OOS 74-6
The global development lab at USAID: Crowdsourcing science, technology, and innovation to improve conservation outcomes
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) supports biodiversity conservation to enhance ecosystem resilience and promote sustainable use of natural resources for millions of people in developing countries. USAID’s Global Development Lab, launched in 2014, works to catalyze development-oriented conservation by engaging a global “community of solvers” to co-create usable science and technological innovations that can dramatically improve conservation science and practice.
Results/Conclusions
This talk will introduce the Global Development Lab’s crowdsourcing approach to development-oriented conservation and showcase several of the Lab’s key strategies, including: A new web-based Global Innovation Exchange, designed to spur a global community of diverse stakeholders to share ideas, open datasets, and develop new collaborations; the Partnerships for Enhanced Engagement in Research program, which provides critical funding for developing-country scientists and engineers to join international peer networks and conduct research that will directly inform management and policy; the Higher Education Solutions Network, which harnesses the ingenuity and passion of university researchers, faculty, and students to incubate, test, and scale new tools for development; and the Center for Development Innovation, which sponsors prizes and challenges, open to individuals and organizations around the world, to develop and implement scientific and technological solutions. This talk—intended as both an overview and an invitation—will encourage ESA meeting attendees to learn more about USAID's Global Development Lab and its efforts to crowdsource science, technology, and innovation to improve biodiversity conservation and sustainable management of natural resources.