Photo credit: myAgro

The current financial model of banks cannot address what development experts call the “triple whammy” of poor peoples’ lives – they struggle with low savings, uncertainty of cash flows, and the inability to access formal financial instruments. Small farm holders in the developing world face similar struggles as they often have to purchase seeds and fertilizers in one large payment to improve their harvest. MyAgro, provides an innovative alternative to farmers, eliminating the need for banks and placing financial decision-making in the hands of small farm holders.

MyAgro helps farmers purchase agricultural tools on layaway via an SMS platform and a network of local vendors. Anushka Ratnayake started myAgro in 2011 as a pilot program in Mali and soon expanded it to Senegal. MyAgro’s success can be attributed to their approach of using a mobile phone platform to adapt current pro-poor financial methods to addressing the financing problem in the agricultural sector.

How does myAgro work?
MyAgro works much like someone going to top up their phone for additional talk time at their local store. Participating farmers purchase scratch-off cards (ranging from $.50 to $10) with a unique pin number. This pin number is sent to myAgro and is recorded in their database under the farmer’s profile. An SMS is sent back to the farmer notifying them of how much they have saved towards their goal (to purchase fertilizer, seeds, or agricultural training). Once this amount is reached, the farmer receives the tools or service they have purchased from myAgro.

Why does myAgro’s model work?
MyAgro’s model gives rural farmers access to key financial services including cash-flow management and savings, through this approach:

  1. Reliability
    Without the credit and collateral that banks require when opening a savings account, poor people have responded by forming rotating savings and credit funds (ROSCAs) within their communities. This has been replicated worldwide, helping families manage scarcities. However, this informal tool does not provide the accountability, reliability and privacy that banks would offer. MyAgro builds on the success of ROSCAs, where people save through small incremental amounts over the long-term, but with the security and reliability of a formal mobile platform.
  2. Convenience
    MyAgro clients don’t have to travel long distances to access banks, which is especially useful for rural farmers living in remote areas where bank branches do not exist. MyAgro also increases inclusion by making the system easy to use, especially for those who are illiterate. Getting the basic use out of myAgro only requires the farmer to SMS the numbers located on the card they purchased. In addition, no physical cash is involved. In mobile cash transfer platforms such as the successful M-PESA program, some local vendors run out of cash when a customer wants to conduct a transaction, myAgro only relies on digital transactions – a successful approach within cash-strapped countries.
  3. Flexibility
    By allowing farmers to choose how much to save on a given day, myAgro takes into account the variety of shocks that vulnerable populations experience, such as illness in the family or natural disasters. The mobile platform allows them to use their small-scale savings for large-scale purchases.

In just three years, myAgro has managed to address a debilitating financial problem in farming communities in the developing world by providing a reliable and accessible savings tool and allowing farmers to managing their cash flows on their own terms. I look forward to seeing how myAgro expands its current 6,000 farmer membership while also collaborating with other mobile technology platforms to continue providing information and financial services to the benefit of the poor.

Interested in learning more about other ways mobile phones are empowering people in the developing world? Join us in our upcoming course, Mobile for International Development that begins on May 11.

About author 

Ana Tamargo

Ana Tamargo is a development professional and recent graduate from the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University. She recently received a master’s degree in International Development Studies. During this time, Ana completed TechChange’s “Mobile Phones for International Development” course in order to advance her knowledge in using innovative information and communication technologies to facilitate programming and data collection within the local context. She has worked at international NGOs such as Pact, World Cocoa Foundation, and the Rainforest Alliance and has expertise in program advancement, evaluation and research in the fields of sustainable natural resource management, rural poverty alleviation, and bottom-up development. Ana is eager to continue findings ways to incorporate mobile phone technology in helpingempower and provide services to vulnerable populations.

Photo credit: Lokesh Todi

On Saturday morning, I woke up to numerous messages on whatsapp and facebook from my friends in India asking me if my family was safe. After listening to a voicemail from a Nepali friend based in Boston, I found out about the earthquake that had hit my country. It didn’t take long after I turned on my computer to see how big the devastation was. My heart sank to my stomach and I was in tears as I mindlessly added credit to my Skype account and repeatedly dialed my parent’s mobile number.

After multiple tries, I was able to get in touch with my family. While I cried throughout the entire call, I was reassured that they were all safe. Fortunately, my family survived this terrible tragedy and was able to stay safe in tents in open spaces near their neighborhood during the more than 100 aftershocks. Unfortunately, however, the 7.9 magnitude earthquake that struck Nepal has swallowed up whole neighborhoods, villages and along with it thousands of people. The death toll is rising as we speak and is estimated to reach around 10,000.

Being this far away from Nepal, I feel very helpless. But technology has allowed me to stay connected with my family and other Nepali communities helping respond to the disaster:

Free Calls to Nepal
Shortly after the earthquake, many phone companies and messaging apps started providing free calls to Nepal. Viber, Skype, and Google Voice are allowing free calls to mobile and landlines in Nepal along with many other phone companies like AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and others. This may seem like a small gesture but for a Nepali living abroad, it is a huge relief to be able to constantly contact family members and people requesting and responding to the crisis during this tragic time.

Mapping
Numerous mapping communities have deployed their teams online to map the crisis in Nepal so that the pleas for help can be detected and resources delivered.

Mapping of damages in Nepal
Map of Damages in Nepal from the earthquake created by SBTF on MicroMappers

I have joined two Atlas Corps Fellows, Medha Sharma, and Luther Jeke to team up with Standby Task Force to help map the affected communities in Nepal by using MicroMappers. Medha and I have reached out to our Nepali networks in and outside of Nepal to help advise the SBTF team by relaying information about ongoing requests for help or offers of assistance. We are also helping translate Nepali tweets, facebook updates, and news articles so that they can be mapped. We have recruited more than 100 Nepali expats and residents to help us with this effort.

Two days ago, I was able to call Dr. Anil Shrestha in Bir Hospital to notify him that we saw his request for a list of medical supplies through Facebook and found a donor willing to provide them. We have connected the two parties and are awaiting confirmation from Dr. Shrestha that he has received the supplies from the Kathmandu airport. You can read about the Standby Task Force’s other small successes here. If you would like to join the SBTF team or have experience living in Nepal and know the community, please email me at samita@techchange.org to join this effort.

Kathmandu Living Labs is leading the mapping efforts on the group in Nepal, but you can also join the mapping effort for Nepal relief with Maptime DC, Tomnod, or Humanitarian OpenStreetMap.

Online Fundraisers
Many organizations and individuals have started fundraisers online to allow the global community to help in Nepal’s recovery.

Two of the alumni from my high school have started a fundraiser on Indiegogo that will direct the funds to local NGOs that may not have connections outside of Nepal to raise a lot of money.

Facebook has launched a campaign to match donations of up to $2 million to the efforts in Nepal. Phone companies have made it easy to donate to the earthquake relief in Nepal through your mobile phones:

  • AT&T customers, text “NEPAL” to 864233 to make a $10 donation to UNICEF
  • T-Mobile customers, text NEPAL to 20222 to donate $10 to Save the Children
  • Verizon customers, text “REDCROSS” to 9999 to donate $10 to The Red Cross

Drones
Unmanned aerial vehicles or drones, are playing an important role in the response to the earthquake in Nepal too. Because of a shortage of manned helicopters, the effects of the earthquakes in the most rural parts of Nepal are still unknown, and this is where drones will step in, allowing manned helicopters to continue with rescue missions.

Here is a drone footage of Kathmandu after the earthquake taken by Kishor Rana’s drone.

UAViators founder Patrick Meier said that if you have a drone and want to help, get in touch with the Humanitarian UAV Network and read the Network’s Code of Conduct to help with this effort.

This is the worst earthquake to hit Nepal in 80 years, and the many pictures online show the devastating effect it had on my country. The damages are worst in the areas that have not yet been reached by media or rescue teams. The consequences of this tragedy will affect my country long after the media turns its attention away and we need all the help to rebuild.

If you are a mapper or own a drone, please volunteer your time and skills and join one of the online communities. You can also donate online. You don’t have to go to Nepal to help, in fact, please don’t, unless you are a trained professional for crisis situations. You can do your part to help Nepal with the help of ICTs from wherever you are.

If you are interested in learning how social media and technology is helping in disaster response, join us in our upcoming course on Technology for Disaster Response that begins on June 22.

By Samita Thapa and Sara Pitcairn

The possibilities for 3D printing are endless. While this may scare some of us, the potential for innovation is exactly what excites us here at TechChange! Imagine being able to quickly manufacture reconstruction materials for disaster response, 3D print homes in refugee camps, or 3D print a human heart to save a life.

But this cutting-edge innovation can also seem difficult to wrap your head around. How does it work? How do you begin? Here is an example of how an idea can become a product through 3D printing:

Dr. Boris Paskhover at the Yale School of Medicine saw a need for a portable transnasal laryngoscope with image and video capture capabilities. A transnasal laryngoscope is a handheld medical device that allows Ear, Nose, and Throat (ENT) physicians to examine a patient’s voice box and diagnose and treat ENT disorders (such as cancer of the throat or thyroid). But the equipment that captures images and videos from a laryngoscope, an endoscopic tower, is expensive and difficult to transport, making it infeasible for use outside of a hospital setting.

Laryngoscope and Endoscopic Tower

Imagine
Dr. Paskhover imagined an easier way to visualize the results of a laryngoscope examination. By using his Phone camera and an app called Luma to produce higher quality video and pictures, he could see the results anywhere. To start with, he created a makeshift attachment to secure a laryngoscope to his iPhone case. But ideally, he imagined a more robust solution for his work in rural settings outside the U.S.

Dr. Paskhover's make-shift  attachment for his iPhone 4 case

Dr. Paskhover’s make-shift attachment for his iPhone 4 case

Design
He worked with Sara Pitcairn, TechChange’s Co-Director of Instructional Design, during her senior year at Yale University to bring his idea to life. Through an iterative, human-centered design process, Sara modeled, prototyped and 3D printed an iPhone case with an interface aligning the eyepiece of a laryngoscope with an iPhone camera. The iphone case allowed Dr. Paskhover to capture high-quality photos and videos of his exams with patients without the need for an endoscopic tower.

Designing and testing the 3D printed iPhone case

3D Print

See the 3D printed iPhone case in action:

This is one of many examples of how 3D printing is helping fill gaps that exist in healthcare. There are countless applications in other fields, and especially in disaster response and international development.

Do you have other examples of how 3D printing is being used in your communities? Share them with us in the comments section or tweet at us @TechChange

If you are are interested in learning more about the potential 3D printing offers in your field, join Sara in our upcoming course on 3D Printing for Social Good. We will look at applications of 3D printing in a variety of contexts, along with the challenges and opportunities as the field continues to advance. After the four weeks of the course, you will have a solid understanding of 3D printing so that you can see its potential for your field of practice. We will look at case studies and examples of where 3D printing is being used today and will help you find a maker community, as well as connect you with experts using 3D printing for social good.

The course begins on May 4, we hope you can join us!

What does humanitarian response look like today? With so much information available, how can we use big data effectively for humanitarian efforts?

Joins us on May 5 for a free webinar with Patrick Meier to chat about his new book, “Digital Humanitarians: How Big Data is Changing Humanitarian Response.” Join the conversation and hear Patrick’s insights on his latest book.

May 5, 2015 at 10:00 – 11:00 am EST

Patrick Meier

Patrick is an internationally recognized thought-leader on humanitarian technology and innovation. He directs QCRI’s Social Innovation Program where he develops “Next Generation Humanitarian Technologies” in partnership with international humanitarian organizations. His new book “Digital Humanitarians” has already been endorsed by Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Oxford, UN, World Bank and the Red Cross.

Patrick also founded/co-founded CrisisMappers, Digital Humanitarians, MicroMappers, Humanitarian UAV Network and the award-winning Standby Task Force. He has a PhD from The Fletcher School, Pre-Doc from Stanford and an MA from Columbia. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, BBC, Forbes, Times, Wired and Mashable. Patrick’s influential blog iRevolutions has received over 1.5 million hits. He tweets at @patrickmeier.

Watch Patrick’s TEDx Talk: Changing The World, One Map At a Time.

We hope you will join the conversation on May 5. Sign up now!

By Norman Shamas and Samita Thapa

In a previous post, we wrote about why global development practitioners need to be data skeptics. One of the many reasons that we need to be skeptical about the data we are collecting is the biases that are incorporated in the data. The data bias is especially significant when it comes to gender data. Women and groups that don’t identify with binary genders are largely missing or misrepresented in global development data.

Data is a crucial component of any program or intervention. It justifies the need for a specific program, show its effectiveness, and allows us to improve it through evaluation. But this important information tells us little if more than half of the population is missing or misrepresented, so we need to start looking at data with a gender lens.
data in the program cycle

Data on women raises awareness of women related issues

With 62 million girls not attending school worldwide, the U.S. government was able to justify their “Let Girls Learn” initiative. This initiative was announced in February and is aimed at making education a reality for girls around the world. USAID is one of the agencies involved in the government-wide initiative and have presented their approach with data to support it.

But there is still a problem getting good data on women. GSMA’s 2015 Bridging the Gender Gap Report highlights two systemic barriers to mobile ownership and usage for women:

  1. lack of disaggregated data and
  2. lack of focus on women as a market.

However, we need better gender data for more than just the economy. Oxfam conducted a household survey on the gendered effects of the December 26, 2004 tsunami that hit several Asian countries. Women were found to be more severely affected than men. Despite the need for better gender data in the field, it is not always happening. Lack of data on women leads to lack of awareness of issues related to women and consequently, lack of programs designed to tackle those issues.

Survey design can promote non-binary gender inclusion

The problem of gender and data bias gets even more complex when we talk about non-binary genders. Twitter, for example, determines its users’ gender based on data it analyzes from tweets. There are only two gender options: male and female, and users cannot choose to opt out from automatic gender assignment or manually choose their gender. By the simple fact that Twitter is using a gender binary of male/female, individuals who do not identify with a binary (e.g., transgender individuals) or have anatomically mixed sexual characteristics (i.e., intersex individuals) are ignored in the data.

It is important to ask questions about gender on a survey to improve interventions. Instead of restricting gender to a binary, a third option to opt-out or define oneself as ‘other’ can be instituted. When appropriate, additional questions can be used to determine whether practice and self-identification fit into pre-defined categories.

Data must represent local gender categories

It is also important to localize the survey where gender categories and practices may vary. India acts as a good case study for the difficulties in language for demographic purposes. India initially provided three gender options: male, female, and eunuch on its passport forms. However, these three categories marginalized other transgender populations, so in 2014 Indian courts changed the category of ‘eunuch’ to ‘other’ on the election ballots. This simple change in language not only promotes the human rights of India’s non-binary gender individuals, but also provides better data on its non-binary gender communities.

The hijra are a transgender community that has existed in South Asia for over 4,000 years. Along with a few ‘Western’ countries, at least four South Asian countries — Nepal, India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh — recognize a third gender in some legal capacity.

Global development is moving forward with programming for non-binary gender communities. The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency put out an action plan for working with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues from 2007-2009. Last year USAID announced its LGBT Vision for Action, a general roadmap of how the donor would support non-binary gender communities. As programming for non-binary gender communities continues and increases, we need to think closely about the language we use and how we collect data on gender to create effective, data-driven interventions.

With development becoming more data driven, the data we collect and the biases we include in the data are having a larger impact. Technology can make these biases more entrenched through features like data validation. Even though data validation is important for survey collection–it limits responses to particular choices or data types (e.g., phone numbers)–it also restricts options based on the choices of the survey creator and can marginalize groups whose identities are not included or allowed as a valid option. Going forward, we need to be careful we are not unintentionally marginalizing other groups or genders with the data we collect.

Interested in engaging in similar conversations around data and tech in M&E? Join us and more than 90 other international development practitioners in our upcoming course on Technology for Monitoring and Evaluation.

The most recent issue of “Building Peace,” a publication of the Alliance for Peacebuilding, on #PeaceTech doesn’t dwell on “what” is being built in technology for peace, but rather examining “how” the peacetech space is operating. And that’s a good thing. The authors in this issue approach the subject as a good engineer should: Disassemble, understand its components, make adjustments, and reassemble. The messy poking about that comes with such new territory is an indication of progress, not confusion.

“Peace technology” is perhaps best described in this issue “a fundamentally mediating technology–it acts as an intervening agent, augmenting our ability to engage positively with others” (p.14). The authors from the Stanford Peace Innovation Lab propose four subcomponents working in unison: Sensors, communications, computation, and actuators. Once unique and expensive, the average smartphone contains several of each of these subcomponents, thus speeding the process between a user observing harmful human engagement and coordinating an appropriate response.

But the unequal distribution of peacetech creates new challenges. Ann Mei Chang, the executive director of the Global Development Lab at USAID writes that: “Today, only 40 percent of the world’s population is online….those who do not have Internet access are disproportionately poor, rural, older, and female.” (27). The importance of these “missing voices” is highlighted by authors such as such as Olanike Olugboji in Nigeria with WISE, who has engaged over 3,000 women in activities including digital empowerment; as well as by Lawrence Oduma in addressing youth employment in rural Zimbabwe with the AFSC.

The infrastructure underpinning this rapid expansion is creating broader opportunities as well. In Afghanistan, Jes Kaliebe Petersen of Paywast describes how the rapid growth of phone subscribers and Internet users has created a “burgeoning tech ecosystem of software developers, startups, community organizations, and government support.” (25) These expanding networks are challenging existing hierarchies, according to Margot Wallström, where “the power of actors to effect change increasingly depends on the number of connections they have rather than the name of their institution.” (35)

But the information from these networks may be having an even greater effect outside of conflict zones. Wallström points out how “technology is now making information flow from places that previously were blank spots on the mental map of policymakers. We can no longer say ‘we did not know.’” (37) Caroline Donnelan points out that the full extent of casualties attributable to warfare by “remote control” through reliance on drones and private military and security companies (PMSCs) “ is often not factored into the equation, leading to the creation of “an effective recruitment tool for extremists, fueling rather than minimalizing radicalization.” (32) In contrast, Jessie Mooberry describes her experience with the Syria Airlift Project to deliver medicine, water, food, and water purification technology to “diminish the power of those terrorizing innocent populations.” (30)

The enthusiasm for technology solutions becomes more problematic at this point. Despite the good intentions of the authors, the reader cannot help but wonder: Do these actors have any idea what they are doing in a war zone?

Fortunately, the publication provides context as well as case studies. In the earlier definition of peacetech by the Stanford team, the authors call attention to the possibility of harm through omission, commission, or unintended consequence. (15) Ivan Sigal describes just such a case of unintended consequence in the arrest and prosecution of Zone 9, a group of Ethiopian bloggers and journalists dedicated to a more inclusive and democratic country. Sigal describes how the evidence against them (and reason for being charged with criminal intent), “was that they had received training in the use of digital security and encryption tools from the Tactical Technology Collective.” (41)

More caution is necessary when introducing technical solutions, which often come with their own agenda. Charles Martin-Shields [Disclosure: A colleague from USIP and TechChange] calls attention to the fact that “ICT’s are commercial products, and the ways people use them are as much a function of regulatory rules as of personal preferences.” (34) Locally driven approaches, such as those emerging from the burgeoning tech scene in Kenya, may have better results. Jen Welch continues this theme by describing successful digital games for peace, including one developed in Kenya as a response to election violence. (44)

The importance of context and regulatory environments applies to the Internet itself. Paul Mitchell and M-H. Carolyn Nguyen who claim that “while messy and chaotic–like democracy itself–the Internet’s multi-stakeholder governance model has resulted in astonishing achievements globally.” (40) Embracing this multi-stakeholder approach is central to Sheldon Himelfarb’s initiative behind the PeaceTech Lab, where “technologists and peacebuilders can work shoulder to shoulder every day” (13) [Disclosure: Himelfarb is a former colleague from USIP]. In doing so, it nicely ties together the need to bridge online possibilities with real-world human connections.

The articles in this issue that emphasized these real-world human connections were welcome additions. Soha Frem of the Common Space Initiative (CSI) describes the importance of creating a space for informal, yet structured, dialogue between Lebanon’s primary stakeholders.” (18) By thinking about office space, table design, and photographs in just one room, the hope is to begin to undo the segregation of Lebanon’s civil war, which is a catalyst for greater conflict. Miguel Lago and Courtney Crumpler of Meu Rio address global problems of climate change, energy usage, and poverty, by first focusing on the urban problems in Rio de Janeiro. It’s this drive towards coordinating offline action through such “Summer of Sanitation” initiatives, that helps citizens who lack human security find that  “working together for change can be uplifting and empowering.” (22)

In these respects, it becomes clear that peacetech is not about technology or peace at all, but rather about empowerment of local actors to create a better world for themselves peacefully. Perhaps my favorite example from my work with TechChange came from an interview with Prashan De Visser, the President and Founder of Global Unites. [Disclosure: I’m now on the Executive Board for the organization]. During a webinar for our course with the IREX exchange students with Global UGRAD-Pakistan, Prashan recounted his efforts with social media, fundraising from international donors, messaging for earned media, and connecting youth leaders in Sri Lanka with a global community.

I asked him how these tech tools helped him with helping post-war counter-radicalization efforts. His response was simple:

“The technology just helps us create a space to make real progress for reconciliation. it’s just a tool , an important one, but youth leaders on the ground intercepting youth from extremist voices is where the real effort is at. The difference at the end of the day is our commitment to go beyond social media and be in the lives of these youth, who are desperately in need of an alternate voice to radicalziation. Our online presence then becomes an extended expression of our work and commitment to broader community.”

 

Image Source: Global Forest Watch

Open data has been a popular topic in international development recently, but what about the evaluation of open data programs? We are excited to welcome Dow Maneerattana from World Resources Institute (WRI) to our upcoming Tech for M&E online course to talk about evaluations of open data movements. Before her guest expert session next week in our course, we asked her for a little sneak peek:

What does World Resources Institute do?

World Resources Institute is a global research organization that turns big ideas into action! We focus on six critical issues at the nexus of environment and development: food, forest, water, climate, energy, and cities and transport.

What is your role at WRI?

I work on one of the critical issues of our time: deforestation. We have very big ideas about how to reduce deforestation, and I have a unique opportunity to build monitoring and evaluation (M&E) processes and systems from the ground up to ensure that we are capturing results and impact, and adapt our strategy and approach over time. I am involved with WRI’s M&E advocacy, trainings on basic functions of M&E at all stages of a project, and finding strategic opportunities to learn from our work through evaluations.

What will you be speaking about in the course?

I’m excited to share my passion for evaluations (and geek out) with the course participants. I will talk about emerging trends and impacts of open data movements in developing countries and discuss our initiative evaluation design, which includes Global Forest Watch, an interactive forest monitoring and alert system and open data portal. Global Forest Watch leverages remote sensing, big data and algorithms to produce the timeliest and most precise information about the status of forest, including near real time suspected locations of recent tree cover loss.

What excites you the most about Tech for M&E?

I am most excited about the opportunity to shift the dialogue on monitoring and evaluation, which often gets a bad reputation for how it is full of confusing terminology or synonymous with donor requirements. Once you move past the superficial fear, monitoring and evaluation tools and processes are common sense solutions; and when they are coupled with appropriate technology can create one powerful, time-saving machine. It’s been fascinating to see many ways smart techies create and apply tech for M&E solutions for international development. For me, I enjoy connecting the dots and putting powerful tools in the hands of people with the least power.

We are looking forward to Dow’s session in our Tech for M&E online course that begins on Monday, April 20. Want to engage in conversations about the use of tech in M&E with guest experts like Dow? Join us in our upcoming online course on Technology for Monitoring and Evaluation.

About Dow

Dow Profile

Dow is a monitoring and evaluation manager at the World Resources Institute, a research organization that works on issues at the intersection of environment and development. She loves to empower teams to systematically capture success stories as well as learn from evaluations and often draws from her international experience as a community organizer and human and labor rights activist. Dow has worked on impact and performance evaluations of governance projects at the National Democratic Institute and on rule of law, human and labor rights advocacy, and livelihoods projects with Pact and Human Rights and Development Foundation. In her free time, you can find her playing tennis, glamping/camping, or mentoring an 8th grader through Asian American Lead.

Wondered who designs and teaches our online courses? You met one of our course facilitators Kendra Keith in a previous post, and today we introduce you to Norman Shamas.

As TechChange’s Director of Curriculum and Pedagogy, Norman brings his passion for education to designing online courses. Norman facilitates our popular online course on Technology for Monitoring and Evaluation and will be co-facilitating our newest course on Technology for Data Visualization this summer. He also facilitated our previous Mapping for International Development course and our customized course on Technology for International Development for IREX.

Norman has quickly become a thought leader in the field of technology for social good. He was recently invited to be part of the review committee for the Development Impact Lab’s Spring Innovate Grant. Additionally, he is also helping lead important conversations on gender and digital security and bringing important techniques and technologies from data science into conversations around monitoring and evaluation.

Before joining TechChange last year, Norman was at Creative Associates International where he developed an internship program. He completed his graduate studies at the University of Minnesota (where he was a graduate student instructor) and undergraduate studies at Arizona State University.

Join Norman in his upcoming Tech for M&E online course that begins Monday, April 20!

Simply including technology in your M&E plan does not lead to better M&E. This was the mantra as I started TechChange’s Tech for M&E online course in January. I heard about this online course from a colleague, and since Commonwealth of Learning is constructing a new six year strategic plan with a crucial M&E component, enrolling in the course was a no brainer. I enrolled and entered a community of more than 180 international development professionals from over 50 countries. All of us in the course agreed that technology is not the main focus for M&E but rather an important enabler to collecting, analyzing and presenting data.

At the end of the course, I reflected on things you must do to successfully integrate technology in M&E:

1. Establish trust between different stakeholders 

When it comes to using technology for data collection, data security and data privacy are very important concerns. As stakeholders are requiring stronger evidence of impact and the use of data to make informed decisions, building a partnership based on trust among all stakeholders is one way to ensure regular flow of data. This includes having all confidentiality and transparency issues addressed with the stakeholders. All stakeholders need to have confidence in each other and in the process and know that their data will be protected, so there must be enough time and resources for engagement with the stakeholders.

2. Spend adequate time in preparation

Another key element is the level of preparation that is required for any technology use for M&E. The use of checklists, ICT in the different steps of a program/project cycle (diagnosis, planning, implement/monitor, evaluate, report/share lessons) and using an M&E expert are all important. All ethical and cultural issues need to be raised with the stakeholders and to the extent possible, addressed upfront.

It is important to ask these questions as you prepare your M&E plan:

  • How does M&E fit into the organization’s strategy and contribute to achieving the goal?
  • What training and support are required so the field workers are trained, assessing if they have good relationships with the community and what technology will enable best data collection?
  • What role will the field workers play to increase responses to qualitative and quantitative data collection?
  • How does one build confidence with all partners so that the quality of data collected enables better analysis and results?

The course checklist of having a quality M&E plan, a valid design to achieve the results and determining the appropriate technology is very helpful. It also emphasizes the importance of testing this with the stakeholders and identifies how to collect data at the different levels of the project and ensure there is a strong motivation to participate.

3. Consider a mixed method approach to data collection

The key focus of my work is in education, both formal and non-formal. So far, using quantitative data has been the norm for any analysis of education provision and its value to society. But mixed method data collection (quantitative and qualitative) is being increasingly used in education, especially to inform the teaching and learning processes. It allows for an understanding of classroom practices, the learner’s context and its impact on education, offering a more holistic view of whether a project has improved learner performance and learning.

Using ICT for mixed methods of data collection has made the processes easier and ensured easier data storage, tagging, and analysis. Mobile phones can be used to record, transmit and tag the data, and data storage platforms can provide easier access to data, aggregate the responses, and analyze.

The course points to four key questions when designing a mixed method evaluation:

  • At what stages/s does one use the mixed method?
  • Are qualitative and quantitative methods used sequentially or concurrently?
  • Will each method have equal weighting or will one method be more dominant?
  • Will the design be at a single or multi-level?

Just plugging technology in your M&E plan doesn’t do much, but there are steps you can take to integrate technology into M&E so that you can collect and analyze data better. These were the takeaways from the course for me, but the course offered many useful insights into the use of technology for M&E like valuable checklists, platforms that can be used, issues to address for the successful use of technology and a focus on mobile phones. I would recommend the course to anyone looking to learn more about the use of technology in monitoring and evaluation.

Author bio

vnaidoo-Oct2012

Vis Naidoo is the Vice-President at Commonwealth of Learning in Vancouver, Canada. He has spent much of the past 20 years involved in the development of open and distance learning systems, educational technology policy and the applications of technology to education – both in South Africa and internationally.

TechChange has come a long way since we built our first site in 2010. Five years and 400,000 lines of code later, we have an amazing site built by some of the most talented developers and designers out there. We were so excited about it that we just had to throw a party.

It was great to celebrate in person with many of you, but since so many of our alumni are from around the world we wanted to make sure you didn’t miss out on the best highlights from the party:

1. #NameTechBot Contest — Help Us Name Our Mascot!

Say hello to TechChange’s new mascot: TechBot! At the party, we kicked off a twitter campaign to help us name the newest member of our team. Help us name our TechBot by tweeting @TechChange using the hashtag #NameTechBot. Keep your suggestions coming!
Techbot

2. Photo Booth Shenanigans

Website Launch Party photobooth collage
Browse through the entire gallery of photos from the event on Facebook.

3. Lots of exciting announcements

Our website launch is the first of many announcements from TechChange this
year. In the next few months be on the look out for:

  • Launch of a diploma track in monitoring and evaluation
  • Our move to a larger office space with classrooms for workshops
  • Big partnerships with UNICEF, Oxfam, University of North Carolina, and the International Youth Foundation
  • And more…

Thanks again to everyone who joined us in this celebration, and for those who weren’t able to, maybe we will see you at our events in the future. For our international alumni, we will make sure to update you on what goes on in our DC events so you can still be part of the action here!