INVITATION TO TENDER: help us test electric boat systems in Casamance, Senegal
As you may have seen previously, the Frontier Technologies Hub and the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) are looking to work with a range of partners to test the use of electric boat motors to provide cleaner, cheaper transport in rural Senegal.
This pilot is part of the Frontier Technology Livestreaming programme, where FCDO advisors apply for the chance to test an idea for a ground-breaking application of technology in lots of different contexts. The Hub matches these advisors with specialists in either the technology or the problem area and coaches them to test potential solutions in lean and agile ways. (For more information on our method, please see here.)
Sometimes, as we start to think about forming a team, we realise there isn’t a clear partner out there who is fully equipped to provide everything we imagine that we need for the pilot.
We thought that was true for this current project, as we know the focus of testing will go further than specific technical questions. The world is becoming more familiar with what it takes to adopt electric vehicles in developing economies, and electric motor boat technologies are being tested in other countries, such as Kenya. So what are the big questions this pilot will answer?
Ultimately, we don’t yet know, but we do think there are big questions to be explored on business models and sustainability: how will the entire system, including battery charging stations and the allocation of hardware, work and sustain itself in practice? Furthermore, given the rural location of the target area, and preference for local ownership of the solution, there is an unusual set of skills and expertise that we have in mind for this pilot.
Faced with these uncertainties, we decided to facilitate two sessions to help us evaluate learnings we could use to understand how we might mobilise groups of partners that can meet our ambitions for the pilot.
Last month we kicked off with a tech exploration session, where we invited international stakeholders to share their experiences of testing electric vehicles and explore how we can turn this particular solution idea into a reality. We then went one step further and organised an in-person workshop in Ziguinchor, Senegal, which we called the “Marketplace of Ideas”.
The Marketplace of Ideas
An invention of the FT Hub, the Marketplace of Ideas workshops are loosely based on the Early Market Engagements that FCDO often undertake. They’re something we’ve tested with other pilots, most notably the pay-as-you-go bikes pilot in Zambia, and the smart contraceptive vending machines pilot in Kenya.
Similar to the examples above, the objective of this marketplace of ideas was to build toward a Request for Proposals (RfP), to find the right team to take the work forward. An important feature of these sessions, however, is that they don’t put the competitive process at the centre of proceedings.
The key objectives of this workshop were to:
- better understand the problem space by engaging diverse voices
- energise key stakeholders around our idea and raise awareness about the pilot
- generate ideas from domain experts that would feed into the RfP
- create the basis for mobilising groups to think together about the RfP
We did this by setting up the workshop in Ziguinchor on 24th November 2021, gathering approximately 50 people from diverse backgrounds over the course of a whole day.
Activities included creating a range of personas around potential solutions, as well as collectively responding to key questions the team had around the pilot. Again, we stayed away from requesting specific solution ideas and focused on the problem at hand, which we think made the best use of collective intelligence in the room and allowed people to work openly and collaboratively.
We want to thank everyone who attended the session for joining in such a spirit of openness and collaboration, and we found it an exciting space to share ideas and perspectives. Here are some of the reflections we made following the exchanges:
- The session affirmed the need for local ownership of the solution
- The most uncertainty in the solution lay around the business models, which should be seen as the focal point for pilot testing
- Hardware maintenance will become a key consideration for how the system operates
- Swappable batteries seem to offer greater potential than solar roofs
- Providing assistance to users via boats themselves, or indeed mobile charging stations can be explored
Overall, we think the workshop was extremely useful because it helped us frame the requirements of the tender, scope out the potential for collaboration between attendees, and furthered our convictions on certain aspects of the pilot (e.g. local ownership and the centrality of business models).
Tender now open!
Having synthesised our insights, we have now published the tender!
You can access the Invitation To Tender (ITT)* at the following link: LINK
For any enquiries please reach out to us at ftlenquiries@imcworldwide.com
Closing date: The deadline for this opportunity has now been extended until 7th January 2022 at 17:00 GMT.
Please note: a French language copy of the Scope of Works has been provided as a supporting document to encourage applications from local providers. It is preferred that applications are received in English but French can be accepted where necessary.
