September 2021 marks the 10-year anniversary of our first hybrid event. It’s also the 18-month anniversary of the last time TechChange was able to convene our community in person to learn from one another.

Until 2020, the stodgy in-person event industry has been protected by a scarcity of solutions (only so many conference centers) and a captive audience (you can’t easily attend another event). Online events were often intentionally neglected to drive attendees towards more lucrative, and superior, in-person experiences.

The COVID-19 pandemic changed all that. Not only were in-person events impossible, but expectations for online convening increased drastically as the months went on. By March 2020, it was no longer enough to release a pre-recorded video or hold a massive webinar; participants were expecting online events to recreate in-person participation. By May 2020, participants began demanding organic networking opportunities to unlock the real value of event attendance: driving business and career growth.

This created new demands on the TechChange team, as partners in our “edtech as a service” model looked for solutions. While this post draws from the Global Digital Health Forum, lessons shared could just as easily apply to the unique challenges of RightsCon, Global Digital Development Forum, UNESCO Global Education Monitoring, Africa Green Revolution Forum, Our Future Our Voices, Society for International Development-Washington, Women Leaders in Global Health, Global Health Practitioner Conference, and so many others.

Screenshot from GDHF 2020 Plenary

1. Production Value Matters for Plenaries

In competing for attention, there is no substitute for production value and seamless event execution. But it doesn’t just stop there. At a minimum, be prepared to figure out multiple audio streams for interpretation, live captioning, lower thirds, integrated videos, ASL/ISL, and transitions. But it’s worth it. The plenary events are consistently the highest attended across all events on the TechChange platform over the course of the last two years — and are consistently the most viewed archives of any event.

Screenshot of RightsCon Outcomes Report 2021

2. But Networking Is Still Best When Informal and Organic

Networking doesn’t require a fancy 3D world with location-based audio to recreate the hallway experience of a conference. Although, as we’ve seen for the Greater Giving Summit 2021 and Global Digital Development Forum (pictured in featured image), they can be highly effective and popular. For example, the integrated Social Hour sessions for RightsCon 2021 leveraged small-group tables that enabled informal networking to recreate the hallway experience — and according to the RightsCon Outcomes Report 2021 81% of surveyed participants who attended a Social Hour session rated them as Excellent or Good.

Banner for Pathfinders event

3. Partners are Seizing Opportunities for Accessibility and Inclusivity
The loss of a requirement to travel has opened up new opportunities for addressing accessibility and inclusivity in conference organizing — for both participation and convening. Most recently, this has included supporting the USAID-HBCU International Development Conference, the Action to Achieve Equality and Inclusion, and more. The shift to online convening has prompted many online conference partners to think through not just who is in the room, but also who is holding the mic and what is being discussed.

By: Emma Demers, TechChange 2021 Summer Fellow

Over the last two years I have fielded a lot of questions about my two main areas of interest, education and user experience design. For many curious onlookers, education studies and UX/UI design studies present as two very different pedagogies, and thus, they require an explanation from me about how I can combine two seemingly unrelated areas of work. 

I always appreciate those people who are interested in hearing more about my decision to pursue both interests. The following is a brief explanation of how I plan on leveraging my experience at TechChange to better serve the education community this upcoming year and beyond. 

Following my completion of undergrad in June 2020, I moved from New Hampshire to D.C. to pursue a year of service with AmeriCorps. I worked for an AmeriCorps National partner organization called Literacy Lab, which provides one-on-one reading help to students in DC Public Schools. 

As you can imagine, moving to a new city and starting a new job amidst the pandemic came with a lot of unexpected challenges. But I don’t think anyone at Lit Lab was really prepared for the level of chaos that would befall DCPS, especially Title I schools, and especially during that first fall of the pandemic. It was admirable to watch how DCPS staff and faculty rose to the challenges posed by online learning, but many of the issues they faced were unfamiliar and unrelenting. 

Flash forward to this past summer; I traded in my reading assessments and student data tracking for course evaluation reports and user interviews here at TechChange. Having the opportunity to dive deep into adult online education after spending a year trying to teach kids over Microsoft Teams felt like a wonderful break. For nine weeks, I watched TechChange members put so much of their time and effort into creating engaging and productive experiences for their partners and participants; it was truly a joy to spend my time learning from my new teammates.

A few weeks ago, I started my second year of AmeriCorps. This year I am a VISTA member (meaning I’m sponsored by the national AmeriCorps organization) and I am working at Garrison Elementary as a community partners liaison. Already I can tell that the work is very different from my work last year in that I spend much more time on capacity building and community building, and my work is largely in-person (which is both terrifying and exciting after working virtually for over a year). As I begin my work at Garrison, I can already see how my past work at TechChange can help me solve for gaps and discover new opportunities to strengthen elementary school processes, and also help me reflect on my past year spent online teaching.

An Empathetic Approach

The difference between adult and student education planning that most immediately caught my attention was the extremely high level of empathy and research that went into planning TechChange’s online experiences. I was impressed by how much care and inquisitiveness went into identifying participants’ needs over the course of their time with TechChange. As a UX/UI designer, I appreciated the methodologies that go into creating a TechChange course. And to TechChange’s credit, they really emphasize human-centered design. Meaning that team members interview potential participants, work closely with their partners, and consider every aspect of a participant’s virtual needs (which vary greatly from their in-person needs). As the TechChange Summer Fellow, I spent almost all of my time analyzing the successes and challenges (which were few) of TechChange’s virtual synchronous courses. Much of the successes stemmed from participants feeling like TechChange facilitators could anticipate participants’ needs and adapt throughout the course to make participants feel heard. 

Although I give DCPS a lot of credit for adapting to virtual teaching amidst a pandemic, I must say that more emphasis could have been placed on observing students prior to the start of virtual teaching, or talking to students and gathering their feedback the way people gather feedback from adults. One of my biggest takeaways from online teaching is that elementary students are people too — they deserve the consideration and respect that we give to adult learners. Their learning needs can and should be met. And the onus to be adaptable and engaging shouldn’t rest with classroom teachers; I believe DCPS has a responsibility to create a support system for students and teachers wherein both parties feel comfortable and heard. Too often the focus for classroom teachers is how to maintain a semblance of order in their classrooms (both online and in-person); I can see now that there were opportunities last year for DC educators to intervene and provide teachers with the tools they needed to increase student engagement and passion for learning so that teachers could have focused on teaching.

To put the problem in product development terms: the students should be the users, and their needs should be well-studied and prioritized. While the implementers of the education experience should be familiar with the students’ needs (and the teachers I’ve met definitely are familiar), many other parties have the responsibility to step in with research-backed strategies to accommodate online learning challenges. Education delivery should be a team effort.     

Strengthening Ties with Stakeholders

As the new community partner liaison at Garrison, I spend much of my time listening to community stakeholders; our wonderful principal and assistant principal, the school dean, our head of after school programs, teachers and coaches, non-profit directors, the president of the Parent-Teacher Organization, among many others. 

Emma’s Summer Findings

The relationship between TechChange and its partners is vastly different from the way I work with Garrison’s community partners, but there’s a lot to be gained from TechChange’s co-creation approach to designing experiences with their stakeholders. The open-ended nature of brainstorming with a new partner prior to course design provides so much opportunity to create an experience with myriad benefits. As I’ve begun introducing myself to Garrison’s partners (both old and new) I have found the most productive and creatively-minded conversations with partners are the ones where we spend time discussing our goals for our potential partnership. Framing the partnership with such intentionality really drives us to enthusiastically dive into new programs, new goals, and new opportunities for the students. And for my position in particular, I’m always cognizant that these partnerships are usually pro-bono for Garrison, and that many of our partners are donating their time to help our school (students and teachers alike).

Big-Picture Planning

One of the wonderful aspects of my Fellowship was the opportunity to synthesize a large amount of qualitative data all together; by analyzing feedback and user interviews regarding TechChange’s synchronous offerings, I had the chance to interpret insights across different courses (which were each tailored to a different audience and contained different learning objectives). Making those cross-course connections was key to my understanding of the strengths and challenges of TechChange course development as well as my familiarization with participants’ needs and constraints. If I were to have stayed on after my fellowship, I think I could have used my research to pursue even deeper understandings of both participants and the course development process. 

Emma Utilized Dedoose to Synthesize a Large Amount of Qualitative Data for TechChange

But in my current capacity, I already hope to use that same kind of thinking to approach challenges within Garrison. One of the issues I want to address is a lack of organization within the after school program; there is an incredible amount of work that goes into planning after school care for students, and much of that work is completed by teachers, corps members from places like City Year, and team members from non-profits like Kid Power. With so many actors involved, coordination has been tricky, especially after a year of minimal in-person programming. As the community partner liaison, I’m in a unique position to approach this challenge by combining the expertise and suggestions from a variety of parties involved. I am already prepared to approach this problem using a tried-and-true design methodology (loosely speaking: research, brainstorm, design, test, iterate) and I am confident that I will be able to support my school better having had experience in design research. 

Although I am no longer working in a design capacity, my work in education design research has truly shaped how I approach my work as a member of the DC education community. And while I am no longer teaching virtually or studying virtual teaching, I have learned so much about education and online engagement that I know will help me as I strive to support Garrison students, educators and partners. At the very least, my summer at TechChange has provided me the opportunity to reflect deeply on our roles as education developers/implementers, and for that I am very grateful.

We are very excited to launch our Events Product Video! In this video, learn more about we leverage our all-in-one virtual events platform to help our partners tackle the world’s toughest problems. Powered by mission-driven humans, our integrated approach quickly maps onto partner needs to successfully deliver results on any topic, to any device, in any language, to anyone.

Take a look:

We’re excited to share that the agenda has been posted for first-ever USAID-HBCU International Development Conference! Co-sponsored by the Harry T. Moore chapter of Blacks in Government, this online event is taking place from 15-16 September 2021. This year’s theme is “Increasing Diversity in International Development” and will include announcements of job opportunities and scholarships for conference participants, as well as networking opportunities throughout both days.

Screenshot of agenda on TechChange platform
Screenshot of initial agenda on the TechChange platform

Day 1: Learn more about USAID’s work

  • USAID 101
  • The Black Humanitarian Experience
  • Promoting Peace and Reducing Global Conflict
  • Improving Global Health – Who we are and what we do
  • Supporting a Resilient and Food Secure World for All
  • Advancing Inclusive Democracies Abroad
  • Voices from the field – USAID local field staff provide their perspectives on the impact of USAID’s work
  • Networking session with USAID employees from the field as well as HQ

Day 2: Learn more about how you can work for USAID 

  • “Demystifying USAID Employment” panel discussion on different opportunities within the Agency
  • Student and Recent Graduate Employment
  • Federal resume writing
  • Veterans Employment Opportunities
  • Donald M. Payne International Graduate Fellowship Program
  • Engaging the Next Generation of Agency Researchers
  • Management Bureau recruitment event – Bring your resume and speak directly with a hiring manager!
  • Setting yourself up for future success
  • Navigating USAJOBS.GOV

Please note that while this  event is targeting current students and alumni from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), registration is open to all. Please note that space is limited for some of the sessions, so make sure you register soon

Screenshot of selected speakers

For more information, follow the Event on LinkedIn or register on TechChange now