We apply a lot of social innovations and social technologies, but they are not even the same attention in policymakers’ cycles as industrial innovations and like industrial applications of the latest patents, mostly because the social norms are not patentable, otherwise they do not become norms, but nevertheless they are essential in providing more empowering and more assistive ways of doing things. For example – I will use one very concrete example. Our contact tracing system, the 1922 SMS, is not technologically superior. It is not a cutting-edge design. It is certainly not powered by blockchain or artificial intelligence or 5G or whatever. It is just SMS which is 2G, the last I checked, but it has the advantage that everyone understands how SMS works and everyone understands how QR code works. We even print the content of the QR code, the 15 digits, on the same poster, so if your camera breaks, you can still manual text the 15 digits which is a random code because everyone can get one for themselves to verify that to your local telecom operator as a post-it note, and we make it very clear that the quarter billion or so SMSs sent, only around 11 million have been collected by the contact tracers, and with mutual accountability, you can still use an SMS and a one-time PIN to get the history of the past 28 days of which municipalities and which contact tracer got your SMS.

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