DAI CDI ANNUAL REPORT October 2017 – September 2018

Agency for International Development (USAID) in advancing its culture of innovation. CDI works collaboratively across USAID and with its partners to design, discover, test, and accelerate groundbreaking solutions to the world's most difficult problems. Between October 2017 and September 2018, USAID invested an additional $690,000 in DAI's support, reaching a total contract obligation of $24.8 million. DAI's strategic counsel and implementation are guided by four key principles: extending USAID's reach, making a client's vision a reality, flexibility, and experimenting and learning quickly. In the fourth and final year of the contract, DAI focused on three key areas: replicating what works, capturing and documenting learning, and transitioning activities to new project teams. This involved doubling down on activities that achieved results and demonstrated value, consolidating best practices and lessons learned into learning products, training materials, and toolkits, and collaborating on the design and start-up of new activities. The Acceleration Sales Technical Assistance project aimed to test the effectiveness and value of providing non-financial support to innovators. DAI supported an additional nine technical assistance activities for selected innovators, providing targeted sales training and support deemed necessary for innovators. The project followed a four-step process: designing and scoping technical assistance, mapping potential vendors and procuring the best provider, overseeing implementation, and capturing learning. An integrated monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) approach was implemented to document, analyze, and share lessons learned about the process. The Fall Armyworm Tech Prize Design Support project aimed to address the threat of fall armyworm (FAW) to food security in sub-Saharan Africa. FAW outbreaks first occurred in West Africa in early 2016 and are now on the precipice of devastating food supplies across the continent. Interventions are needed at a transnational level, and digital technologies can be utilized in expanding the frontiers of information access in sub-Saharan Africa. DAI CDI conducted initial scoping research to better understand the worm's threat and presented findings to USAID and DAI Digital Frontiers teams on how to design and implement the prize. The project's overarching purpose is to accelerate the development of solutions to address the fall armyworm threat. The client is the Applied Innovation and Acceleration (AIA) team, and the target audience is stage 2 and 3 innovators. The period of performance is from March 2018 to October 2018. DAI's solution involves providing design support for the Fall Armyworm Tech Prize, which aims to source and scale proven solutions that can help smallholder farmers identify and treat fall armyworm. The prize will be designed and implemented in collaboration with USAID and DAI Digital Frontiers teams.