Christopher Fabian

Christopher Fabian
Born 1980 (age 35–36)
New York, New York
Occupation Technology designer, lecturer
Known for RapidSMS, UNICEF Innovation Fund, Global Innovation Centre, U-Report, RapidPro, EduTrac, Technology in Emergencies

Christopher Fabian (krɪstəfər feıbıən) (@hichrisfabian on Twitter) (born April 18, 1980) is a technologist and innovator who co-leads UNICEF's Innovation Unit alongside Erica Kochi. Fabian works on finding solutions to big problems that face humanity, particularly children. Since 2007 he has held the title of Senior Advisor on Innovation to the Executive Director at UNICEF and Co-founder and Co-lead of the UNICEF Innovation Unit. He is best known for his work on tools for children and communities in low-infrastructure environments. Solutions he has worked on include the Digital Drum, U-Report, and RapidSMS, which has evolved to RapidPro—the free, open source framework for rapidly building mobile services for scale. In 2015 he led on the launch of UNICEF’s Innovation Fund, a pooled funding vehicle built to quickly assess, fund and scale companies, teams, and ideas that have been developed in new and emerging markets. In 2013, he and Kochi were selected by Time magazine to be on the Time 100 list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Education

Fabian studied philosophy at the American University in Cairo and at Trinity College in Dublin. He also holds a degree in Media Studies from the New School in New York, NY.

Career

Since 2007, Fabian has been Senior Advisor on Innovation to the Executive Director at UNICEF and Co-founder and Co-lead of the UNICEF Innovation Unit. Based in UNICEF NYHQ, the Innovation Unit focuses on connecting those with good ideas to those with the means to take them to scale. The main way UNICEF convenes these networks of changemakers is through the Unit’s Innovation Fund and Global Innovation Centre, which Fabian helped launch in 2015. As of end-2015, the Fund holds USD $10 million and has made over 20 investments. The Global Innovation Centre, based in Nairobi, helps take successful ideas to scale and cultivates South-South innovation.

The Innovation Unit has developed a number of large scale open source tools for improving basic health and communication in low-infrastructure regions. It has helped build the largest mobile health system in the world in Nigeria, which has reported on more than 17M births by SMS. Other tools include U-Report, which enables over 1.8 million young people in 18 developing and developed countries to be connected to decision makers via SMS, and globally via Twitter through @UReportGlobal. The Innovation Unit has also used real-time SMS to help stop the spread of Ebola, smartphones to register children after a disaster, and tablet-based games to teach kids in Sudan.

Since the beginning of his role as UNICEF Innovation Co-lead, Chris has advocated for technologists in the development space to incorporate UNICEF’s Innovation principles. These Principles, such as be open source, build with local technologists, and build for sustainability, are used widely in the international development community.

In 2015 Fabian designed and oversaw the creation of the first Global Innovation Summit for Children, co-organised by UNICEF and the Ministry Foreign Affairs of Finland. The Summit brought together more than 500 thought- and action-leaders from different sectors around the world to discuss what opportunities from tech/private sector in the next 5 years will have the biggest impact on children and how to get important products to scale to a billion people.

2014 was a year where Fabian focused on the Unit’s open-source system RapidPro. With the launch of the free, open source framework for rapidly building mobile services for scale, key products like U-Report, EduTrac, mTrac, and others, have scaled to reach millions. Using RapidPro technology, decision makers can send and receive information in real-time, enabling them to make better-informed decisions. In 2015, RapidPro enabled the sending and receiving of more than 150 million messages worldwide.

In 2013 Fabian helped launch the Child Friendly Technology Framework (CFT). The CFT consists of 52 worksheets used for brainstorming and project planning when an idea for a project with a technology component is focused on children and adolescents.

From 2010 - 2011, Fabian fulfilled a part-time secondment at the United Nations as Senior Advisor on Innovation (a.i.), Global Pulse, UN Executive Office of the Secretary General. During his secondment Fabian advised on the creation of a framework of innovations labs linking WHO, UNDP, UNICEF as well as public and private-sector partners around in-country innovation. He also guided work on the necessary reports and strategy documents to articulate why the UN needed Innovation Labs and contributed to the development of the Secretary-General’s communications and strategy regarding innovation in venues such as the G20 and the General Assembly.

Prior to his role as UNICEF Innovation Co-lead, Chris worked as an Innovation Consultant in UNICEF’s Division of Communications and helped take UNICEF through a conceptual shift that resulted in the formal creation of the Innovation Unit by the Executive Director.

Before UNICEF, Chris founded and successfully exited startup technology, media and design companies in Africa and the Middle East.

Chris continues to advise startups, entrepreneurs, and funds on emerging business models.

He has been to referred to as the "development golden boy."[1]

Other Work and Ventures

Fabian is a producer on the award-winning Virtual Reality film Clouds Over Sidra, created by Vrse.works. The film follows Sidra, a 12-year-old girl that has fled her home in Syria due to the ongoing crisis and found herself in Jordan’s Zaatari refugee camp. It provides a brief glimpse of the day-to-day life that these refugees endure with narration from Sidra herself. Viewers are taken closer to the situation than a standard screen could ever convey, joining children at school and families as they gather round to eat.

Fabian talks frequently about South-to-North and South-to-South innovation, and developed a "Design for UNICEF" course which he taught at New York University (co-taught with Clay Shirky) and Columbia University. He has also taught and lectured at the Art Center, Aalto University, Harvard University, IIT Delhi, Singularity University, and Tsinghua University among other universities.

Awards and Accolades

In July 2016, Chris received a NOVUS Summit award for being an advocate for work toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). NOVUS Summit aims to unite the science, technology and innovation community around the world. You can view his speech here: http://webtv.un.org/topics-issues/global-issues/watch/christopher-fabian-unicef-innovation-fund-%E2%80%93-novus-award-ceremony-novus-summit-2016/5042103429001#full-text

One of Fast Company's "Most Innovative Companies in the World in Local." February 2014: UNICEF, for delivering rapid solutions for local problems. Since launching RapidSMS, its text-based data-collection program, in Nigeria, in 2011, UNICEF has enabled local health workers to register more than 13 million births with the national government through text messages, making it one of the world's largest mobile health projects. Previously, only about half of Nigerian babies were registered. Without an official identity, children have limited access to health services and education, and are vulnerable to trafficking. In Zambia, health workers adapted RapidSMS, developed in UNICEF's innovation unit, to text HIV test results, facilitating life-altering interventions. A newer mobile app, RapidFTR, helps reunite family members in developing countries who are separated in refugee camps or by natural disasters." http://www.fastcompany.com/3026361/most-innovative-companies-2014/the-worlds-top-10-most-innovative-companies-in-local

“TIME 100: Most Influential People.” Acknowledge written by Jack Dorsey April 18, 2013: More than half of the 6 million births each year in Nigeria are not recorded. Without a birth certificate, a child is much less likely to get educated, be vaccinated or receive health services. Two young UNICEF staffers — Erica Kochi and Christopher Fabian — moving fast within their 66-year-old organization, have made registering a birth as easy as sending a text. They’ve employed similar methods to prevent early deaths as well, creating systems to track the distribution of some 63 million insecticide-treated mosquito bed nets to stop the spread of malaria. Erica and Chris are using technology and accessible, intuitive interfaces to quickly transform the face of humanitarian aid and international development. The world will benefit from their continued efforts. http://time100.time.com/2013/04/18/time-100/slide/christopher-fabian-and-erica-kochi/#ixzz2Qp3ilPmgless

“Disruptor Foundation Fellow” awarded by The Disruptor Foundation. April 2013. The Disruptor Foundation Fellows are a self-defining, self-organizing community of accomplished and promising innovators, applying transdisciplinary approaches in their work and daily lives to further the study and application of disruptive innovation. There are no requirements and no obligations other than to be part of an interesting community of creative “solutionaries” across domains. Mission is to go forth and multiply. http://disruptorfoundation.org/less

"The 2012 Industrial Designers Society of America: Gold Award" - UNICEF Project Mwana: Using Mobile Technologies to Improve the Lives of Underserved. http://www.idsa.org/awards/idea/social-impact-design/unicef-project-mwana-using-mobile-technologies-improve-lives

"The 2012 Industrial Designers Society of America: Silver Award" - UNICEF Project Mwana: Strategy for Integrating Mobile Services and Real Time Data. http://www.idsa.org/awards/idea/design-strategy/unicef-project-mwana-strategy-integrating-mobile-services-and-real-time

"Gov2.0 Summit Award" for UNICEF’s ‘RapidSMS’ system for monitoring nutrition in Malawi. September 2009. http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/usa_51097.html

"A Redhat prize" for being one of the top four open source projects honored and recognized in 2012. http://www.redhat.com/en/about/blog/A-billion-thanks-to-the-open-source-community-from-Red-Hat

Publications

“Innovation for International Development: Navigating the Paths and Pitfalls,” published April 2016 by Nesta . Fabian co-wrote an essay within the report with Dr. Mariana Amatullo on "The Balancing Act of an Innovation Unit." Article begins on page 105: http://www.nesta.org.uk/publications/innovation-international-development

“Panelist Highlight: Christopher Fabian – Disease and the Information Highway,” published on The Princeton-Fung Global Forum. September 28, 2015. http://fungforum.princeton.edu/news/panelist-spotlight-christopher-fabian-%E2%80%93-disease-and-information-highway

“Mobile Technology in Emergencies: Principles and Practice,” featured on Developing Telecoms, Connected Citizens: Managing Crisis. August 2015 issue. Fabian wrote a piece titled “Mobile Technology in Emergencies: Principles and Practice.” Article begins on page 21 with related interview on page 54: http://www.unicefstories.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/devtelecoms-connected-citizens-aug-2015.pdf

“How The Tech Sector Can Help Stop Ebola,” published on TechCrunch. October 29, 2014. http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/29/tech-ebola/

“The Ethics of Innovation,” published in Stanford Social Innovation Review. August 6, 2014. Description: An ethical framework can bridge the worlds of startup technology and international development to strengthen cross-sector innovation in the social sector. http://ssir.org/articles/entry/the_ethics_of_innovation

“Adolescent Girls, Cornerstone of Society: Building Evidence and Policies for Inclusive Societies,” New School University and UNICEF, 2012. Chapter 7: “Adolescent Girls and Technology, Supporting Participatory Engagement.”

“Mobile Technology for Children: Designing for Interaction and Learning” (Morgan Kaufmann Series in Interactive Technologies) by Allison Druin. ISBN 978-0123749000; ISBN 012374900X. April 16, 2009. Fabian and Kochi wrote a chapter based on their research on education technology called: “Using Mobile Technology to Unite (for) Children.” Description: Children are one of the largest new user groups of mobile technology—from phones to micro-laptops to electronic toys. These products are both lauded and criticized, especially when it comes to their role in education and learning. The need has never been greater to understand how these technologies are being designed and to evaluate their impact worldwide. Mobile Technology for Children brings together contributions from leaders in industry, non-profit organizations, and academia to offer practical solutions for the design and the future of mobile technology for children.

“Mobile technologies for the world's children.” Druin, A., Cavallo, D., Fabian, C., Bederson, B. B., Revelle, G., Rogers, Y., & Gray, J. (2009, April). In CHI'09 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems” (pp. 3297-3300). ACM.

Speaking Engagements

SLUSH: Impact Track Keynote. Helsinki, Finland. November 11, 2015. http://www.slush.org/announcing-impact-2015/

Global Innovation Summit for Children and Youth. Helsinki, Finland. November 9–10, 2015.

Web Summit. Dublin, Ireland. November 3, 2015. https://websummit.net/

Princeton-Fung Forum. “PANELIST SPOTLIGHT: CHRISTOPHER FABIAN – DISEASE AND THE INFORMATION HIGHWAY.” Dublin, Ireland. November 2, 2015. http://fungforum.princeton.edu/news/panelist-spotlight-christopher-fabian-%E2%80%93-disease-and-information-highway

International Council for Societies of Industrial Design. “Design Conference.” Seoul, South Korea. October 19, 2015

Tsinghua-UNICEF Youth Innovation Forum. Beijing, China. October 17, 2015. http://www.unicefstories.org/2015/10/19/tsinghua-university-and-unicef-host-youth-innovation-forum-to-inspire-new-ideas-for-disadvantaged-children-around-the-world/

DesignMatters. “Innovation by Design: Winning Approaches and Emerging Organizational Practices in Innovation.” New York, NY. October 16, 2015.

Techo. “Poverty Awareness Campaign.” New York, NY. October 7, 2015. http://www.zeroslums.org/global/

Art Center College of Design. Leap Symposium. “Shaping Design Education.” http://www.icsid.org/education/education/articles1771

Press

The Digital Post. December 14, 2015: “UNICEF: Tapping technology’s potential to help the world’s neediest children” http://www.thedigitalpost.eu/2015/channel-innovation/unicef-tapping-technologys-potential-to-help-the-worlds-neediest-children

Venture Burn. November 19, 2015: “Teachings from Helsinki’s Slush 2015: the cosmic egg of global startups” http://ventureburn.com/2015/11/teachings-from-helsinkis-slush-2015-the-cosmic-egg-of-global-startups/

Princeton University. November 12, 2015: “Princeton-Fung Global Forum identifies approaches for dealing with 'modern plagues'” http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S44/71/98M29/index.xml?section=featured

Deal Street Asia. November 10, 2015: “UNICEF's $5.6 Innovation Fund targets impact investments for the youth” http://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/unicefs-4m-innovation-fund-targets-impact-investments-for-the-youth-19075/

USA Today. November 4, 2015: "Tech world hits refugee crisis wall" http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/11/04/europe-refugee-migrant-crisis-technology-unicef-dublin-web-summit/75141642/

Fast Company. October 12, 2015: “How the United Nations is Using Virtual Reality to Tackle Real-World Problems” http://www.fastcompany.com/3051672/tech-forecast/how-the-united-nations-is-using-virtual-reality-to-tackle-real-world-problems

The Princeton-Fung Global Forum. September 28, 2015: “Panelist Highlight: Christopher Fabian – Disease and the Information Highway” http://fungforum.princeton.edu/news/panelist-spotlight-christopher-fabian-%E2%80%93-disease-and-information-highway

CEA blog. September 24, 2015: “Unmanned Systems Bring Support and Communication When Disaster Strikes” http://www.ce.org/Blog/Articles/2015/September/Unmanned-Systems-Bring-Support-and-Communication-W.aspx

Observatorio do PNE. August 20, 2015: “Conselheiro da Unicef vem a Arapiraca para conhecer o Agapi” http://www.observatoriodopne.org.br/noticias/conselheiro-da-unicef-vem-a-arapiraca-para-conhecer-o-agapi

Tribuna Hoje. August 19, 2015: “Diretor do UNICEF conhece projetos inovadores em Arapiraca” http://www.tribunahoje.com/noticia/152123/interior/2015/08/19/diretor-do-unicef-conhece-projetos-inovadores-em-arapiraca.html

Instituto Quero. August 13, 2015: “INSTITUTO QUERÔ PARTICIPA DE ENCONTRO COM JOVENS INSPIRADORES PROMOVIDO PELO UNICEF” http://institutoquero.org/instituto-quero-participa-de-encontro-com-jovens-inspiradores-promovido-pelo-unicef/

Primeir Momento. August 8, 2015: “Conselheiro da Unicef vem a Arapiraca para conhecer o Agapi” http://www.1momento.com.br/noticias/interior/conselheiro-do-unicef-vem-a-arapiraca-para-conhecer-o-agapi

Arapiraca.al.gov.br. August 8, 2015: “Unicef: “Arapiraca pensa no futuro e cuida das pessoas” http://www.arapiraca.al.gov.br/v3/noticia.php?notid=8986

The Chronicle of Philanthropy. July 20, 2015: “UNICEF Creates Researcher-in Residence Role with Support from Bloomberg” https://philanthropy.com/article/Unicef-Creates/231757

Good Magazine. July 1, 2015: “How Apps Are Helping Kids with Autism Learn to Communicate” http://magazine.good.is/articles/how-apps-help-autistic-kids-communicate

Le Figaro. May 29, 2015: “À l'Unicef, un accélérateur de start-up pour changer les mentalities” http://www.lefigaro.fr/secteur/high-tech/start-up/2015/05/26/32004-20150526ARTFIG00292-l-unicef-va-financer-les-start-up-qui-aident-les-enfants.php

HuffPostLive. January 23, 2015: “How To Bring Healthcare Technologies To The Developing World” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/23/investing-in-developing-countries-healthcare_n_6534784.html

Newsweek. November 20, 2014: “Binary Code: Can Technological Innovations Improve Children’s Lives?” http://www.newsweek.com/binary-code-can-technological-innovations-improve-childrens-lives-285654

TechRepublic. November 20, 2014: “UNICEF crowdsources report on world's children to inspire innovation and localize solutions” http://www.techrepublic.com/article/unicef-crowdsources-report-on-worlds-children-to-inspire-innovation-and-localize-solutions/

Mashable. November 19, 2014: “UNICEF celebrates global innovation and a children's rights milestone” http://mashable.com/2014/11/19/unicef-child-rights-25-years/?utm_cid=mash-com-Tw-main-link

BFM. November 17, 2014: “Technology in Humanitarian Aid” http://www.bfm.my/technology-in-humanitarian-aid.html

Vice News. November 11, 2014: “How Cell Phones Could Help Liberia Win the Fights Against Ebola” https://news.vice.com/article/how-cell-phones-could-help-liberia-win-the-fight-against-ebola

The New Dawn. October 27, 2014: “UNICEF develops critical Ebola data flow” http://www.thenewdawnliberia.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13078:unicef-develops-critical-ebola-data-flow&catid=46:health&Itemid=60

Bloomberg. October 23, 2014: “Ebola Fighters Enlist Texts in Bid to Curb Outbreak” http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-23/ebola-fighters-enlist-texts-in-bid-to-curb-outbreak.html

Daily Observer. October 13, 2014: “The Impact Of Open Source Software In The Fight Against Ebola In Liberia” http://liberianobserver.com/technology/impact-open-source-software-fight-against-ebola-liberia

Stanford Social Innovation Review. August 5, 2014: “The Ethics of Innovation” http://www.ssireview.org/blog/entry/the_ethics_of_innovation

Teamworks. October 2, 2013, “Interview with Christopher Fabian, co-lead of UNICEF’s Innovation Unit” https://undp.unteamworks.org/node/398622

Huffington Post. August 15, 2013: “Three Text Messages That Are Changing Africa” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lex-paulson/three-text-messages_b_3761643.html?utm_hp_ref=tw

Wired UK. February 25, 2013: “Hacking disaster: how designers and programmers are helping in emergencies” http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-02/25/emergency-technology-feature

Opinions

Personal life

Further reading

Notes

  1. ↑ Gould, Elizabeth (November 19, 2015). "Teachings from Helsinki's Slush 2015: the cosmic egg of global startups". http://ventureburn.com/. Retrieved January 11, 2016. External link in |website= (help)

General References

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