3. What Led infoDev to Develop this Toolkit?

Tech hub numbers are burgeoning in developing countries, helping information and communication technology (ICT) developers and entrepreneurs to network, innovate, and start businesses.Set foot into a top-tier hub and you will be struck by the buzz and excitement that have infused local entrepreneurial communities within just a few years.

InfoDev was at the forefront of the movement when, in 2011, it launched two different kinds of tech hubs to enable entrepreneurship in local mobile application and software markets: mobile application labs (mLabs) and mobile social networking hubs (mHubs). mLabs and mHubs were pilot mobile innovation support programs. The immediate goal was to help info Devlearn from experimentation how the innovation pioneer gap could be bridged through tech hubs. InfoDev has since made great strides learning lessons, making evaluations and publishing knowledge products. Each mLab and mHub operated on different business models tailored to the needs of local markets, which increased the number of real-world experiments that infoDev could learn from.

Box 1: mLabs and mHubs as Local Nodes of the Digital Entrepreneurship Program’s Global Network

mLabs are specialized mobile business incubation and acceleration facilities, offering physical work spaces, mentoring and coaching, devices for app testing, training, and start-up competitions.

mHubs build mobile tech communities by convening a variety of stakeholder groups at informal gatherings, peer-learning sessions, conferences, and ideation and prototyping competitions.

InfoDevis motivated by a grassroots-oriented entrepreneurship support agenda. infoDev decided that the best way to stimulate technology innovation in developing countries is by giving operational independence to in-country grantees that implement mLabs and mHubs, and leave most of the implementation decision making to local partners.

At the same time, infoDev provides technical assistance to mLabs and mHubs, leveraging its expertise, global partnership network, and unique positioning inside the World Bank for the grantees' benefit. So far, infoDevhas helped mLab and mHub managers network at global conferences and published extensive evaluations and knowledge products on mobile innovation. infoDev found this knowledge to be relevant for stakeholders far beyond its network, and therefore makes products like this toolkit available to the public.

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But the diversity of models is also a challenge when measuring the success of mLabs and mHubs consistently and continuously. It was difficult standardizing comprehensive measurements of mLabs' and mHubs' performance and effects. mLabs and mHubs them selves struggle to reliably track success indicators over time. This problem is enhanced by the dynamic and complex nature of innovation environments that mLabs and mHubs work in. Altogether, this led infoDev to develop a measurement and analysis approach to codify its improved understanding of how to capture mLabs' and mHubs' evolving effects. It also became clear that performance and effect measurements had to be designed to be directly useful for mLabs and mHubs themselves. infoDev's grantees turn high-level concepts into on the groundreality. This also means that they have the greatest insights into strengths and weaknesses of the tech hubs, and the most direct access to qualitative and quantitative performance data.

This Business Analytics Toolkit is thus an outcome of infoDev's own learning. It codifies what the Digital Entrepreneurship Program has learnt about performance measurement and business analytics, turning these lessons into a practical guide for designers and implementers of tech hubs such as mLabs and mHubs.