12/08/2026
“Innovation isn’t measured by how novel an idea is. It’s measured by whether people continue to use it, adapt it, and champion it long after you’ve stepped away.”
In this episode of the Innovation Brief podcast by Metta, Sarayu Agarwal, Global Innovation and Design Advisor at the Aga Khan Foundation, joins co-hosts Gabriella Hernandez and Wil Benton to talk about how human-centred design and community-led innovation are being used to address serious challenges like poverty and inequality.
Sarayu supports innovation across 13 countries, from East Africa to Central and South East Asia. She’s seen what happens when a team of outside experts shows up, hands a community a “solution”, and leaves… it rarely works. What actually lasts, in her experience, comes from working with community members and helping them build their own solutions to the challenges they face.
In this episode, we also explore:
✅ Why “community-led” doesn’t always mean communities always get their first choice - and how her team navigates the tug-of-war between what a community wants, what a government will support, and what a donor will fund
✅ The story behind the open access toolkit her team built to put design methods directly into the hands of local partners and communities, not just specialists
✅ Where she sees AI actually helping in this work and where it falls short
✅ The importance of spending less time behind a screen, more time in the field with people
🎧 Listen to the full conversation with Sarayu Agarwal - link in bio
