Category: Blog

Thanks to the ongoing pandemic, we are spending our work and social lives on video chat. And all evidence (and experiences) show that being on video call is exhausting. So we built our own virtual world using Mozilla Hubs for the Global Digital Development Forum.

Video conferencing solutions like Zoom are designed to solve business meeting challenges, but when applied to other use cases such as informal networking, the consequence is that every social gathering can start to feel like a formal meeting — even with fun and zany backgrounds. Some great events have created “informal happy hour” sections (including a recent event by Tech4Dem, which followed a formal USAID presentation with informal breakouts and a shared activity), but there’s only so much that solutions like Zoom can be repurposed into critical professional functions at conferences — like networking.

But there are increasing numbers of options for leveraging virtual worlds to go beyond planned video meetings. And there are a range of options, from the 12.3 million participants in Travis Scott’s Fortnite concert to more modest 8-bit solutions like Online Town, where multiple conversations can happen in parallel — just as they would when sharing a space in real life.

One promising option for virtual conferences is Mozilla Hubs, a “VR chatroom designed for every headset and browser, but it is also an open source project that explores how communication in mixed reality can come to life.” Most interestingly, we were able to not only use a world that was created previously, but also able to build a custom format specific for this global event.

So we built a shared space to experience the event, and network. It was intended to be a proof of concept (Register for GDDF to find the Link), but ended up recreating experiences that I had been craving for months.

1. Overhearing Other Conversations. Since you are speaking in a virtual world, groups have to gather near one another to hear a conversation. That means at any given moment you can hear snippets of fascinating conversations, which you are welcome to join at any point and speak up as well.
2. Leaving Conversations. Finally, an option other than forcing yourself through an unpleasant video conversation. If you want to join a different circle, you can just walk over. No awkward transitions, just pop on over.
3. Randomness in Contacts and Introductions. Since you can join conversations and find friends, there is a true level of randomness but also vouched-for connections in networking. If your friend is having a good chat and you pop by, they can introduce you.

In closing, this was supposed to simulate a conference environment, but really what we recreated may have been more useful — the hallway or happy hour at the conference. 

What’s next? We’d love to explore moving this to a classroom space, to try to recreate being physically present as close as we can to reality.

If you want to change global behavior patterns, make the sustainable alternative better.

For the first time, the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Risk Report claims that the top five risks facing the world are all related to climate change. And while Davos 2020 has gone to great lengths to calculate and offset all emissions to the Annual Meeting (see graphic, link) for those arriving by private jet (or boat), most of us in the international development are still flying commercial (economy class, American carrier) to participate in or deliver trainings that are essential for the execution of our jobs. But each time any of us boards a plane in service of vulnerable communities, we have to reckon that our method for doing so is putting those same communities at risk through contributing to climate change.

The Swedes have a word for it: Flygskam. Coined in 2016 and popularized recently by teenage activist Greta Thunberg, this Swedish noun (literally, ‘flight shame’) describes the feeling of climate guilt associated with airline travel. But for many of us, not travelling simply isn’t an option: There are global projects to launch, partners to meet, pressing health matters to address, standing conferences to grow our network, and so on. For many of us, guilt just isn’t enough of a motivator for a problem that can’t be solved individually.

But the recent novel coronavirus outbreak is a once-in-a-sector opportunity to upend these models, not just to cancel events that contribute to climate change, but to entirely rethink their delivery for scale, inclusion, and impact. Otherwise, the risk is that when the crisis is over, old models will take hold, and we will all be back to where we started.

But key to success will not just be making us feel bad about going to conferences: It will be about making us feel good about what we are doing instead. When Beyond Burger wanted to shift Americans from beef to plant-based patties — and in the process take the equivalent of 12 million cars off the road for an entire year — they focused on customer experience of eating meat and tried to recreate that through sustainable means.

But what are the customer experiences of conferences?

When presenting at the ICT4D conference in Kampala last year (there’s the Flygskam, again), we tried to unpack what it is that online experiences serve, and what purpose in-person workshops can fulfill. The chief takeaway from looking at current offerings is that technology is explored for scaling across geography, while workshops are useful for intensity of peer-to-peer learning.

But this year, before we all meet again in Abuja on April 21,it might be worth exploring what it would like if we were able to free the conference experience from geography?What could it mean for recreating that sector-specific learning experiences, conference-wide networking, small-group relationship building, one-on-one mentoring…if it wasn’t restricted to those who could afford the resources and time to be there?

In looking at our data from a recent course in TC101: How to Teach Online, we mapped out exchange between learner cities over a four-week period in the forums versus real attendee city data for ICT4D over the same time period.

Versus a single round trip to Kampala:

Of course, an online learning exchange in a forum or chat isn’t the same as an in-person conference experience.

But what are the components of that experience that could be recreated online?

When it comes to event planning in the face of a pandemic, the technology is the easy part. Shifting the training model will be harder, and international development is perfectly positioned to lead.

After returning from a successful week-long workshop in Kampala with Last Mile Health (featured image) to plan for an an upcoming online course, I wondered how many similar workshops were suddenly adapting to the growing concerns around the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. That’s because the growing list of cancelled world events ranges from GSMA Mobile World Congress to Facebook’s F8 2020, and the regular international convening opportunities at the intersection of technology and development are threatening to be next.

But crisis can create opportunities for innovation. In education, 200 million students return to school online in China, and even slow-moving US universities are suddenly moving face-to-face courses online in weeks, rather than years. That’s because in the seven years that have passed between Coursera’s “MOOC Mess” and our most recent TechChange course on “How to Teach Online,” technology has evolved far beyond the “watch-a-video, take-a-quiz” method of online training.

And as the sage on the stage lecture-based MOOC gives way to the “guide by your side” small-group workshop, organizers are wondering if they can move more than lectures onto online learning solutions. Remote conferencing providers such as Zoom are expected to benefit, while like Andreessen Horowitz helped raise $4.3 million in seed funding for “Run The World”, whose founder declares: “The ideal event to me isn’t one with 2 million people. I’d rather we hosted 2 million events with 50 people.”

But the technology may be the easy part.

Facebook Workshop on Gender Data 101

That’s because most in-person workshops are far more complex than the Eventbrite-style offerings that are emerging and being funded. What we need is to recreate what participants gain from attending active workshops of their peers, not just from listening to a lecture with 10,000 other attendees. And that means going far beyond a platform-based solution, but also thinking through edtech as a service, as well as empowering local facilitators to design and facilitate active learning experiences.

That’s why TechChange is changing our model as well. This year, we are working with partners such as Facebook (pictured above) to think through active, blended online workshops on topics such as Gender Data. And why we are supporting partners such as DIAL (pictured below) in understanding and engaging learners for blended and online workshops on topics including the Principles of Digital Development.

In this way, we are hoping to approach online learning not as a series of discrete problems — platform, content, service, support — but as a process driven by educators, local facilitators, and partners community engagement over a number of years. And we’re hoping that in freeing participants and educators from the tyranny of distance, that we’ll enable these conversations to take place more often, more effectively, and more globally than ever before.

The digital transformation of online workshops is coming. And the intersection of technology and development — in delivering these trainings at low cost, in low-bandwidth, and in partnership with local facilitators — is perfectly positioned to lead the way.

DIAL Ideation Workshop