Shift the Power

We are one of many. Our Shift-the-Power efforts are part of a larger movement.

Systems change is about tackling the root causes of unjust systems. We founded WeRobotics to counter the foreign-first, top-down, and techno-centric approach that pervades the social good sector, from aid and development to health and the environment. As others have said before us, the goal of the social good sector must be to end need, not just meet need. This means, for example, that international organizations (including small ones like WeRobotics) must have a transition plan that is “centered around devolving power, money and voice to local organizations.” On this page, we share our strategies and progress towards shifting our own power as well as our contribution to systems change towards a more equal, diverse and inclusive power balance in the international aid and development sectors.

Integrated Strategy

The combination of the Inclusive Leadership, Inclusive Networks and the Inclusive Power strategies will serve as our concrete and measurable contribution to overall systems change. As each of these interconnected strategies begin to bear fruit, we will document our collective learnings in the form of the Power Shift Canvas and Handbook. The Canvas and accompanying Handbook will summarize our experiences and learnings (both success and failures) and provide a step-by-step hands-on guide openly available for other organizations. By documenting our systems change approach in a digestible, easy-to-follow format based on lived experience, we want to pave the way for a high number of other international organizations to shift their power with a set of readily applicable and tested solutions.

Inclusive Leadership

WeRobotics has served as the primary enabler of the Flying Labs Network since its co-creation in 2015 with one clear intent at every phase of our journey: prototyping, proofing and documenting a new path of proximate leadership that is locally-owned from its very inception and can be scaled in multiple ways, including through the model it allows to create. The successful base created over the past 5 years is now ready for the next chapter: take our proximate leadership model one step further by transitioning organizational leadership. The transition also includes the creation of additional legal entity/entities for the Network to grow, expand, thrive and be sustainable. 

Inclusive Networks

The Flying Labs Network is just one example of an Inclusive Network. Other organizations can also co-create their own Inclusive Network for their localisation strategies and more importantly, to shift their power, by drawing on the inclusive models that have powered the Flying Labs Network for the past 5+ years. Multiple international organizations have already expressed an interest in doing just this.

Inclusive Power

We co-created the Flying Labs Network and the Inclusive Networks model because we want to reduce our “power footprint”. A power footprint is the disproportionate power that Western-based international organizations have gained over local organizations in the social good industries of humanitarian aid, global development and beyond. The Power Pledge calls on executives of Western-based organizations to measure and reduce their power footprint.