Entrepreneur ME 08.2019

August 2019 / ENTREPRENEUR.COM / 75

OFFICIALLY ESTABLISHED IN

2018, THE VANCOUVER-BASED

SWAE AIMS TO CREATE MORE

INTELLIGENT, MERITOCRATIC,

AND HIGHER QUALITY

DECISIONS IN ORGANIZATIONS

BY DISRUPTING THE OVERLY

CENTRALIZED, TOP-DOWN

AND OUTDATED HIERARCHICAL

PROCESS OF DECISION-

MAKING.

Cove Beach in Dubai

POWERING STRATEGY | SWAE AIMS TO UPGRADE THE DECISION-MAKING PROCESS

"I REGULARLY WITNESSED SEVERAL

OCCASIONS WHERE POORLY DESIGNED,

NON-MERITOCRATIC, AND POLITICALLY

MOTIVATED DECISION-MAKING PROCESSES

LED TO POOR DECISION QUALITY, AND

POOR ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE."

The Swae team

Swae is a sector and organ -
ization-agnostic platform
that combines anonymity
with artificial and collective
intelligence, and guides users
through a methodical discov -
ery process to help articulate
their solution into a problem.
In doing that, the platform
provides conditional ano-
nymity, allowing users to feel
comfortable expressing uncon -
ventional ideas, and revealing
their identity only if their idea
is selected. Natural-language
understanding (NLU) and
natural-language processing
(NLP) algorithms help improve
the quality of the initial solu -
tion, functioning as a proposal
editor to strengthen eective -
ness. All proposals can be
improved through distributed
crowd input and deliberation,
as well as be upvoted/down -
voted to symbolize political
support in order to garner the

attention of decision-makers.

The most engaged proposals

automatically escalate up-

wards to a feasibility decision

round. This process creates

bottom-up solutions that are

well-written, researched, and

deliberated.

The actual process of

developing Swae started in

2016 when Zanganehpour

was accepted to Singularity

University’s Global Solutions

Program, and he began working

on the conceptual validation of

the idea. “While there, learn -

ing about future exponential

technologies, and the impact

on our social and business

institutions, my initial hypoth -

eses were validated that most

decision-making processes

are outdated, and unfit for

our times,” he says. “Today’s

most consequential institu-

tions (governments, corpora-

tions, city councils) operate

through hierarchies, interpret

stakeholders’ preferences

through periodic elections and

consultations, and make deci-

sions leveraging proportional

representation, precluding

regular, meaningful, and

substantive participation of

stakeholders into the process.

However, our ever-advancing

communication technologies

are challenging old organi -

zational structures, enabling

direct instantaneous exchange,

the creation of distributed

organization and new business

models, and the aggregation

of distributed intelligence,

eciently. Given these pos -

sibilities, people expect more

transparency and inclusion in

decisions that have a big im -

pact on their lives. Institutions

and organizations that fail to

update their decision-making

processes will be le behind.”

The following year, Zan -

ganehpour began working

full-time on the concept,

bootstrapping the develop -

ment with personal savings.

In June 2018, the Swae team

was awarded a US$600,000

non-dilutive grant by the

Global Challenges Founda -

tion, winning their inaugural

2018 global New Shape Prize

competition for Swae’s model,

technology, approach and vi -

sion for governance and 21st

century decision-making. The

funds were used to expand

the team (currently oscil -

lating between six and nine

people), build the first version

of the Swae web app, test it in

organizational settings in order

to experiment with bottom-up

ideation and decision-making,

and also gain commercial and

operational validation. Since

then, Swae has proven to be

a SaaS platform that is highly

customizable to the needs of

any organization, and as such

has already garnered signifi -

cant interest, listing MSF/Doc -

tors without Borders, Bosch,

the government of Chile, and

the city of Juarez, Mexico,

among its clients.

In early 2018, the Swae

team participated in NYU Abu

Dhabi’s Venture Launchpad

program, an AI and robotics fo -

cused sprint accelerator, which

supported them with access to

market and pilot opportunities

with state-owned corpora -

tions in the UAE. “Thanks to

startAD, it was during this

program where we met the

innovation team at Etihad

Airways, and through a com -

petitive process with several

rounds of pitching, follow-up

meetings, legal and technical

due diligence, and compli -

ance, their team helped curate

and land the opportunity to

deploy the platform across

the organization to support

internal intrapreneurship and

innovation management,” says

Zanganehpour. >>>