Do Bigger Things

Take on “messy challenges.”

Messy challenges such as poverty and climate change resist the kind of innovation that results in new apps or otherwise fine-tunes the status quo. These challenges demand innovation that takes existing concepts, tools, and expertise and organizes them into new, problem-solving ecosystems.

For example, one messy challenge in India is “needless blindness.” The majority of the country’s 12 million blind people have cataracts that require corrective surgery; most lack access to medical treatments. Solving this messy challenge requires training more doctors, lowering the cost of medical products, and improving access to medical care. A piecemeal approach won’t work. An integrated system linking all the problem’s components is the only solution.

Aravind Eye Care, for example, achieves this integration with a “treatment ecosystem” of patients, nurses, doctors, training, and low-cost medical products. Patients needing cataract surgery come to Aravind’s hospitals. Nurses take their vital signs, test their eyes, prep them for surgery, and move them into an operating room with at least...