Christopher Fabian

Christopher Fabian (born April 18, 1980) is a technologist who works for UNICEF. He founded technology and finance initiatives in both the public and private sector, including the creation in 2006, of UNICEF's Innovation Unit.

Christopher Fabian
Chris Fabian at the World Investment Forum 2018
Born1980 (age 42–43)
New York, New York
NationalityPolish, American
Occupation(s)Technology designer, lecturer, investor
Known forGIGA, RapidSMS, UNICEF Innovation Fund, U-Report, RapidPro, EduTrac, Technology in Emergencies

Fabian is an advocate of exploring new technology, and taking a "venture-style" approach to investments in the public sector. In this vein, he took part in the launch of the UNICEF’s Innovation Fund, the United Nations Innovation Network at the UN Chief Executives' Board, UNICEF's Cryptocurrency Fund, and the Digital Public Goods Alliance.

Fabian regularly holds talks and lectures on the impact of technology on sustainable development.

Personal life and early work

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.[1]

Before joining UNICEF, Fabian taught in Lebanon and founded companies in Africa and the Middle East, including a web portal in Tanzania.[1]

Work at UNICEF
Chris Fabian speaks about connectivity and data fairness and equity at the ITU's AI summit in Geneva.

He co-founded UNICEF's Office of Innovation in 2006, which focuses on connecting those with good ideas to those with the means to take them to scale.[2] From 2007-2017, Fabian has been Senior Advisor on Innovation to the Executive Director at UNICEF.

In its early days, the Office of Innovation developed open source tools for improving basic health and communication in low-infrastructure regions. It helped build the largest mobile health system in the world in Nigeria, which reported on more than 17M births by SMS. Other tools include U-Report, which enables over 3 million young people in 34 developing and developed countries to be connected to decision makers via SMS, and globally via Twitter.[3] The Office of Innovation has also used real-time SMS to help stop the spread of Ebola,[4] smartphones to register children after a disaster, and tablet-based games to teach kids in Sudan.[5][6]

Fabian has advocated for technologists in the development space to incorporate The Principles for Digital Development[7] (first created by UNICEF and USAID). These Principles, such as be open source, build with local technologists, and build for sustainability, are used widely in the international development community.

In 2011, 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. In 2013, Fabian helped launch the Child Friendly Technology Framework (CFT), 52 worksheets used for brainstorming and project planning when an idea for a project with a technology component is focused on children and adolescents. In 2015, Fabian designed the first Global Innovation Summit for Children, co-organised by UNICEF and the Ministry Foreign Affairs of Finland.

UNICEF Innovation Fund

In 2015 he led the launch of UNICEF’s Innovation Fund,[8] a pooled funding vehicle built to quickly assess, fund and scale companies, teams, and ideas that have been developed in new and emerging markets.[9][10]

In 2016, it added a UNICEF Ventures fund for small, early-stage investments.[10] in 2016, Fabian has worked to build platforms that can allow for rapid development, testing, and deployment of new technologies and approaches to solving problems. Ventures work has included investment in “frontier technology” such as Drones, UAVs, data science and machine learning. Examples include the UNICEF Drone Corridor in Malawi, in 2016,[11][12] and the "Magic Box" platform for working with large realtime datasets. The Magic Box platform allows companies like IBM, Google, and Telefonica to pool data so it can be used to make realtime decisions in emergencies.[13][14][15]

As of 2020, the Innovation Fund held USD $20 million and has made over 60 investments in open source technology companies in 40 countries.

Other ventures

In 2018, with Robert Opp of WFP, he created the United Nations Innovation Network at the UN Chief Executives' Board. This informal network spanned 1400 staff from all UN agencies and was 'decentralized' in its governance.[16][17]

In 2019, Fabian led UNICEF's launch of the first Cryptocurrency Fund in the United Nations. This Fund takes Ethereum or Bitcoin, holds it in its native form, and allows UNICEF to disperse it, as cryptocurrency, to open-source technology startups.[18] The same year, Fabian also launched GIGA [19] with Doreen Bogdan-Martin of ITU to finance connectivity for every school in the world. He and Sunita Grote were selected as one of WIRED Magazine's "WIRED25" for their work on building realtime maps of school connectivity, and creating financing partnerships based on aggregated connectivity demand.[20]

In 2019, he also led the development of the Digital Public Goods Alliance [21] - a platform built with the Government of Norway, Sierra Leone's DSTI (Department of Science, Technology, and Innovation) run by Minister David Sengeh, and India's iSpirit to identify and support open source software for public good.

Lectures and philosophy
Chris Fabian holds a lecture during the World Investment Forum 2018

Fabian believes that major global trends in technology and evolving power structures systematically and consistently affect poor people more negatively than wealthy ones [22] and speaks about how public sector money and investing should be used to create public value and public capital, rather than simply continue and extend systems of inequality.

Fabian has said that he believes technology is not the end-product of innovation, but a driver of new ways of thinking about development problems. He talks about open-source projects, learning from failure, and having solutions designed and built by local talent.[23]

He has lectured 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 or lectured at the Art Center, Aalto University, Harvard University, IIT Delhi, Singularity University, and Tsinghua University.

Film

Fabian was also an Executive Producer of the virtual-reality film Clouds Over Sidra,[24] 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.

Awards and Affiliations

Publications
  • "Un-chained: Experiments and Learnings in Crypto at UNICEF" [30]
  • "Innovation for International Development: Navigating the Paths and Pitfalls", on "The Balancing Act of an Innovation Unit."[31] (2016)
  • "How The Tech Sector Can Help Stop Ebola" (2014)[32]
  • “The Ethics of Innovation” (2014)[33]
  • “Adolescent Girls and Technology, Supporting Participatory Engagement.” Chapter 7 in Adolescent Girls, Cornerstone of Society (2012)[34]
  • “Using Mobile Technology to Unite (for) Children.” Chapter in Mobile Technology for Children: Designing for Interaction and Learning. (2009)[35]

Notes
  1. "Christopher Fabian". World Economic Forum. Retrieved 2021-04-09.
  2. "Why 500 change-makers from around the world are coming to Helsinki to innovate for children, and why you should join – Stories of UNICEF Innovation". Retrieved 2017-03-23.
  3. "Voice Matters". U-Report. Twitter account: @UReportGlobal. Retrieved 2017-03-23.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  4. "Ebola Fighters Enlist Texts in Bid to Curb Outbreak". Bloomberg.com. 2014-10-23. Retrieved 2017-03-23.
  5. "RapidFTR serves as a force for change in some of the world's most complex emergencies – Stories of UNICEF Innovation". Retrieved 2017-03-23.
  6. "Education (or lack thereof) in El Moshamir – Stories of UNICEF Innovation". Retrieved 2017-03-23.
  7. "Home". Principles for Digital Development.
  8. "UNICEF Innovation Fund". unicefinnovationfund.org. Retrieved 2017-03-23.
  9. "UNICEF Innovation adopts new models of investment to give poorest children better opportunities". UNICEF. Retrieved 2017-03-23.
  10. "UNICEF Ventures". UNICEF. Retrieved 2017-03-23.
  11. "Malawi tests first unmanned aerial vehicle flights for HIV early infant diagnosis – Stories of UNICEF Innovation". Retrieved 2017-03-23.
  12. "The Government of Malawi and UNICEF announce first humanitarian drone testing corridor in Africa – Stories of UNICEF Innovation". Retrieved 2017-03-23.
  13. "Telefónica joins UNICEF's "Magic Box" initiative to drive the use of Big Data for Social Good". Telefónica. February 28, 2017.
  14. Stone, Judy (July 27, 2016). "Your Phone Could Help Cure Zika -- And TB, Ebola And Other Devastating Infections". Forbes.
  15. "Google says its engineers working with UNICEF to map Zika". Reuters. March 3, 2016.
  16. Conclusions of the High-level Committee on Management at its thirty-sixth session
  17. "Summary of deliberations of the First regular session of 2018 of the United Nations System Chief Executives Board for Coordination" (PDF). unsceb.org. 23 July 2018. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2021-09-08.
  18. "UNICEF Cryptocurrency Fund". cryptofund.unicef.io. Retrieved 2020-03-23. Cryptocurrency Fund
  19. "GIGA". gigaconnect.org. Retrieved 2017-03-23.
  20. "WIRED25: Stories of People Who Are Racing to Save Us". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 2021-04-09.
  21. "Digital Public Goods Alliance". digitalpublicgoods.net.
  22. Innovation in International Development - EHF Fellow Chris Fabian at New Frontiers. YouTube. Archived from the original on 2021-12-09.
  23. Gould, Elizabeth (November 19, 2015). "Teachings from Helsinki's Slush 2015: the cosmic egg of global startups". Venture Burn. Retrieved January 11, 2016.
  24. Clouds Over Sidra: A Virtual Reality (VR) film | With.in (360 video), retrieved 2017-03-23
  25. "Christopher Fabian (Unicef Innovation Fund) – NOVUS Award Ceremony, NOVUS Summit 2016". webtv.un.org. Retrieved 2017-03-23.
  26. "The World's Top 10 Most Innovative Companies In Local | Fast Company". Fast Company. 2014-02-13. Retrieved 2017-03-23.
  27. "Disruptor Foundation".
  28. "UNICEF Project Mwana: Using Mobile Technologies to Improve the Lives of Underserved". Industrial Designers Society of America - IDSA. 2012-06-14. Retrieved 2017-03-23.
  29. "A Billion Thanks to the Open Source Community from Red Hat". www.redhat.com. Retrieved 2017-03-23.
  30. Un-chained: Experiments and Learnings in Crypto at UNICEF
  31. "Innovation for International Development | Nesta". www.nesta.org.uk. Retrieved 2017-03-23.
  32. Contributor (29 October 2014). "How The Tech Sector Can Help Stop Ebola". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2017-03-23. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  33. "The Ethics of Innovation". ssir.org. Stanford Social Innovation Review. Retrieved 2017-03-23.
  34. By New School University and UNICEF
  35. Mobile Technology for Children, Alison Druin, 2009. ISBN 978-0123749000
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