try to match

participants with similar applications to those whose ideas had progressed. In

addition, Kolba spoke with each of the 24 successful applicants in order to

understand what resources they would need in the room in order to prototype

their venture. Some of the applicants did not fully understand the extent and

nature of the resources that they would require. The Kolba team filled in the

gaps based on its experience with Social Innovation Camps.

The events launched with the successful applicants pitching their ideas to the

audience, followed by teambuilding. Participants were free to join a team of

their choosing. The Kolba team explained the purpose of the event, namely to

prototype the ventures and to present them to the panel of judges. Kolba

provided written instructions to each of the teams with several questions to

answer. The teams were encouraged to test their prototypes with users and to

capture the feedback in the presentation at the end of the event. The teams

focussed on their pitches at the expense of prototyping their ventures.

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The Kolba team posted updates to Twitter and Facebook as the events

progressed. At the conclusion of the one-day events, the judges selected ten

teams (four from the event in Vanadzor and ten from the event in Yerevan) to

progress to the next phase of the incubator.

Resources Pre-event (panic) checklist;

Workshop agenda;

Slides and instructions (see notes in PPT) for the prototyping workshop;

Workshop notes for participants.

Recommendations The teams’ focus on their closing presentations at the expense of developing

their prototype ventures was a sub-optimal outcome. In future, prototyping

events should avoid a public presentation at the end and instead have the judges

circulate among the teams in order to interact with the prototypes. This should

focus the teams on the core objective of the event, rather than dividing their

attention between a presentation and a prototype.

The Kolba team is considering dropping the mass prototyping event from this

phase of the incubator and replacing it with a one or two day workshop for each

team. The Kolba team could use human-centred design to structure and

facilitate these workshops, based on previous experience in Bratislava. This

would require greater rigour in selecting which ideas to advance to this phase

(covered by the recommendations for changes to phase two, above), as it is

unlikely that the Kolba team would have sufficient resources to host 24 separate

workshops. This change would also imply that the decision on progression could

be result-driven, as opposed to an analysis of a more advanced venture concept.

Phase four: Iterate The ten teams selected by the judges at the conclusion of phase three were

invited to a three-day workshop in UN House between 8th and 10th November

2013. Kolba worked with Sergey Tantushyan of the American University of

Armenia business school to develop the workshop programme and training

materials. Kolba also used some of the tools developed by Nesta and the

Rockefeller Foundation, namely the Development Impact and You Toolkit. More

information on the workshop agenda and the specific tools used can be found in

the ‘resources’ section below.

Mentors were on hand to advice the teams as they applied the different

frameworks and toolkits to their ventures. The workshop concluded with a

private presentation by each team to the judges.

Four teams were selected to advance to the next phase of the incubator, namely:

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Byurakan chir – a venture producing dried fruits through organic methods;

FastEco – a fast food venture sourcing produce from suppliers which apply

environmentally sustainable methods of production;

Seeing hands – a massage therapy venture which trains and employs blind

masseurs;

Tata – a childcare sourcing service for working mothers.

Resources Workshop agenda;

Slides for iterate workshop – day one; day two; day three;

Business model canvas;

Evidence modelling tool;

Target audience tool;

SWOT analysis tool;

Prototype testing tool;

User journey mapping tool;

Marketing mix tool;

Task timetable;

Business planning tool;

Information pack for judges.

Recommendations Constructive feedback from the workshop participants highlights that:

The workshop content was overly abstract;

The teams would have benefitted from a staged approach via multiple

workshops, with tasks to prepare before each interaction with the Kolba

team and the mentors, as opposed to a comprehensive workshop;

More mentors with differing skillsets should have been made available to the

teams (six were provided);

More information on business and tax regulations should have been included;

More support for pricing services and products should have been available to

the teams;

The judges were too aggressive.

It became clear to the Kolba team during the workshop that support to the

conceptual development of the ventures was of less importance to the

participants than assistance with the process of launching a social venture. What

many teams lacked was the confidence to make mistakes or to pitch to a

potential customer, or practical knowledge such as how to register a business.

As highlighted by the recommendations in phase three, Kolba should deliver

tailored support for the ventures rather than workshops for the teams en masse.

For phase three this involves a design thinking cycle. In this phase Kolba should

stage its support, mixing conceptual development with support to specific tasks

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associated with launching a social venture. In short, the iterate phase should

involve layered support to the teams based on their progression through

practical exercises.

Phase five: Network Kolba delivered grants to the four teams selected to advance to phase five by the

judges. The grants were based on the teams’ business plans and intended to be

just too little to cover their start up costs so that they had to look for other forms

of finance. All the teams found the additional resources required to launch their

ventures.

As the teams had not established legal entities, into which investments could be

directed, Kolba worked with one of UNICEF’s existing implementing partners

under another project, namely the Kasa foundation. The Kasa foundation had

prior experience with incubating social enterprises and youth projects and was

thus deemed to be a good fit. The Kolba team also worked to connect the

ventures with other resources, such as social investment funds, although with

little success.

After investing in the ventures in late 2013 and early 2014, Kolba tracked the

progress of each team via monthly meetings. Kolba also interviewed the venture

team leaders in order to profile them as role models for future incubation cycles

and encouraged the teams to promote their work via digital media.

Resources Database of social investment funds.

Recommendations The grants were drawn from two pools of funding, one provided by UNICEF and

the other provided by UNDP. Delivery of the funds to the Kasa foundation was

slightly out of sequence from the two pools, which caused resentment among

some of the venture teams that the others had received their investment first.

Efforts should be made to minimise this in future.

Should the teams be supported to establish legal entities during phase four, there

would no loner be any need for an incubating partner as grants could be

delivered directly to the ventures. Should this not be possible, it would be

beneficial to engage incubation partners at an earlier stage, so the support could

be packaged together with advice on business registrations, tax issues and

others.

The venture teams have developed first-hand experience of running social

enterprises and have offered Kolba anecdotal evidence of the challenges to this

sector. Kolba should collect this evidence and use it to generate policy advice for

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the government and other stakeholders in the field of impact investing in

Armenia.

Design Labs within UNDP/UNICEF Kolba is the UN in Armenia’s first experiment with a lab. The model has been

tested across the world, both within and beyond the development sector. Within

UNICEF, Kolba is the latest addition to a collection of labs. For UNDP, Kolba was

until recently its first and only lab3. Both agencies are looking to test the

boundaries of established practice. Labs offer a useful space to experiment with

responses to complex or wicked problems.

Kolba was originally conceived as a social venture incubator. By working with

“unusual suspects” and other active citizens in fostering multiple small-scale

ventures in sectors targeted by development assistance, Kolba hoped to generate

a portfolio of disruptive responses to development challenges.

Alongside its work as a social venture incubator, Kolba experimented with

design methodologies in order to co-create with stakeholders outside of its

incubation cycles. This resulted in a design workshop with Bratislava

municipality looking at the issue of mobility on the public transport system for

people with disabilities. This could be offered as a service to UNDP and UNICEF’s

projects and programmes in future.

Finally, in late 2013 Kolba experimented with in-house training workshops,

called Kolba Café. The team wanted to spread its skills in horizon scanning,

crowdsourcing, new media, rapid prototyping, design literacy, and tolerance of

uncertainty.

Resources Kolba Strategy 2014-2017;

Kolba Action Plan 2014.

Recommendations Kolba’s big mistake during its first incubation cycle was to focus on the

incubation of a certain organisational form, namely social enterprise. The four

ventures which graduated from Kolba in 2013 are quietly disruptive in their own

way, but unlikely to create positive change at scale. In future Kolba should focus

its challenges on specific development issues with a view to incubating

disruptive ideas. The organisational form capable of scaling the idea should be a

secondary concern.

3 The UNDP country office in FYR Macedonia recently established The Social Innovation Hub. There are also labs planned within the UNDP offices in Moldova and Egypt.

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Kolba was a useful interface with networks of active citizens. In order to

enhance UNDP and UNICEF in Armenia’s ability to connect and co-create with

these networks Kolba should consider establishing a physical co-working space.

Alongside its efforts to promote design literacy and other skills within the UN in

Armenia, Kolba should scale-up its work involving citizens in the re-design of

public services. Kolba may also benefit UNDP and UNICEF in Armenia by

exploring the application of behavioural science and big data to its work.

Final thoughts Kolba provided UNDP and UNICEF in Armenia with an education on how to work

with start-ups and social activists, as well as how to design projects with citizens

rather than for beneficiaries. Creating a permanent interface that enables

development agencies to work with these “unusual suspects” will be central to

the future relevance of the sector in Armenia. Kolba could be this interface.

Drafted by:

George Hodge

With thanks to:

Claire Medina

Hasmik Soghomonyan

Heghinar Melkomian

Toshi Nakamura

Giulio Quaggiotto

Weston Headley