It is becoming obvious that young scientists and community activists are taking the power out of the hands of big, multilateral institutions, or even their own governments, and placing it in the palm of their own hands. Hear case studies and best practices from the U.N., humanitarian agencies, and environmental groups about how climate data influences the placement of refugee camps, how environmental crews triangulate cleanup efforts based on community feedback of data, and how NASA and satellite data is combating climate change at the grassroots/local level. No longer are academics in charge of data and knowledge—talented and committed amateurs are collecting it, sharing it, and, increasingly, interpreting it. They would say Earth doesn’t have 10 years to wait for a U.N. report—they’re taking back knowledge through freeware and publicly accessible data.

One of the core activities of a global pharma/biotech company is submitting a global dossier to health authorities in order to provide access to innovative medications to patients around the world. This process is complex, global in nature; has technical, process, people, and system components; and requires cross-functional expert teams to create novel solutions to unexpected challenges along the 18-month pathway to health authority approval after a 10-year R & D journey. While each global team and its specific submission path are unique in nature, a team’s ability to capitalize on implicit know-how is critical to success, quality, and sustainability of the team’s way of working. This talk describes the ongoing journey of institutionalizing the body of knowledge generated by all cross-functional teams on their journey to providing breakthrough medication to patients so that organizational learning can enable a faster, more sustainable and high-quality delivery of novel drugs to patients around the world.

Our speakers present a practical, approachable means of embedding KM principles and techniques along the project lifecycle. Specific examples and tips are discussed to help boost project management skills and embed KM practices throughout the organization by targeting initiatives and areas that may already be receiving committed budget, attention, and resources. In addition, a value proposition for information professionals working in an embedded or hybrid role is considered. Also hear how PATH, a Seattle-based global health nonprofit organization, approached aligning project management activities within a KM and capacity framework. The outcome of this activity created a culture of next-level knowledge- sharing at the project and program level. PATH’s Project Lifecycle, an enterprise KM initiative focusing on program activities, embedded project management, KM, and records management into standardized processes learned from successful projects. Get PATH’s methodology and hear about the challenges and successes of enterprise KM projects.