Are you a techie looking to make a difference in the world?

We’re excited to announce that applications for TechChange Summer Fellowship 2016 are now open! This summer, we hosted our first class of tech fellows at the TechChange headquarters and are looking forward to our next class.

The fellowship is open to recent graduates and rising college juniors and seniors. The fellowship provides practical training in web development as well as a unique exposure to a range of applications and organizations using technology to tackle a variety of global challenges — from creating prosthetic limbs with a 3D printer to combating malaria with mobile devices.

As a fellow, you will spend three months designing and implementing a web development project related to education, technology, and social good. TechChange staff will provide training, mentorship, and a series of events to support you in this process.

Read our summer 2015 fellows, Nithya and You Jin’s experiences on our blog. Visit our fellowship page to learn more and apply to be a 2016 Fellow!

Applications are now open and due February 15, 2016. Email any questions to fellowship [at] techchange [dot] org. Please note that we are only able to consider applicants with American citizenship or a valid work visa in the United States.

Summer is coming to an end in D.C., and so is our time with our Summer Tech Fellows at TechChange. We kicked off our first TechChange Summer Fellowship this year and had three amazing fellows join us at our headquarters. Before You Jin wraps up her fellowship, we asked her about her time at TechChange!

How did you hear about TechChange?
I first heard about TechChange when the Founder, Nick Martin spoke at a panel about social change at my university. It was equally mind-boggling and motivating to hear that it was actually possible to pursue a career that aligns my passions in design, education technology, and social work!

Fast forward four years later, I’m still a huge fan of TechChange and an alumni of two courses: Mobiles in International Development & Technology for Data Visualization, and now also a TechChange Fellow!

Tell us a little bit about yourself
I’m a User Experience (UX) designer who studied Sociology and International Development & Conflict Management at the University of Maryland College Park. I’ve always been interested in finding ways that design can improve lives. After joining my high school’s IT program, I pursued web design because, at the time, I was convinced that tech and social good meant designing websites for charitable organizations.

However, I was happy to realize that my perspective was quite limited. From education technology, mHealth, ICT4D to human-centered design, the role of tech in social good means so much more today.

Outside of work, I love to take pictures, play board games with family and jam with friends. If I could, I would go on a food tour in Asia and a photo expedition to all of the National Parks. I also spend my free time serving as a teacher for my church’s youth group and as a designer for Girls in Tech DC.

Where were you when you found out you were accepted into the fellowship?
I remember sitting on my couch, casually checking my email before heading to bed. When I saw the acceptance email – I couldn’t believe it! Of course, after reading it over and over again, I immediately shared the news with my family and close friends because they knew how much the fellowship meant to me.

Why did you choose TechChange to spend your summer?
TechChange is a place for “geeks for social good” and to me, becoming a fellow “geek” had never sounded so appealing. I love how TechChange connects a diverse range of development partners and professionals around the world through education, whether it’s through their diploma program in Monitoring and Evaluation or animation about USAID’s Mobile Solutions. After following TechChange’s work closely for several years, the thought of finally being able to work behind the scenes for TechChange was really exciting for me!

This opportunity was also a great way to dedicate my summer to diving into front-end development. Before the fellowship, I had been working with different startups and developed the desire to better communicate with other engineers and to contribute in fixing bugs.

You Jin at Escape Room

You Jin with her team during a summer surprise activity at Escape Room

What did you do at TechChange this summer? What was your role at TechChange?
The main project I worked on was building a living style guide web application to assist in rapid page development and brand consistency.

While I had created a style guide before, I was challenged to reevaluate my understanding of style guide driven development and maintainability. I paired a style guide generator (Fabricator) with a CSS documentation parser (DSS) to auto-generate pages from the outputted JSON data which lists each component’s attributes and markup. This way, whenever a developer makes changes to the codebase, the style guide would reflect those changes automatically upon compilation.

Another key part of the project was also spent auditing all of the existing CSS markup and reorganizing the user interface patterns to create a standardized taxonomy and customized theme repository. Eventually, this repository will unify and standardize styling across the main website, course platform, and admin platform which is truly exciting! The next project I’m excited to work on is redesigning the syllabus page to centralize the course platform.

What did you learn during your time at TechChange?
From breakout lunches about pedagogy and the Sustainable Development Goals, to listening in on live events with guest experts, you’re bound to learn a lot by just being inside the office.

Here are a few things I will take away from the fellowship:

  • Experiencing how writing clean and reusable code greatly contributes to its maintainability in a team environment. Implementing best practices in CSS Semantics, Javascript syntax and setting up a modular design system.
  • Overcoming my fear of the terminal! Over time, I preferred using command line tools like vim, tmux and bash scripts.
  • The value of automation and using Node.js tools such as npm and gulp to run tasks
  • Configuring Nginx to serve static files and set up an authentication scheme
  • WordPress templating (PHP) and migrating the database using Sequel Pro
  • Following Gitflow best practices including managing subtrees

What has been your favorite moment at TechChange this summer?
It’s hard to pinpoint one favorite moment! I can, however, recall the most regretful moment: running out of time at Escape Room Live when my team was solving the very last puzzle.

On a more serious note, I am truly thankful for the wonderful people I met along the way. Inside the office, I was constantly inspired by the humility, talent, and bright attitudes of each team member, not to mention that Will Chester is the most humble CTO I will ever meet! At gatherings like the Show & Tell and platform strategy session, it was evident that each team member’s progress and input was valued. I will also miss the sillier memories like bonding over our shared love for Trader Joe’s snacks. Mochi and chocolate covered pretzels to the team are what lush plants are to locusts.

Outside of the office, I felt fortunate to personally hear stories during site visits from Craig Zelizer of PDCN, Carolyn Moore from mPowering Frontline Health Workers, and Daniel Sheerin of State Department’s eDiplomacy department. I also had a blast meeting and sharing my experiences with the talented girls of Girls Who Code DC and TechGirls.

Girls Who Code

You Jin and Ellie, another TechChange fellow, with Girls Who Code

Would you come back to work at TechChange one day? Why?
Yes, I would love to! There are many exciting projects that are always brewing and I’m excited about the direction TechChange is taking. I know that I will definitely continue taking more TechChange courses.

What advice would you give to future TechChange Fellows?
I would encourage future fellows to explore. You have the opportunity to develop your
interests and strengths or go outside of your expertise by taking on different projects and participating in different conversations going on in the office. You should also take the time to get to know the people you’re sitting next to in the office because they will truly be some of the most dedicated and interesting folks you will meet.

It was a pleasure having You Jin join us as a fellow this summer, and we are excited to announce that she will continue with TechChange, part-time! We are glad we don’t have to say bye to You Jin!

Read another Tech Fellow’s experience at TechChange here! Interested in applying for the next summer fellowship? Apply here!

At TechChange, we pride ourselves in teaching our participants the crucial skills needed for a career in social good. And how do we find out what those skills are? We go straight to the source! In our new M&E Professionals series, we’ll be talking one-on-one with the pros who are recruiting for these very positions.

2015 was marked as the International Year of Evaluation, so it’s no wonder that M&E is increasingly becoming a sought after skill in many organizations today. We spoke with Michael Klein to learn more about the ideal skills a M&E professional should have and how to get them:

Mike Klein Headshot

Michael Klein is the director of International Solutions Group (ISG), a company that works with governments, U.N. agencies, international organizations, NGOs and other companies to improve the implementation of humanitarian aid and development programming projects.

Mike’s work is at the self-described intersection of ‘old-school’ M&E and ‘new-school’ ICT, working with partners to build on established M&E strategies, streamline data flows and analysis systems, facilitate access to key information, knowledge, reporting and data in a fast, reliable and secure manner.

Q: It’s an exciting time to be an M&E professional. Do you see a big need for young professionals who are trained to take on this kind of work?

M: Yes, it is definitely an exciting time to be in my field. Just looking at the types of conferences and forums being held on the subject, it’s really clear that M&E is a rapidly developing focus in our field. Specifically, I see M&E growing in two separate, but overlapping, areas.

Standard M&E careers: If you were to search job opportunities listed on Devex or Idealist, they are the typical of M&E positions you would find, ones that take a traditional approach (i.e M&E personnel are used to provide managers the with analysis and data they request.) These opportunities are certainly growing, as organizations will always need highly trained staff help to address their M&E.

Beyond the standard label of M&E: Just as in other sectors, skillsets such as analytics, knowledge management, data collection, and information sharing are highly valued in M&E, and the field is increasingly embracing individuals who have these skill sets. This is especially true for people who understand analytics, and how data can be collected, used, and analyzed.

As more and more players in the field are using new technologies and tools for data collection and analysis, a college graduate or young professional entering the field of M&E has a great opportunity to make his or her mark on the industry by leveraging his or her digital knowledge to provide guidance to some of the most prominent development organizations.

Q: What do you look for when hiring?

M: First off, I think it’s important to have a passion, an area of expertise that you enjoy. As a profession, M&E can take you in myriad directions, and it is important to identify what type of work in which you most want to engage. A strength of my team at ISG is that everyone has differing professional interests, ranging from gender equality to how ICTs can catalyze development. Having these range of specialties strengthens what we can offer clients, and when looking at new hires, I look for individuals who are already established or are on their way to becoming an expert in a field or sector.

Aside from passion and subject-matter expertise, people need to appreciate the big picture. When we look to make hires, we want an individual who understands what organizational performance means, ranging from back-office activities such as business development and marketing, all the way through to front-line programming at the field level. If you’re interested in M&E, you have to understand that organizational effectiveness is made possible by a complex interplay of many elements. Having that general appreciation for how organizations function, the types of struggles they face, and how you can improve upon their performance, are keys to success in this field.

isggroupMike with his group at ISG

Q: What does career progression look like for someone in M&E?

M: The reason I was drawn to this field is that there is no set path. Before working in M&E, I worked in Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A), which attracted me for similar reasons. When I worked in M&A, my clients represented a wide range of sectors, and I worked with management to help these organizations restructure, fundraise, find new investors, and generally position themselves to be more successful at what they were already doing (sound familiar?). Monitoring and evaluation is no different. People come to the field from a variety of different backgrounds—such as corporate finance like me, IT, agriculture, and plenty of others, including academic programs focused on M&E—and they serve clients representing the same diversity.

Because everyone enters the field with different skills, it is hard to say exactly how one progresses in the field. Someone entering the field after studying M&E at a university will likely have a fairly technical background may take a M&E support role within a larger organization and begin to assume more responsibility over the years. Whereas, if you’re transitioning into the field with an already established skill set from a different sector, you’re likely to take a different direction and provide either consultancy services or specific project-level guidance related to your expertise.

Q: What role do you think technology plays in M&E?

M: My personal take is that technology in and of itself is not necessarily transformative. Whether M&E is done on pen and paper or done using state-of-the-art IT solutions, good M&E is good M&E. However, technology has allowed organizations to quickly come up to speed with regards to implementing more robust approaches to M&E. If an organization is just shaping their M&E approach, using a technology solution can offer ease and expediency. The way most of these tools are constructed is based on industry best practices, so their structured, hierarchical approach is what we think of as good M&E. Clients who use these tools are then trained to capture their data in a systematic way that has the end in mind.

A lot of our clients initially say, “I really like that heat map,” or cite another specific visualization they see proved by an M&E tool and ask how they can create it for their program. This then launches into a discussion about how to collect data in a way that can deliver these types of reporting and highlight what is most important. It is much harder to go the other way.

Q: Any other pieces of advice you have for people considering the TechChange diploma in Tech for M&E?

M: Know how your study applies to what you want to accomplish and set some goals for yourself before you get into the nuts and bolts of the diploma program. If you come to these courses with a general idea of what skill gaps you want to address, you’re going to be very well placed to make the best use of the TechChange diploma program.

When I was taking one of TechChange’s M&E courses, I knew that I wanted to leverage the new skills I was developing to enhance my company’s marketing efforts. Thus, when I studied data visualization, I created multiple infographics for ISG, using tools that I would not have come across on my own. This was one of the best parts of the class: discovering cutting-edge tools in the field that I could utilize immediately.

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That’s all for this installation in our M&E Professionals Series! Be sure to check out our Technology for Monitoring and Evaluation diploma program – deadline to enroll is September 4!

TechGirls Sara and Sarra with Samita and TechChange souveniers

Last Friday, TechGirls returned to the TechChange headquarters. For the last few years, TechChange has had the privilege of hosting TechGirls at our headquarters for their Job Shadow Day.

TechGirls is a selective exchange program that encourages and supports the desire of Middle Eastern and North African teenage girls to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). During the 3 week long exchange program, the girls (ranging from ages 15 – 17) travel around the U.S. getting a taste of the various careers one can have in STEM. One of the ways they experience a STEM career in the U.S. is by spending a day at a tech company during Job Shadow Day.

This year, Sara Chikhi from Algeria, and Sarra Bouchkati from Tunisia arrived at TechChange to learn how a day looks like at an edtech social enterprise. Sara and Sarra aspire to have a career in astrophysics and aerospace respectively.

After an introduction to TechChange, we dove right in to give the TechGirls hands-on experience with each of our team. The girls were very curious about TechChange’s work and were very excited to learn more.

TechGirls featured image
Sara tries her hand on creating an asset and animating it.

Check out what the gif they animated!
girl1

Then the TechGirls transitioned on to hear what our Tech Fellows were working on this summer.

TechGirls with Tech Team
NIthya, You Jin, and Ellie shared the various projects they were working on with the TechGirls.

The TechChange experience is incomplete without a team lunch at our nearby Ethiopian restaurant, so we all went to get some Ethiopian food for lunch!

After lunch, Delanie and Emily showed the TechGirls the various TechChange projects from the past and showed them how they create a course on articulate. The girls then created a short course about themselves! Check it out!

 

To sum up her experience, Sarra from Tunisia said:

“Be confident , always be eager to learn and search, and team work: these are one of the most valuable lessons that I have learned today at TechChange aside to learning about animation process, graphic design, and meeting with the tech, marketing and content teams. The collaboration between the teams portrays the company’s philosophy of learning from one another and giving each employee the chance to shine and sharpen their skills.”

TechGirls with the Team

Always a pleasure to have you here TechGirls, thanks for joining us!

If you have taken a TechChange course, you know that the participants are all doing amazing things wherever they are in the world. Some go on to start their own organization, some collaborate with other participants for future projects, and some take what they learned in the course and apply it in their current projects. Ameneé Siahpush took our Tech for M&E online course in January and has since been leading tech integration in Trickle Up’s M&E programs.

Tell us about yourself

A: I’m a Pacific Northwesterner who moved to New York City in 2010 after spending the prior few years in Latin America. My current role at Trickle Up is Senior Monitoring & Evaluations (M&E) Officer, where I support our economic and social empowerment programs in India and Central America. My work aims to increase our understanding of sustainable livelihood development for highly vulnerable populations, including outcomes around food security, health, coping mechanisms, and social empowerment. I’m particularly interested in expanding our use of participatory methods to improve and deepen our program learnings and developing simple mechanisms for sharing knowledge across participants, partners, staff, and offices. (If you have any ideas, please let me know!)

What does Trickle Up do?

A: Trickle Up is an international NGO that works to create a world in which it is unacceptable for anyone to live in extreme poverty. In collaboration with local partner organizations, we empower and support the poorest and most vulnerable people to develop the confidence and knowledge to build sustainable livelihoods by 1) providing training, coaching, and seed capital grants to jumpstart microenterprises; 2) forming savings and credit groups to build financial capital and literacy; and 3) improving access to information and financial, health, and social services. We also provide technical assistance to other development organizations and government agencies to help them deliver social empowerment and economic programming that reaches “last mile” populations, including women, people with disabilities, and marginalized ethnic populations living on under $1.25/day in rural areas. Trickle Up currently works in India, Central America, South America, West Africa, and the Middle East.

How did you hear about TechChange?

A: My colleague at Trickle Up learned about the Technology for M&E course through a Yahoo M&E group, and quickly forwarded me the information given my interest in the topic.

Why did you decide to enroll in the Tech for M&E course?

A: I feel very fortunate to work for an organization that has invested in a robust M&E system, including the use of mobile data collection for some of our projects. However, as we scale our programs, it’s essential that we adapt our M&E systems to become more efficient and effective across an increasingly large and diverse number of partners and program participants. Integrating new technologies and tools is key in this adaptation process – yet, I knew that I needed very practical guidance in understanding which combination of technologies and tools would be best suited for Trickle Up’s current and future programs. The Tech for M&E course felt like the perfect companion for exploring these issues. It offered practical tools and resources, connection to a wide network of experts, forums to collaborate with other NGOs, and flexible access to course materials to accommodate my travel schedule. I also really appreciated that the discussions were geared towards international organizations who often work in remote, rural places where connectivity and electricity challenges must be considered in their M&E tools.

How has the course impacted your work at Trickle Up?

A: I entered the course with a deep interest in exploring technologies to increase the efficiency and quality of our M&E data. I came out of the course with the language, framework, tools, and resources to actually take the lead in designing and implementing new technologies within Trickle Up’s M&E system. Since completing the course, I have successfully added “M&E tech upgrades” into our upcoming year’s strategic plans. This includes a detailed roadmap of how we will integrate and utilize mobile data collection and a data visualization/reporting platform across all of our projects to increase access to real-time data for project management, promote cross-regional learning, and, ultimately, improve our ability to direct resources towards combating extreme poverty. Yes, it’s a very lofty goal, but one that is greatly enabled by simple technologies that help to ensure our program data is more efficiently and effectively used.

What would be an advice to other participants taking a TechChange course? How can they get the most out of it?

A: If possible, approach the course with a specific, tangible challenge that you hope to confront in your daily work. Keep this challenge in mind as you choose which webinars to attend or resources to explore, and then organize your course notes in a way that will be easily accessible in the future.

Another obvious, but important, suggestion is to be an active participant! Connect with fellow students, ask questions, follow up with presenters, experiment with the recommended tools. Luckily, the course provides a wide variety of ways to engage with the materials and people, despite being in different time zones, and everyone felt very approachable and enthusiastic. We’re all current or future tech nerds, after all.

You can join participants like Ameneé in our next Tech for M&E course in September. If you are looking to dive deeper, check out our brand new Diploma Program in Tech for M&E

About Ameneé
Amenee
Ameneé is the Senior Monitoring & Evaluations Officer at Trickle Up, where she supports their economic and social empowerment programs in India and Central America. She holds a BA in sociology and psychology from the University of Oregon and an MPA, with a specialization in international policy and management, from the Wagner School of Public Service at New York University (NYU). As an NYU Gallatin Global Fellow in Human Rights, Ameneé partnered with Global Workers Justice Alliance to conduct research on gender and migration in Oaxaca, Mexico, and has spent multiple years in Latin America, more broadly, volunteering with small-scale farmers and studying Spanish. Prior to Trickle Up, Ameneé was a Program Evaluator at Morrison Child & Family Center in Portland, OR, and a Research Supervisor at the Oregon Social Learning Center. Outside of work, Ameneé loves to play soccer, dance, and spend time in the mountains.

We are excited to introduce Robert Guerra as a co-facilitator in our upcoming course, TC114: Basics of Digital Safety. Robert is the founder and executive director of Privaterra, a Canadian based organization working with private industry and NGOs to assist them with issues of data privacy, secure communications, information security, internet governance, and internet freedom. Robert will be joining Norman Shamas in facilitating our upcoming course. We wanted to give you a little sneak peek to the course so we chatted with Robert:

Q: How do you define/think about digital safety?

R: I define digital safety simply as a set of steps, processes and mindset one should follow to keep one’s devices, data, communications and online interactions as protected and private as possible.

Here’s some key tips that I always mention to reduce digital risks:

#1. Be Aware!

When really wanting to keep yourself secure online or anywhere else is important to be mindful of your environment. It the most vital thing you can do.

Understand that there are many out there who are looking for simple chances to attack and steal your valuable assets. A common target will be an individual who does not take any precautions and might be intimidated by the internet and/or digital devices.

You wouldn’t leave your car door open with the keys in the ignition and the engine running, would you? Certainly not, as you run the risk of having your car stolen and driven away by someone who notices you aren’t around.

Are you taking the same precautions when using a mobile phone or using the internet? if you are, then you could be said to be doing something to protect yourself online – you in a way, implementing a digital safety practice of some kind.

#2. Guard Your valuables!

Activities that involve far more valuable, sensitive and confidential assets require one to take additional precautions. Not taking any precautions is an invitation for a burglar to target you.

Would you openly share the key to your safety deposit box where you keep your valuables and very private documents? Obviously not. However, do you take the same precautions to protect your online banking accounts, private photos, sensitive contacts on your devices?

#3. Plan for the worse, hope for the best…

Not a day goes by without some news of a retail store or online site being hacked and thousands of accounts being compromised. Attacks are increasingly unavoidable, so it is important that one has contingency plans in place to react to all sorts of possible incidents and attacks.

The worst might not happen, but if it does – you will know how to react quickly and perhaps be able to minimize the situation from getting worse.

Q: How did you get involved in the field of internet security?

R: I got seriously involved in the field of internet security back in 2001 when started a small Canadian NGO to provide encryption training to Human Rights NGOs in Guatemala and South America who were reporting that hard drives were being stolen, sensitive documents were being compromised and emails were being intercepted.

You could say, I was assisting at-risk groups who were reporting serious issues related to data breaches, surveillance and hacking almost 13 years before Edward Snowden raised the profile and importance of the issue.

Robert speaking
Robert talks about what Privaterra and other organizations are doing to help identify and mitigate security vulnerabilities faced by Human Rights Organizations.

Q: Why is digital safety especially important for NGOs and organizations working with social justice issues?

R: NGOs and organizations working with social justice issues often deal with confidential and very sensitive data in the course of their work. This data if not adequately protected, can lead to very serious consequences including death.

These groups, as stated by the targeted threats report published last year by the Citizen Lab, also face persistent and disruptive targeted digital attacks. Unlike industry and government, however, NGOs have far fewer resources to deal with the problem.

Q: What are you most excited about for the Digital Safety course?

R: I’m excited to work with Norman and the team at TechChange to help leading organizations better understand digital security and what can be done to raise the bar. We’ve worked to put together a great curriculum, some great resource material, and invited leading experts to share their amazing experience to improve the security of at-risk groups around the world.

Q: What kind of conversations are you hoping to facilitate in the course?

R: I’m looking forward to facilitating a conversation among the course participants and invited experts on security challenges currently being faced by NGOs and what steps we can taken together to improve protection methods and organizational resiliency.

As well, I’m also interested in promoting a conversation and discussion about tools, best practices and resources that can be easily implemented to not only help individuals and activists but also social justice organizations working to promote human rights and democracy promotion in at-risk environments.

We are really excited to have Robert co-facilitating this course with Norman Shamas! We already have around 40 participants joining us. There is still time to enroll in the course. Apply now. Course begins August 17, 2015.

About Robert

Robert-Headshot

Robert Guerra is a civil society expert specializing in issues of internet governance, cyber security, social networking, multi-stakeholder participation, internet freedom and human rights. Robert is the founder of Privaterra, a Canadian based organization that works with private industry and nongovernmental organizations to assist them with issues of data privacy, secures communications, information security, internet governance and internet freedom. Robert collaborates with the Citizen Lab and Canada Centre for Global Security Studies at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto.

Digital safety training is a social awareness issue. We are typically taught at a young age how to interact in society, but rarely are we taught how interact in the digital space. With more than three billion people around the world coming online, it is crucial today that we all understand how to interact online. In our recent virtual chat series, Mark Surman of Mozilla stressed that as more people come online exclusively through their smartphones through initiatives like internet.org, many remain unaware of the internet itself, so internet safety may not even cross their minds or becomes an ‘extra’ feature that they might not be able to afford.

Google recently conducted a study comparing digital security practices between experts and non-experts. The study included over 500 surveys of security experts and non-experts and the results are a useful examination of how expertise or knowledge reflects in practice of navigating in the digital world.

Here are my takeaways from the Google report:

Passwords, Passwords, Passwords

Both groups (experts and non-experts) highlight the need for strong passwords as one of the top 3 things to stay safe online — something malware creator Hacking Team needed a lesson on.
The experts mentioned the need for updates, unique passwords, and two-factor authentication. They highlighted the use of password managers as a way to have both strong and unique passwords.
The non-experts, on the other hand, highlighted using antivirus, changing passwords, and visiting known sites as some of their top advice other than strong passwords.

Importance of a secure connection

One of the results that I found most interesting is the fact that experts and non-experts overall recognized the value of verifying the site they are visiting by looking at the URL.
But, experts were far more likely to check if the site was connected through a secure connection, using HTTPS.
Non-experts, however, didn’t check for a secure connection. Modern browsers make recognition easy through lock icons and color coding. One explanation is that non-experts didn’t know how to check or what it means. As Google noted in the full research paper, this is interesting because verification of the site URL and secure connection (HTTPS) are right next to each other! Why wouldn’t you check both as once?

Google Report FindingsPhoto credit: Google Online Security Blog

Two-factor authentication

Google’s survey results suggest a knowledge gap for non-experts: two-factor authentication. As noted above, two-factor authentication was one of the top recommendations by experts and a growing trend in digital safety because it offers an additional, second way of verifying identity after a password. Unfortunately, setting up two-factor authentication is up to the web service provider, and not us, the end users.

While not one of Google’s conclusions, the report highlights a need for greater digital literacy training to improve digital safety. And here at TechChange we agree.

So, what does this mean for TechChange’s Digital Safety Course?
For our upcoming Digital Safety course, we are providing comprehensive training to empower the you to make informed decisions. This means that we will cover digital literacy topics, such as how the Internet and mobile networks work, as well as providing in-depth tool studies.

Most importantly, we will provide an analytical framework to assess risk and determine what tools or approaches make the most sense for a particular location and situation. What works to keep someone safe in the US wouldn’t work in countries where encryption is regulated. Lhadon Tethong, a leader in the Free Tibet movement, notes that providing basic user education to understand the risks of technology to make informed decisions is key. Whether for your personal accounts, and for your organization, especially if you are working with sensitive data, it is crucial that all your information is safe online.

We begin our Basics of Digital Safety online course on August 17! More than 30 participants from around the world have already signed up. Read more details here and join us!