“The False God of Innovation” by Kim Wilson, CEME Senior Fellow

by Kim Wilson, CEME Senior Fellow

In the olden days, awards were not given for innovation itself but for how effective an innovation was in relation to the importance of the problem it solved. But what we see today in financial inclusion is the ubiquity of innovation – often front and center – as the lead determinant in a plethora of prize competitions. Check the first judging criteria of this prestigious contest.

Why would the entity commissioning the award, The Wall Street Journal, care about how innovative or unique the business was or how it broke from tradition? Wouldn’t it care most about how well the service solved a problem and the problem’s significance?

Read the entire post at Accion’s Center for Financial Inclusion Blog