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Radical renewal of responsibility

In June 1918, seven sepoys were admitted for non-malarial fever in Bombay. Between 1918-1920, the infamous Spanish flu killed an estimated 18 million Indians, the most across all countries. The 1918 flu exposed the fragile healthcare system of India. It highlighted the lack of urgency and empathy in the system’s response. Soon after, the Government admitted to its inability to cope with the crisis and turned to the public for support.

The 1918 pandemic influenced two major social movements in India:

1. Freedom Movement: The trauma added fuel to the smouldering call for independence. Mahatma Gandhi, who also suffered the flu, stressed on self-reliance. He led the citizens to assume personal responsibility and demand for urgent reforms.
2. Community Participation: Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and social reformers responded with public awareness campaigns, local leaders set up community hospitals and dispensaries, several donated funds, and became part of the recovery.

A hundred years later, our fragilities were exposed again when COVID magnified the cracks in education, healthcare, livelihoods and political systems. Over time, lessons from the pandemic seeped into elections held in 70+ countries, advocacy for previously ignored aspects of healthcare such as disability and long-term health outcomes, and the rising importance of community-led action.

Today, though our lives are meshed with deep interconnected networks, more powerful than the ports and harbours of 1918, decades of technological and economic progress is yet to respond to those who need it the most. 

Our current challenges have three notable characteristics. They are large. They are unpredictable. They mutate. In short, they are exponential. Today, 149 million children under 5 are estimated to be stunted; global childhood immunisation levels have stalled; nearly 703 million people lack access to water; almost 700 million people live in extreme poverty. We need to address these challenges with befitting, urgent and coordinated responses by all sectors of our society, together. The need of the hour is to address these exponential challenges with exponential change.

How do we reimagine how to leverage our advancements to come together and solve these challenges for the most vulnerable? How do we renew our individual and collective responsibilities?

It would be a grave mistake if we let the memory of COVID go by without learning from the disruption and begin new movements. It would be unfair to not introspect, realise our fragility and renew our responsibility towards building the tomorrow we desire. Peter Drucker once said, “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” While many may predict the future, our hope lies in those who are creating a better version.

A hundred years after the Spanish Flu, it is time to build beyond the foundations of freedom and participation. Can we think about how to fuel two social movements across all societies?

1. Individual Agency: Through the lockdowns in COVID and ongoing disruptions, billions of individuals, in their local communities, exerted free will to support each other. How can we strengthen this muscle for self-directed responsibility and local action?
2. Societal Interaction: Increasingly, Governments, CSOs and Businesses are coming together to solve tough problems and rekindle hope. How do we grow such multi-sided interactions? How can we leverage technology advances to make this sustainable?

Audacious endeavours to restore individual agency and sustain societal interactions require three catalysts to come together. First, we need to play the role of System Orchestrators who convene, inspire, align and lead from behind. Second, we need to engage as patient funders who contribute risk capital, engage with reimagination and support uncharted pathways. Third, we need to step-up as visionary builders who can develop technologies that connect and enable large networks of change leaders across government, civil society and business.

The Centre for Exponential Change brings these System Orchestrators, funders and builders together to enable exponential change.