By Rohan Mukerjee, Programme Coordinator, Networks and Alliances 

Keystone Foundation is a member of the echo network, a social innovation partnership with the specific focus of increasing trust between sectors, increasing the value of science for society, and instilling a sense of responsibility in everyone for our human and environmental ecosystems. Keystone Foundation was part of the echo network journey to develop the “Sustainability Ambassadors Global Exchange Program : 2024-2027”. Since 2020, the echo network has developed a global model for involving communities, academia, industry, NGOs & governments in the scientific process to ensure better scoping, scaling, & translation of new knowledge & technologies to enhance sustainable development in emerging economies. 

The echo model builds on a pilot consisting of:

  • A proprietary semantic network analysis technique with our 162 awareness activities reaching 100k individuals to identify focus areas incorporating multiple viewpoints
  • Planning & research with experts representing academia, industry, NGOs, & governments through three phases with 655 individuals and over 5500 minutes of workshops including:
    1. 2020-2021 Changemakers Table: 77 changemakers, 49 organizations, 5 countries used value mapping, problem definition and evidence planning along with theory of change to define our Concept Notes. An additional 87 consultants refined objectives and outcomes. 
    2. 2022 Expert Dialogues: 123 thought leaders refined the concept notes into initial Pilot Projects to be executed in the SAGE program
    3. 2023 Network Summit: 130 participants from over 90 organizations revisited the theory of change to refine the concepts with outputs from our SAGE Senior Ambassadors to develop knowledge gap-filling projects for SAGE Fellows, a PhD program to start in 2024.
  • SAGE Impact Leaders and consortium members will engage in proof-of-concept testing with communities, adaption & scaling of outputs through network members.  Junior and Senior SAGE Ambassadors will with directly with communities and network member organizations to build knowledge and capacity.

Implementation of the echo model comprises a three-year Phase 1 full program in India to train Impact leaders from Indian, & International universities. The Impact Leaders exist at three levels:  Undergraduate Junior Ambassadors will reach out to our communities, Masters Senior Ambassadors will complete background research, and PhD SAGE Fellows will lead specific components of the consortium projects.

The key focus areas of the network are – 

  • One Health
  • Regenerative Agriculture 
  • Ecosystems Valuation 
  • Circular Bioeconomy 

Through the Network’s iterative process, the concept notes, preliminary projects, and working group sessions have been consolidated into three interlinked consortia projects combining our focus areas into three consortia with four basic components: 

  • Capacity Building for relevant stakeholders
  • Innovation of new technologies, products, or processes for industrial collaboration and business opportunities
  • Knowledge generation for all sectors 
  • Digitization for public use

The three Consortia were as follows – 

  • Ecosystem Stewardship 
  • Rural Livelihoods 
  • Clean Healthy Cities

Each Consortia had several individual projects project had sub-projects which would carried out by PhD fellows. The focus of the Bengaluru meeting was to bring all Consortia members, Sage Ambassadors and potential PhD fellows together to deliberate on, fine tune and refine individual projects and chart out future directions. 

I was part of the Nutrition project team of Rural Livelihoods Consortia which comprised of Academicians, Researchers, Sage Ambassadors and PhD candidates. We worked together to finetune the Aims, Objectives, Outputs and Outcomes of the project. The process also involved an Interactive Planning World Café session through which members of different Consortia got an opportunity to understand each project and provide their feedback and inputs which were then incorporated to strengthen each project. The different Project teams of each Consortia also came together for discussions and deliberations on areas of convergence, inputs each project could provide each other and what they expected from other projects. The meeting concluded with Revised Aims, Outcomes, and Outputs developed for each project. Alongside these the teams also drew up initial steps for Junior Ambassador’s, Senior Ambassador’s and Sage PhD Fellows. 

This program saw the entire ECHO network family coming together for the “Sustainability Ambassadors Global Exchange Meeting” held on 19th and 20th July 2024 at Artia University, Bengaluru, Karnataka.