Case Study: Doctors Without Borders achieves global crowdsourcing of ideas and scales life-saving solutions with IdeaScale

Connecting a Global Movement Through Innovation

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is a global medical relief organization operating in roughly 72 countries with 33 national offices. To better capture the ideas of its diverse, distributed workforce and tackle operational challenges—from emergency response to sustainability—MSF launched an innovation unit and created a member-driven platform, but initial tools failed to generate strong interaction or convert ideas into scalable solutions.

MSF replaced that system with “Think Up” on IdeaScale: targeted campaigns, global moderators, interdisciplinary teams, and events that shepherd ideas from submission through review, pilot and scale decisions. The program has produced practical tools—an educational game adapted rapidly for COVID (over 1 million social clicks), MSFeCARE clinical decision support, a telehealth system for MDR‑TB adherence—and continues to foster cross‑team collaboration and ongoing initiatives like low‑resource EMRs and AI assistance for frontline staff.

Doctors Without Borders

Abiy Tamrat

Medical Technologies Coordinator and Innovation Lead