What are the most exciting examples of AI for Education Training and Learning, particularly for adult learning and global development?

Here are the 6 things I’m most excited about (some which we’re already doing on the AI front at TechChange) 

1. Powering captioning and translation services: Translating training and learning materials has been a huge challenge for TechChange over the past decade. I see huge potential in the global development sector for AI technology to reduce cost and time needed to translate and caption content for our cohort based learning experiences. Live captioning for our events has also been something we’ve worked hard on through partnerships and the AI for live captioning continues to improve. And lastly our multilingual learning and events platform is already available in dozens of languages but AI tech has opened up the possibility for hundreds more less spoken languages to more efficiently be used in our stack. 

2. Creating more opportunities for accessibility. The AI accessibility revolution is upon us. We are big on inclusion at TechChange from making our courses 508 compliant to providing sign language service options for our partners for virtual and hybrid conferences. AI tech will allow us to provide more inclusive spaces for those who need it. 

3. Generating virtual environments and scenarios for simulation-based learning: Simulations are a powerful way to build skills and demonstrate learning. I see huge potential for AI to power the building of complex scenarios and environments quickly and efficiently, especially when paired with VR/AR. At TechChange we have designed many 3D virtual environments for events and conferences and are excited to be piloting some immersive training projects with several partners this year. Get in touch if you are interested in working with us on this. 

4. Recommendation and matching engines: At TechChange we believe that building relationships is as important as building skills. We are social creatures and we learn better with other people. That’s why we’re excited to experiment in the coming months with engines and tools that help facilitate networking connections and personalized learning experiences for our learning cohorts. 

5. Summary generation: ChatGPT and other tools are great for generating content but I am really excited about summary generation. We have been capturing summaries for meetings, summaries for trainings, summaries for conferences, etc. – Both text based and video based – that can be easily processed and shared at speed. In today’s FOMO world I think this is a powerful application that will only improve.  

6. AI-supported workshops and trainings: We also see potential for using ChatGPT and other tools within flow of activities exercises to support learning outcomes for both in person and virtual experiences. AI can help to do time bound do-read outs of group conversations, support with research and synthesis prompts, pair groups and participants up more effectively based on specific criteria and more. 

7. ???

Educators and global development professionals- Curious what you think? How are you using AI to support your learning outcomes? 

Some other news… 

We are excited to bring back our AI for global development online cohort course. This was one of our more popular offerings from 2017-2020 and given the interest and demand in 2023, we are thrilled to be revamping it and adding additional content related to ethics and responsible data. 

We don’t have a specific date yet but you can register for the waitlist here

Get in touch if you want to explore how TechChange can support you in delivering best-in-class AI-powered learning and convening experiences.

Last week I had the opportunity to participate in something called the Long Conversation at the IFC Sustainability Exchange organized by Veronica Nyhan Jones.

As a professor and an edtech CEO, I love thinking about new ways to facilitate conversations and inspire authentic moments on stage and online.

I’ve also participated in too many poorly-executed panels. You know the ones I’m talking about: where there’s little to no dialogue among panelists, too much Powerpoint, no limits on speaking times, badly moderated audience Q&A, etc.

So I was excited to try something new.

Format

The long conversation is essentially a relay of timed two-person dialogues around a central theme.

The first person interviews the second, asking a series of questions (some predetermined, some spontaneous), then the first person exits, the second person becomes the interviewer, and a third person takes the stage.

Set-up for Long Conversation

Interviewers and interviewees sit facing each other in the center of the room with audience seated around them. So it feels a bit like a closed fishbowl with predetermined speakers.   

The Long Conversation” format was adapted in this instance from Rachel Goslins and her work with The Smithsonian, where 25 leaders from the arts and sciences participate in a relay of two-person dialogues. But the unscripted back-and-forth of experts-interviewing-experts has also been used by organizations such as The Long Now Foundation, in 2010 which combined the 6-hour 19-minute presentation with data visualization performance by Sosolimited and a live performance of composer Jem Finer’s Longplayer.

Here’s what Veronica sent us in advance to set the tone:

“We are creating an intimate space to exchange ideas, thoughts, experiences to help everyone in the room appreciate the importance of and connections between resilience and creativity at various levels – whether it’s personal, community-level, organizational, or societal. Keep your ideas simple and concrete. Be yourself. Have fun.”

Preparation and reflections:

  • Planning: The IFC team clearly worked hard to select the theme (Resilience), pick the participants, and determine the order for the conversation. They shared a number of potential questions in advance and asked us to think of three personal or professional stories related to the theme. They also put us in touch with our interviewers and interviewees beforehand to settle on specific questions.  I’m a professor so I tend to over prepare anytime I go on stage. This format lends itself better to spontaneity and storytelling but it’s still important to check in with your interviewer and interviewee before the live conversation (even it’s 30 mins before the event) to agree on questions and a rough story arc.

 

  • Timing: The IFC team set the time limit at 10 minutes per conversation with a chime at the one minute mark to prompt a final question/answer. The total time for our session was 1.5 hours with seven 10-minute conversations. 5 minutes may be too short but 10 can also feel a bit long in our current era of diminished attention spans.  
  • Audio: There are no options for powerpoint slides or AV in this format, but audio is important. Be sure to use microphones (ideally lavs) because at every moment, some audience members are not facing a speaker.
  • Stage and seating: If you go with the fishbowl setup be sure to have the central platform raised enough so that folks can see the stage. And ideally, create a stadium seating effect so that audience members in the back are higher up and can see above folks in the front.
  • Audience polling: This format doesn’t lend itself well to audience Q&A. I tried to do a hand-raising poll during mine (how many of you think that in 20 years the majority of traditional education (HS and College) will be delivered online?) and folks seemed eager to answer. I think this could be a neat technique to interject between sessions as new speakers join on stage.
  • Order of roles: In our relay the new person on the stage started out as the interviewee and then transitioned to the interviewer in the second conversation. I am someone who always takes a few minutes to settle into the spotlight and imagine others are in the same boat. Interviewing seems like an easier way to do start on stage. I think there’s room to experiment here.

At TechChange, we are going to be working on adapting this format for our next online certificate course: Agriculture, Technology and Innovation which kicks off on June 11th. COO Chris wrote about the experience watching the webcast of the long conversation here. So if you’re interested in helping to pioneering a virtual version with us then sign up or reach out.

Thanks again to the IFC and Smithsonian teams for an enjoyable session. I’m always on the hunt creative ideas to improve and innovate beyond the traditional conference model (keynote/lightning talk/panel/breakout).

What other creative session formats have seen/tried/enjoyed at a conference?

 

Featured image credit: WOCinTech Chat Creative Commons License

The Current Situation

There’s no doubt that there is a glaring gender gap in tech. The widely accepted number of jobs held by women in the industry is 30%, but when you look at the percentage of women actually filling engineering roles, that figure shrinks considerably.

Let’s take a look at some of the giants in tech. At both Facebook and Google, women make up around a third of the company’s payroll, but only 16% of technical jobs at Facebook and 18% at Google are held by female engineers. At Twitter, it’s only 10%. These figures are the norm across the industry – in Europe, only 7% of engineering jobs are held by women!

Now, this isn’t just a women’s issue, a corporate responsibility problem, or a diversity issue. This gap is hurting companies’ bottom-lines and is detrimental to the industry overall.

If you look at any number of metrics, a gender-balanced team outperforms a predominantly male or predominantly female team. The numbers show that gender diversity has big payoffs. Teams with at least one female executive tend to receive valuations that are 64% larger than companies that only have men in leadership positions.

As Toptal Co-Founder and COO Breanden Beneschott put it, “If men and women are equally intelligent, statistically speaking, then out of the smartest ten people in the world, five should be male and five should be female.” Therefore, “if your team is anything less than an equal balance of men and women, then your team is probably not the best it can be.”

What is being done to address this gender gap?

The good news is that leading tech companies agree on this and they’re launching initiatives to get more women into top engineering positions. The solution here is more complicated than just doubling down on recruitment efforts for female engineers, though. There simply aren’t enough female engineers in the job market right now. While there’s no one reason for this, Girls Who Code founder Reshma Saujani explained that popular culture has a lot to do with turning young women away from tech. Girls take cues from TV shows, fashion magazines, and social media that tech is a man’s domain and figure it’s not a path they should follow.

So companies are trying to get involved at the ground level, not just recruiting computer science graduates but also showing girls at a young age that they actively want them to enter STEM fields, both in the classroom and after they’ve received their diploma. Both Etsy and Intel partner with Girls Who Code and Girl Develop it to build a strong educational pipeline that supports aspiring female developers.

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In October 2015, Toptal launched Toptal Scholarships for Female Developers, which will award 12 aspiring female engineers $5,000 and a year of one-on-one mentorship with a senior developer from the network. Toptal is encouraging girls of all ages and educational backgrounds to apply by making a meaningful contribution to open source and then writing a personal blog post about it. They’re announcing one winner per month for a year.

Through partnerships with educational organizations and the creation of mentorship programs, these companies are getting at the root of a systemic issue. There’s a long road to gender parity in tech, but they’re at the forefront of a solution that will bring more female engineers into the industry and give their companies a competitive edge.

About Grace

Grace Fish Headshot
Grace Fish is a writer from San Francisco currently working at Toptal. She graduated with a degree in History from Princeton in June 2015, and has been been living as a digital nomad ever since.

This article was originally published on Stanford Social Innovation Review. 

By Nick Martin & Christopher Neu

On November 3, 1961, John F. Kennedy’s universal call to fight poverty was formalized in the creation of the US Agency for International Development (USAID). Today, the rising cost of education means only a select few can answer that call. At USAID and implementing organizations, higher levels of leadership are mostly closed to those with only a bachelor’s degree. An elite master’s degree is especially costly—a two-year master’s in public policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School costs $154,688.

Students passionate about building a better future are increasingly being asked to mortgage their own in return. Students share the growing burden of student debt across the country: The median level of indebtedness for a Master of Arts degree jumped from $38,000 in 2004 to $59,000 in 2012, after adjusting for inflation. But the ability to repay debts is not equal across fields: Social workers are, in comparison, highly unlikely to make a salary sufficient to repay those debts without hardship. The result is that students are getting squeezed between inflated education requirements and constrained salaries at a time when the world most needs them to tackle complex global challenges.

To overcome the barriers of insufficient access to education, universities are turning to massive open online courses (MOOCs) to teach about sustainable development. For example, Wesleyan developed How to Change the World, Stanford created Mobile Health Without Borders, and even UC Berkeley has a new initiative to build a Philanthropy University with Acumen and NovoEd. But scaling a lecture hall through video content is easy; it’s creating an affordable and effective classroom experience that’s hard.

Further progress will require a revolution in online pedagogy as much as improved technology, or possibly even an unbundling of the graduate degree from the traditional 40 three-credit courses. As employers better identify the discrete skill sets and competencies they need, students will be empowered with clarity about where they want to spend their time and money to enter the workplace. Education and accreditation have never been more important for workplace success, but the in-person college experience may soon become an unaffordable luxury.

Digital Pedagogy post photo

Chris Neu and Norman Shamas facilitate a TechChange course in the TechChange studio

At TechChange, we believe that we can achieve a guided student experience, a network of dedicated alumni, and an expansion of career opportunities all online. Fortunately, our students believe the same. In the last month, we’ve seen record enrollments in our new low-cost online diploma program, with more than 120 applicants from more than 40 countries already signing up for our 16-week program on technology for monitoring and evaluation. These students come from organizations and governments such as UNICEF, Mercy Corps, Peru, and the World Bank. Employers have similar confidence in this model; several are sponsoring group enrollments in the diploma program.

Online educators have much to learn from one another. In building out the program, we have drawn heavily from in-person and online models of education that are pushing boundaries, including:

  • Amani Institute: Has a five-month post-graduate certificate program in applied skills for changing the world (now in Kenya and Brazil).
  • General Assembly: Known for its intensive, 12-week boot camps in computer programming and design, and has a great track record at placing graduates in better-paying jobs.
  • Khan Academy: Set the standard for engagement in online learning through quality content and personalized learning paths.

There is no clear answer to the problems of unsustainable careers in sustainable development. Universities are expensive, and these jobs are highly complex. However, by unbundling the graduate school experience, and examining how we can recreate and improve it online, educators might just find new methods for launching the next generation of development practitioners unburdened by lifelong debt.

Last week, the United Nations hosted the Sustainable Development Summit in New York and convened interactive dialogues on six themes including ending poverty and combating climate change. Perhaps it’s also worth discussing how we ensure that the careers of the people required to address these problems are also sustainable. Rethinking graduate school seems like a good place to start.

***

Nick (@ncmart) is the founder and CEO of TechChange. He is also an adjunct professor at Georgetown and George Washington Universities.

Chris (@neuguy) is the COO of TechChange. He holds a master’s in democracy and governance from Georgetown University.

This article was originally published on Stanford Social Innovation Review. Featured image credit: Russell Watkins, DFID Flickr.

Education is a powerful tool for diversity. From Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, which tells narratives marginalized from most American history curricula, to using teach-ins as a form of education as activism, education plays an important role in building empathy and understanding that can promote greater diversity.

Teaching is not neutral
Recognizing that teaching isn’t neutral or unbiased is key to the understanding of education as reflective of diversity. Education inherently embodies an understanding of diversity that the educator has. Whether this educator is a teacher in a formal school, a conference facilitator, or even the media, their biases can work to make their classroom (in all different forms) an inclusive space or a space of marginalization.

Everyone learns differently
Bias in teaching is commonly discussed with the different ways people learn–the three cognitive types of learners: auditory, visual, and kinesthetic. Auditory learners gain information most effectively through listening and speaking activities. Visual learners prefer seeing or reading information. Kinesthetic learners learn by doing. An educator selects course learning activities that embody their own understanding of how people learn; this can be inclusive with activities from the varying learners types or marginalizing and focus on only one type of learner.

Because people tend to fit into multiple learning styles, teaching has adapted to incorporate different activities for different learning styles. Techniques such as active learning are being incorporated into lectures as a way to engage different types of learners and help students be more active. So even though everyone might be able to learn from a traditional lecture, it doesn’t mean that they learn most effectively that way, or that a lecture is creating an inclusive space of learning.

Education can marginalize voices
Recognizing education as an act of diversity means more than taking different learning styles into account. The topics that are discussed or omitted are also important. Omission of marginalized and non-elite narratives in the US history curriculum has been a critique from members of marginalized groups, like the rappers Tupac or Dead Prez, or American historians, like Howard Zinn.

Teaching and education are heavily steeped in social and cultural hierarchies. Paolo Freire brought to light how education can be used as a force of oppression (whether used by the ones with power, or the ones rebelling against the power) in his 1968 publication (first published in English in 1970), Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Education can play a role in keeping marginalized groups marginalized.

Outdoor classroom

So, what can you do as an educator?
The role of an educator is not simply to overcome embedded oppressions, but to actively create an inclusive space of learning. By intentionally selecting various topics and being aware of how course design can marginalize voices is a good starting point.

It also includes structuring the course and assessments (if there are any) in a way that considers social diversity. When I was a graduate student instructor at the University of Minnesota, I had the pleasure of working with Katherine Brink who expanded my thoughts on how designing assessments can hinder students from learning, despite a desire to learn.

For example, time can be a barrier for students who are working part- or full-time and/or need to take care of family members while going to school. Requiring group work can be a burden to those without copious amounts of free time due, in part, to the difficulties of scheduling. As a conscious educator, you can structure group work and collaboration time during the class time to reduce the burden of logistics. Other factors, such as finances, family, and mental health, can all affect a learner’s performance. The course and its assessments need to take these into account as well.

The role of an educator is to create a space of radical inclusion. A space where each individual learner and their unique identities can not only be engaged, but flourish.

Education, Diversity, and the Digital
Technology has expanded the reach of education and the ‘classroom.’ Online courses bring together diverse group of learners from different cultural backgrounds and different educational systems into one learning environment.

Technology provides exciting new opportunities for collaboration and learning. But it also brings new forms of marginalization in the form of access to technology and affordable access to online data transfers. These are new hierarchies that educators in the digital age need to consider and help break down.

While I would love to offer concrete solutions and advice for digital educators, this is a new area that needs to be explored further. As we expand the reach of teaching, we need to remember that technology cannot replace a good educator.

What do you think about the role of education as a tool for diversity? Comment below or tweet at @NormanShamas or @TechChange!

This is the third post in our Digital Pedagogy series, where we will share how we are trying to make online social learning even better with new learning activities. Check out the previous posts here.

 

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!
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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!

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.

We had such a blast hosting Nagham and Sondos from the TechGirls program last year, that we’re doing it again this year!

We are very excited to welcome more participants of the TechGirls program to TechChange’s DC office tomorrow to experience what it’s like to work at a fast-paced edtech social enterprise. During their visit, the TechGirls will learn about digital animation, graphic design and illustrations, video production and editing, photography, instructional design for eLearning, web design and programming, interactive infographics, data visualization, and more.

TechGirls

TechGirls is a U.S. State Department exchange program that empower Middle Eastern and North African teenage girls to pursue science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) careers.

Follow us and the hashtags #techgirls and #letgirlslearn to keep up with updates on TechGirls in action. To learn more about the TechGirls, you can follow their program Tumblr,  Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.

Photo credit: TextIt

I am not tech savvy. I do not keep up with the newest phones or gadgets and I have no idea how to build a website. However, I have been texting for many years and I know that if I can master the SMS system and stay connected through messaging, anyone can. Which is why I was so impressed by TextIt, a messaging platform that is simple yet can achieve so much- from surveying dispersed populations to disseminating life-saving information that may not have otherwise reached its target destinations.

When learning about the tool and using it in the Mobiles for International Development class, I was thinking about access, a main concern of mine within international development. Not only did I find TextIt accessible to me as the creator of a campaign in terms of the ease of building an SMS flow (again, if I can do it, most people can), but also in the array of possibilities of its relevance. Whether it is access to clean water, healthcare, education, or safe roads, TextIt provides a platform for people on the ground, even those in the most remote areas, to communicate their experiences and needs through the tips of their fingers.

In my own field of interest, namely providing access to education to marginalized populations in developing countries and humanitarian settings, I believe TextIt could be an asset. I can see it being used for purposes of teacher training, of understanding if a regional school system is being inclusive of the community’s children with disabilities, or even in a post-disaster situation, letting communities know about impromptu schools being set up by organizations and finding how many children are not in school. The possibilities are countless.

TextIt has the potential to expand more widely in several areas. Currently, it only operates on Android phones and I would hope that the developers are working to make it accessible to other mobile companies so as to increase access. In addition, survey taking may not be familiar to some cultures and seeing the large-scale success of TextIt could take a lot of time. Though the SMS system may be quick, cost efficient and reach many people, it does eliminate the human aspect of international development and the nuances of person to person conversations are lost through the mobile devices (for example, you can survey a group of villagers about the infrastructure in the area, but unless the person developing a campaign physically goes to see the area, much of the reality is lost). Moreover, a survey that is not well-planned or well-worded or inaccurate information is being sent out could cause mistrust of the system and the senders and people will stop using it.

Overall, I think using TextIt as an international development tool encourages more creativity, pushing professionals to think beyond traditional methods of interaction with their beneficiaries. Personally, I see myself finding a way to incorporate TextIt in my future projects and hopefully with that, I will become just a bit more tech savvy.

About Yael Shapira

Yael Shapira TechChange alumni

Yael Shapira works as Assistant Director of International Relations, Graduate School of Education and Human Development at George Washington University and recently completed TC105: Mobiles for International Development. Yael received an M.A. in International Education from GW in 2012, with an academic focus on providing access to education to marginalized populations in conflict and post-conflict settings, specifically in Sub-Saharan Africa. She has lived and worked in Ethiopia, India, Israel, Niger and Switzerland, where she planned and implemented educational projects for refugees, street children, children with disabilities and other populations. Yael received her Bachelor’s in International Relations from Boston University in 2009. She was born and raised in Jerusalem, Israel.

Interested in learning more about TextIt and other mobile platforms in the context of global development? Join us for an online course on Mobiles for International Development.

Did you know that prior to founding an e-learning social enterprise, TechChange President Nick Martin did his undergraduate degree in Modern Poetry?

Nick recently returned to his alma mater, Swarthmore College, where he participated in a panel discussion on “What I Learned From Trying to Change the World” during the school’s alumni weekend. To an audience of approximately 150 people, Nick spoke with three fellow alumni representing the Peace Corps, Princeton University, and Juvenile Law Center in Philadelphia on the lessons they learned in their respective social change industries.

United with the common threads of a liberal arts education at Swarthmore and careers driven by the desire to change the world, here are the pearls of wisdom they shared based on their social change careers so far:

Lesson 1:

“You learn the most and you learn the quickest when you get yourself out there.” -F.F. Quigley, Country Director, Thailand, Peace Corps

We often learn and gain the most from doing what we are afraid of. The impact of this lesson could not be truer and is something we always need to be urging ourselves to do.

Lesson 2:

“Be careful not to be too righteous” -Lourdes Rosado, Associate Director of Juvenile Law Center (Philadelphia, PA)

Be able to disagree with others while maintaining respect for them and their opinions. Sometimes the only way to achieve progress is by working with, and not against, those who challenge us.

Lesson 3:

“We need to take time to ask better questions.” -Carolyn Rouse, Professor of Anthropology, Princeton University

While Carolyn Rouse worked to establish a high school in the outskirts of Accra, Ghana, she learned that sometimes stability matters more than change. When looking to make the world a better place, we need to challenge assumptions, as not everything aligns clearly to a cut-and-dry cost-benefit analysis. With anything life, do not be afraid to ask questions and challenge the status quo.

Lesson 4:

“Community matters.” -Nick Martin, President & CEO, TechChange

We are shaped by the people we surround ourselves with. Whether hiring people to join your start-up or choosing your friends, the values and attitudes of those we associate ourselves with have a strong impact on the people we become.

To check out the entire talk, click here and fast forward to 32:30 to catch Nick’s segment.

Do you have a liberal arts education that you have applied to try to change the world? What lessons have you learned along the way? Tell us in the comments below or tweet us @TechChange.