Technology-enabled organization designs for tackling the grand challenges: the case of Giga

This Point of View article discusses how technology enables new maverick organization designs for tackling the grand challenges. Organizations with maverick designs, those that deviate from the norm, are disrupting the status quo, but the longevity of these types of designs is often limited. This is particularly problematic when organizations aim to address grand challenges, as these require long-term vision and continuous collaboration. The grand challenges context requires an evolving ecosystem of stakeholders to work together creating a meta-organization. In this article, we introduce the case of Giga, a maverick organization design formed out of two United Nations organizations, that aims to connect all schools in the world to the internet. Giga uses technology to enable a new way of working and collaborating across sectors to create revolutionary pathways for scaling school connectivity. We draw multiple learnings from this distinctive case, illustrating how novel organizing forms enabled by technology can effectively navigate the design dilemmas that often confound organizations: bridging the gap between bureaucracy and new venture; balancing control and orchestration; and harmonizing technology with human principles. The case demonstrates the effectiveness of technology-enabled organization designs and their potential to increase the longevity of maverick approaches by showcasing how a technology-based thematic can be used as an evolving guiding principle; how an open-source approach can aid orchestration and build a meta-organization; and how technology can serve as a humanizing principle to result in a lasting narrative.