IDEO Is Stepping into Non-Profits with IDEO.org

Coming this fall, Linda Tischler elaborates:

The new organization will aim to work in three different ways: partnering with non-profits to design solutions to problems in the areas of health, agriculture, water and sanitation, financial services, and gender equity; using open innovation platforms and social networking to share insights on best practices; and launching a year-long “future leaders” fellowship program that will pair fellows from the developing world with selected IDEO staffers.

Projects themselves will have to meet a rigorous set of standards: they’ll have to be aimed at low income communities across the globe, be funded by a non-profit enterprise, and deliver tangible results —- a real product, service, or system that will directly benefit the community it targets.

I think what I like most about this is that there’s nothing that doesn’t strike me as 100% IDEO about this. Rigorous standards? Tangible results? “Real?” Community? Definitely looking forward to IDEO’s disrupting.