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About

CITRA

Citra is Sri Lanka’s first Social Innovation Lab operationalized as a joint initiative between the Prime Minister’s Office and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), in Sri Lanka. It uses human-centred design and foresight and innovation tools to prototype and test development solutions to ensure they are agile and holistic before nation-wide implementation. Citra facilitates conducive environments to approach problems from different perspectives and delivers comprehensive and sustainable development solutions.

“We spend a lot time designing the bridge,
but not enough time thinking about the people who are crossing it.”

– Dr. Prabhjot Singh

“We spend a lot time designing the bridge,
but not enough time thinking about the people who are crossing it.”

– Dr. Prabhjot Singh

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Our

Process

We follow a flexible 7 step innovation process to develop solutions that are user-tested and fit for purpose.

Identification

System Thinking

Engagement

Design

Testing

Handover

Evaluation

Identification

The team takes on challenges on a case-by-case basis with consideration to issues that will have a positive and sustainable impact on the people of Sri Lanka. Challenges may be identified in two ways: (1) Issues can be presented to us by a partner from the government, development community or private sector, after which the team will work closely with relevant stakeholders to accurately frame the issue; or (2) The team can directly source a problem to work on based on an assessment of its potential for positive impact.

System Thinking

Systems thinking is the process of understanding how the various components that make up a system influence one another within a whole, under the fundamental assumption that everything is interconnected, and that causality is often not linear, but dynamic. During the systems thinking phase, the team works together to map out and unpack current processes and influencers, and analyse the positive, negative and neutral influences of each component within a process, and how it affects the overall challenge.

Engagement

During the engagement phase, the team gathers insights from all relevant stakeholders, with a special focus on the users and grassroot-level officials delivering services, to identify roadblocks and bottlenecks within a process or institution. If appropriate, the team would conduct a design thinking workshop with relevant stakeholders at this stage to ideate and co-design solutions together with relevant partners.

Design

With the insights gathered from previous phases, and in close collaboration with relevant stakeholders, including government partners and end users, the team will work together to design a solution that effectively responds to the identified issues. Once a near-final iteration of the design is complete, a prototype will be developed for testing.

Testing

The prototype of the designed solution will be tested with a sample group of the intended audience to gauge the impact of the proposed solution and identify any usability issues. The team will work together to resolve any issues identified during the testing phase and re-test accordingly, going into a ‘Citra Loop’ until the team and implementing partner are satisfied that the solution is fit-for-purpose.

Handover

Once cleared, the solution will be handed over to a pre-identified organisation for implementation, with support from Citra, to ensure a smooth and effective implementation of the solution.

Impact Evaluation

After the solution has been deployed for a while (determined on a case-by-case basis), the team will revisit and conduct an impact evaluation of the solution to ensure it is effectively addressing the issues and to evaluate any unintended implications of the solution.


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