ICT4D | TechChange | The Institute for Technology and Social Change

By: Emma Sakson

Do emerging technologies such as crypto and AI have a place in international development? How do we balance the risks of untested tools with their potential rewards, and impact?

Throughout my time working in ICT4D, I’ve tended to be a skeptic when it comes to the promise that frontier technology can improve development outcomes and, most importantly, people’s lives. Rather than fixate on the newest technology on the scene, I’ve tended to focus on basic tools deployed in ethical and effective ways. At the intersection of technology and development, there are no “magic bullets,” but new tools can unlock exciting ways for people to connect and collaborate with one another.

TechChange believes deeply in that power. To put our values into action, we convened the first-ever hybrid Frontiers of Digital Development Forum (FDDF) to bring technologists, development practitioners, and thought leaders from all over the world together for exciting, tough, and necessary conversations about the role of emerging technology within development.

We used our innovative approach to hybrid events to ensure that these debates, conversations and demonstrations were accessible, inclusive, and dynamic. Compared to a traditional DC event, the hybrid nature of the Frontiers of Digital Development Forum allowed for critical voices from outside of Washington D.C. to be heard. Overall, over 600 people across 55 countries participated in the forum either in-person, virtually, or both.

FDDF Day 1

For Day 1 of the conference, 190 people representing more than 60 organizations convened in DC’s historic Capitol Turnaround hall to discuss topics such as the role of technology in humanitarian response, digital transaction of carbon credits, and how crypto can democratize development.

As a new TechChange employee, I was thrilled that FDDF did not shy away from polarizing topics, and I was struck by how fresh and inclusive this event felt compared to many conferences I’ve participated in the past. In addition to select virtual-only sessions, all of the in-person sessions were live-streamed to virtual participants, who could also engage with discussion boards, Pop-up Studio interviews, and virtual networking experiences.

Our amazing FDDF ambassadors led local watch parties and conversations in Tanzania, Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Jordan. It was exciting to be a part of a new model for convening in this globalized, digital age, and engage with ICT4D practitioners all over the world.

*TechChange CEO Nick Martin engages with Nairobi watch party organized by FDDF Ambassador Peter Omondi*

FDDF Day 2

Day 2 of the conference utilized the TechChange platform for an entirely virtual experience. As one virtual participant from Kenya said, “FDDF2022 was one of the greatest events I have attended. The quality of discussion, unique topics, great panelists exchanging ideas, insightful audience– this was an eye opener.”

*One of the most-watched sessions featured Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation*

The user-friendly features of our platform provided not only unfettered access to content but multiple ways to engage with speakers and other attendees. The platform recorded over 32 hours of content featuring 97 speakers, and participants were buzzing with energy– over 1,000 in-session chat messages were sent throughout the forum.

That’s our favorite thing about hybrid conferences- there’s something for everyone. And when gathering together to discuss emerging technology, isn’t it appropriate that we should use an innovative approach that leverages the best of conference tech to ensure a diverse collection of voices are at the table?

At TechChange, virtual participation isn’t just an afterthought, it’s an integral part of how we make connections and build community. We’re looking forward to applying the lessons we’ve learned to our hybrid events in the future to make them even more engaging and inclusive. This is emerging technology I can get behind.

As we settle into 2018 and launch a variety of new courses, workshops, and ways to innovate our approach to online learning, we’re thankful to you, our TechChange community, for your unwavering support! In the last year, we’ve trained over 7,000 people from 155 countries on our platform alone.

Check out a few of the cool things we were able to do in 2017.

We’ve released new features on our online learning platform!

Frontend editing: Course administrators can now type directly into the platform section that you would like to update or add information to. The new inline editing feature means easy access to editing/updating content, a cleaner design, and a direct way to see real-time updates of changes that you’re making to your course content.

Completion tracking: Course administrators can now track module completion with our new rules feature. By simply setting “rules” for each slide, submodule, and module, learners will be alerted with a green check mark if they have completed the appropriate section.

Progress view: Course administrators can now view the progress of their students holistically with the new progress view. Based upon the rules of each course, the progress view details where students are in relation to course completion, when they were last active, and which modules have been completed.

We’ve developed informative interactive modules!

IFC Gender Course: TechChange partnered with IFC (International Finance Corporation) to create a multi-module course on the business case for gender smart solutions. The course is customized with three different industry tracts that users can choose between depending on what is most relevant to their work.
Jhpiego MCSP: The Faculty Development Program represents a major accomplishment for the Instructional Design team over the summer and fall seasons. The program is centered around best practices for medical practitioners and is meant to improve educational quality and teaching skills for practitioners in Liberia and beyond.
CCAP: TechChange built a self-paced course for the Coastal Cities Adaptation Project of Mozambique that focused on the basics of climate change, adaptation, disaster risk reduction, and urban resilience. The course featured many video interviews (filmed by TC staff) with important stakeholders involved in climate change management in Mozambique.

We’ve created some beautiful content!

Making Cents International Report: An exciting collaboration between the Instructional Design and Creative Teams for The Rockefeller Foundation & Making Cents resulting in a youth-oriented toolkit for demand-driven training. Click here to view the report and here to view the interactive website!
DCA animation and pamphlet: USAID’s Development Credit Authority (DCA) uses loan guarantees to increase access to finance and promote growth in developing countries. The creative team was tasked to create multiple short animations to explain how the Development Credit Authority works and its benefits to those in developing countries. Click here to view our whiteboard style explainer video and click here to view our mobilizing local wealth for entrepreneurs around the world animation .
DIAL animation: We had the pleasure of working with DIAL (Digital Impact Alliance) to explain the Principles for Digital Development and its importance to the digital development community. The team was tasked with creating a 2 minute explainer animation that is both attractive and informative. Assets and animation was spearheaded by our senior illustrator & animator John Kim. Click here to watch the video.
mPowering animation: The Creative Team worked on a beautiful animation for mPowering’s OpenDeliver, a mobile-enabled delivery system for health resources that includes a feedback loop to supply analytics. Click here to watch the video!

We’ve hosted interesting workshops and traveled to many places!

Mozambique for CCAP: In January 2017, Shannon, Emily, and John traveled to Maputo and Pemba, Mozambique to record interviews with key stakeholders involved in climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction efforts across the country. The interviews were incorporated into the four-module self-paced course built to empower individuals with the fundamentals of climate change, preparedness, and urban resilience.
Maine for PopTech: In October, the TechChange team headed to Camden, Maine for the 2017 PopTech Conference: Instigate, where we provided tech support, photography, and conference marketing support.
Boston for Connected Health Conference: In October, Chris, Yohan, and Meronne went to Boston, Massachusetts to provide event support with photography and video interviews.
Qatar for WISE: Chris and Austin traveled to Doha, Qatar for the World Innovation Summit on Education (WISE Summit) for a series of plenaries and workshops on the future of education.
Washington, D.C. for the World Bank Youth Summit: Nick gave an interactive workshop on blockchain for international development.
Instructional Design Workshops: Throughout the year at TechChange Headquarters, Isabel lead different instructional design with Articulate 360 workshops. Click here to sign up for the next one!
TechGirls 2017: For the fifth year in a row, we’ve had the honor of hosting two brilliant young leaders from the TechGirls State Department program. This year, Passant Abu-el-Gheit and Reem Saado shadowed the various teams hard at work making online courses in the TechChange office, and contributed a few creations of their own. Read the full blog post here!

We’re launching new online courses!

TC116 Blockchain for International Development: This four-week online certificate course will attempt to cut through the hype and evaluate the potential of this technology on everything from remittances to supply chain management, voting practices, smart contracts, land titling, educational credentialing, health record storage, and more. Learn about the course here!
TC310 The Future of Digital Health: This four-week online certificate course will explore how a range of emerging technologies — blockchain, artificial intelligence, drones, sensors and Internet of things, wearable devices, and more — are contributing to patient care and management, disease tracking, point-of-care support, health education, remote monitoring, diagnostics, supply chain management, and logistics.The course will also take a hard look at complexities surrounding patient privacy and security, limits to access, training and capacity building challenges, interoperability issues, regulation and policy hurdles, and more. Learn about the course here!
TC301 Artificial Intelligence for International Development: This four-week online certificate course will cover the basics of artificial intelligence from natural language processing and object differentiation, to comparative facial recognition and more. It will draw from a variety of case studies, particularly in financial services, education, and healthcare. It will also explore challenges to adoption that exist around automation, hype cycles, ethical concerns, security, sustainability, and more. We will also explore machine learning, a narrower subset of AI that focuses on data analysis and building algorithms that reduce the need for human intervention. Learn more about the course here!
TC101 Online Learning for International Development: This four-week course will include a number of innovative case studies as well as demos of our favorite emerging technologies to support and enhance learning. Over the past 8 years, TechChange has built 500+ online courses on all kinds of topics for a variety of audiences and in a range of formats. In that time, we have had to contend with every imaginable hurdle: diminished attention spans, bandwidth constraints, translation issues, security challenges, and more. This is why we’ve decided to package all of this experience into an online certificate course. Learn more about the course here!

As we continue to build and create beautiful courses, we’re excited to start licensing our online learning platform to organizations and continue building our expertise in online learning. A recent study on capacity building done by the Global Knowledge Initiative listed TechChange as the number one cited source individuals and organizations used most to improve curriculum design, further teaching pedagogy, develop online modules, and build presentation and facilitation skills. We look forward to continue building our online learning skill sets.

We hope to see you online, in person, or in a course!

What stories would you tell with data from your daily life?

In September 2014, two award-winning information designers living on different sides of Atlantic, Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec, collaborated on a year-long project to collect, visualize, and share information about their daily lives. Each week they would hand-draw representations of their activities and thoughts as part of a process to use data to become more humane and connected on a deeper level. The end result is Dear Data: an award-winning project to make data artistic, personal, and open to everyone.

(Watch starting at 6:45)

In Spring 2016, we asked online students in our Tech for Monitoring and Evaluation Online Diploma Program to try their hand at a similar month-long project and send postcards to one another. As we have 110 students in 35 countries, many of whom had only just met in the preceding weeks, this provided an excellent opportunity to recreate some of what made Giorgia and Stefanie’s project so special. And it gives me great pleasure to share some examples of their work.

For one project, two of our students (Madison and Ann, who both work with Health Policy Plus), sent one another postcards every week on the following four topics:

Daily activities
Social media
Food
Emotions

These postcards are presented without commentary below, so that you can see the postcards as they did.

When asked for their reflections as part of the exercise, both Madison and Ann claimed that the process made them mindful of issues and habits that they had previously ignored, and that they were able to discern larger patterns when looking at their week as a whole. Though neither were professional information designers, their work improved over multiple iterations, as well as became a fun, inclusive process.

“Our different styles quickly became apparent and added to the reflective learning. Apparently Madison is calm and cool, and Ann is, well, a bit excitable,” said Madison.

“The involvement of friends and family was an unplanned bonus. Visualization and art attracts attention…they got drawn in (especially Ann’s 10 year-old son Harry) and got a kick out of seeing what arrived in the mail,” said Ann.

And both agreed: “Overall it was a fun challenge—we highly recommend it. Many thanks and acknowledgement to Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec, the Dear Data creators”

If you’re interested in learning more about how you can better collect, visualize, and make decisions based on data, check out our 16-week Tech for Monitoring and Evaluation Online Diploma Program and enroll today. First course in the track starts September 12th.

Week 1: Days in My Work Week

Week 2: Social Media

Week 3: Food

How do you make the invisible visible? How can we keep up with our ever-changing world, and how can we utilize the technologies of our time? Upon the completion of TechChange’s Mapping for Social Good course, we have found that some answers lie within the realm of digital mapping and geospatial data collection.

From Theory to Practice

The course features four weeks of case studies and real-world map applications, a diverse set of guest speakers, and innovative tech tools to invoke critical spatial analysis with social and environmental perspectives. Each new week introduced a set of social and environmental themes. Issues such as Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene required an advanced geographic understanding of land use and climate patterns to produce meaningful maps, and cutting edge tools such as CartoDB, Mapbox, and Leaflet empowered our understanding through spatial analysis.

In search of balance, participants discussed the necessary steps in designing an attractive, efficient, and safe urban infrastructure in Abu Dhabi, and discovered the complexity of the plan. Taking into account population, available surface area, and the availability of funds and resources, the course discussion forums were flooded with professional expertise and insight in how to build infrastructure that reflects the city’s urban lifestyle.

But Data Considerations Aren’t Only About Tech

A discussion on ethics can often be overlooked in this technical environment. But in Week 3, Nathaniel Raymond of The Signal Program on Human Security and Technology led a talk that highlighted recurring challenges associated with technology and humanitarian efforts. In doing so he introduced the concept of Demographically Identifiable Information (DII) – a close relative to that of Personally Identifiable Information (PII). His message put forth “Do No Harm” caution to humanitarians, encouraging critical thought and consideration for the most vulnerable populations in our world, remembering that we both hold, yet lack, so much power with technology.

Engaging Formal and Informal Institutions

Of note was the interaction between the global volunteer community of mappers and major donor institutions. A team of geographers and cartographers from the State Department’s Humanitarian Information Unit joined the class to discuss Mapgive and Imagery to the Crowd, a program that provides satellite data to global volunteers during times of crisis, and shows just how far the digital humanitarian community has come in the past decade.

Interactivity in Online Education

Throughout the course, participants presented their digital maps, addressing fundamental questions like, “what is the purpose of this map?” and, “will it give us exactly what we need, or simply what we think we need?” We’ve seen land-use maps of Washington, DC, conflict maps tracking violence against civilians in Libya using QGIS, and district density maps using the CartoDB application.

Upon completion of the TechChange course, “Mapping for Social Good,” we hope that participants feel well-equipped with some of the best mapping resources of our time, and that they have taken their professional experiences to new and challenging levels.

About the Authors
Madeline is a student at James Madison University, where she studies Political Science, Humanitarian Affairs and Geographic Information Systems, with a special interest in Conflict Resolution and International Landmine Prevention. In her free time, she loves to bike, paint, and eat chocolate pie while listening to Dave Brubeck.

Greg works on training and analytics with the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations at the US Department of State. He has spent his career working at the intersection of conflict resolution, technology, and the arts. Trained as a mediator, he also worked with the Northern Virginia Mediation Service and the US Institute of Peace. As a technologist, he has leveraged Geographic Information Systems for health interventions, humanitarian response, and conflict analysis purposes. He holds an MA in International Studies from the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver.

Featured image credit: Andy Miah Creative Commons License

Today we had the opportunity to chat with Steve Ollis of D-tree International, who will be a guest expert for our Mobile Phones for Public Health course. Below, he discusses his experience working in the mHealth field!

Can you tell us about your background and experience in mHealth?

I came into mHealth and global health in a somewhat non-traditional way. I actually started off as an accountant and management consultant with BearingPoint, working with various US government military branches on their accounting systems. I moved into IT consulting with a focus on program management for the next six years, working at progressively smaller companies, bringing web applications to state and federal agencies and addressing issues like help desk, user training and support, and change management needed to introduce and sustain new applications in large organizations.

My career in mHealth and global health started with a few short volunteers stints in Kenya and South Africa followed by a position with the Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative (now Clinton Health Access Initiative) for two years in Tanzania, working in pediatric HIV, commodities, lab systems and Prevention of Mother to Child (PMTCT) programs.

With this exposure to the global health world and my background in information technology, I was intrigued by the possibility of working in the mHealth space and joined D-tree International in Tanzania six years ago. I have been fortunate to work on cutting edge mobile decision support tools focusing on design, development, deployment and support. I have seen projects grow from 1-2 facility to over a hundred facilities, and 5-10 community health workers to thousands of health workers. Over the years I have also seen a dramatic price drop for Android phones from $650 t0 $80. I have worked in Tanzania, Benin, Malawi, Kenya, Sri Lanka and India as part of small and large teams, and have worked at both the community health worker and Ministry of Health levels.

How is mHealth incorporated to your work currently?

D-tree International is a health NGO that uses mobile technology to improve the care provided by frontline health workers. We are working at the government, donor, implementing partner and ground levels to develop applications and systems that support decision makers at all levels, from the community health worker and nurse level to health systems supervisors. We focus on providing mobile decision support tools to health workers, and creating health systems to provide them adequate support. We use mobile technology to improve health outcomes by developing supervisory applications, dashboards, mobile money integration for transport, vital events tracking, and point of care diagnostics.

Why do you think mHealth is important / what impact can learning about the use of mobile phones for public health have on development projects?

It is amazing to think about how we can do things more effectively and efficiently using mobile devices, including data collection, applications, closed user groups and telemedicine. At a higher level it is useful to think about how these innovations can be introduced, scaled and supported in order to create significant impact and change.

What are your thoughts on the future of mHealth, and where you think this field is heading?

We’ll see continuing availability of smartphones at all levels of society and the prices will come down further. The price of data and sms will also be reduced and connectivity will increase at greater bandwidth. These forces will allow for increasingly complex mHealth systems to be developed where data, images and video may be able to be shared even in the most remote areas. Point of care diagnostics will continue to evolve, where the prices and power requirements for certain tests will drop to a point that they become more feasible to deploy at the community level. Mobile money, vouchers and mobile insurance will also play a role as the health workers and clients become more familiar with their use in their day to day lives. Power and lack of unique identifiers will remain significant challenges, but innovative solutions should be available soon in areas where we work.

We believe mHealth skills have the potential to make a huge impact in your work. Why do you think taking this class is important, and who would you recommend it to (public health professionals, field workers, etc etc).

This course provides a great overview of different types of mobile technologies and mHealth projects in addition to providing a unique opportunity to connect with a community of implementers and experts in the field. It will also provide some guidance around processes and structures required to include a successful mHealth component to a project. I am a firm believer in the potential of mHealth to radically transform the current state of healthcare. Everyone from policy makers to healthcare workers need to think about how we can use these tools to save lives and help people live healthier, happier lives.

Any advice for someone who wants to make a career in mHealth?

There are many opportunities available for people from all backgrounds. There is a need for people not only with health and technology skills, but also with sociology, anthropology, finance and business, project management and analytics skills. I think it’s important to be conversant in the technology, but to keep exploring these other areas which are critical to the work we are all doing to introduce and support game changing innovation in health systems for the good of the communities we serve.

About Steve
Steve is D-tree’s Chief Operating Officer with over 20 years experience in management consulting, information technology and public health. Steve holds a Bachelor’s degree in Finance from The American University and a Master’s in Business Administration in Information Systems and Finance from the University of Maryland. He is also a certified Project Management Professional. Prior to joining D-tree, Steve worked for the Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative in Tanzania directing programs in Pediatrics, Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV, and Rural Care and Treatment.

Mobile Health: How Far We’ve Come

When I first started in the field of technology for development back in around 2010, I was working specifically in global health tech, and there weren’t too many of us around. The idea of using technology in places besides the developed world was just starting to gain traction, and even then, it was limited to mostly technologists and a few health experts. Pilotitis was infecting everyone, and every project I worked on for the first few years was a pilot of some sort, with no solid plan to move beyond that stage. The focus was on finding tools and concepts that showed evidence of working, although that ended up being a more difficult task than everyone expected!

Recognizing this, the mHealth Alliance (formerly part of the United Nations Foundation) created programs to incentivize all the many organizations out there to move past the pilot stage and begin exploring how to scale their projects, and eventually other organizations followed suit. Even then, though, the health field at large was still a bit unsure about how to treat digital interventions, especially in terms of evaluation. Do you measure the success of an SMS stock monitoring tool by just counting how many times it was used, or do you count the many patients who were treated using those very drugs kept in stock? Is there even one right way to measure it?

Additionally, nobody could really agree on what terms like “scale” and “sustainability” meant for mobile health tools. It wasn’t until more recent years that the space has truly started to embrace that the definition of “scale” and “success” varies for each project, and that planning for sustainability is paramount for a mobile health product to truly make an impact.

These days, among many lessons learned, it’s widely recognized that like any technology, mobile health tools are great for targeted usages, but at the end of the day, they are just tools that cannot solve problems on their own. Even the sleekest vaccination reminder system, for instance, must be accompanied by an equally well-run vaccination program for it to really benefit a community.

The mobile health community, additionally, has expanded significantly to include a wide variety of experts and crossover roles, from doctors to designers and software developers to supply chain experts. This has contributed to an increasingly holistic view of mobile health, rather than the siloed space that it once was – which is a good thing! The more perspectives you incorporate into projects, the more likely you are to come up with a truly innovative and engaging product.

Looking Forward in Mobile Health

It’s hard to say what the next big breakthrough in mobile health will be, but we’re already starting to see a rise in the number of projects that incorporate more advanced technologies like sensors and wearables alongside mobile phones. These types of additions have the potential to reduce the amount of time and resources needed to activities that currently serve as barriers to access and utilization of health services. We’re still figuring out how these sorts of tools can be best incorporated into healthcare, even in the western world, but we’re making progress. The UNICEF Innovation team even just began testing the usage of drones to speed up the process of testing infants for HIV, which brings a whole new meaning to the concept of “mobile” health tools!

Personally, I think that the biggest changes coming ahead in the near future will not be so much in the tools themselves, but rather in how we use existing tools. With the rise of patient records and other consolidated data sources around the world, I think we’ll soon be seeing a bit more of personalized medicine in the developing world, which will help bring customized care to places where it otherwise would have been difficult to provide. Similarly, better data analytics will lead to smarter interventions – for instance, we’ll have a much better sense of exactly what types of diagnoses are prevalent in specific areas, and thus be able to better support clinicians with their precise needs. And it may sound crazy, but if you want to really look ahead, I do think we’re much closer than you’d imagine to our futuristic vision of robots supporting clinics in hard-to-reach areas. The technology for that exists; it’ll just be a matter of finding ways to make it affordable, accepted, and safe enough to use! That would open up all kinds of new doors to allowing patients with mobile phones to directly connect to their healthcare.

Regardless of what the future holds, one way that you can be prepared to participate in it is by learning more about the space at large, which is why the TechChange Mobile Phones for Public Health course is such an exciting resource! I look forward to meeting the students taking it and seeing the kind of impact they’re able to create.

About the Author
Priyanka Pathak is a technologist and digital designer whose work focuses on co-designing and co-creating technologies for social impact, especially in global health and STEM education for women. Currently, she is a Senior Designer at the Design Impact Group at Dalberg. Previously, Priyanka worked as an ICT and Innovation Specialist at the World Bank, in addition to having taught courses around design, technology, and social good at Parsons the New School and the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design. Priyanka holds a masters degree in informatics from Columbia University and bachelors degrees in information systems and business from the University of Texas at Austin, and is currently based in Washington, DC.

Live guest expert sessions are a key, and favorite, aspect of any of TechChange’s four-week, facilitated courses. Held 2-3 times per week, these events give our students the chance to engage with experts in the field and have active discussions. Our guest experts hail from diverse backgrounds and organizations.

Today, we had the opportunity to chat with Melissa Persaud, Director of Partnerships – North America at VOTO Mobile, who will be one of our guest experts for our upcoming mHealth: Mobile Phones for Public Health course. Melissa will be speaking during the second week of the course doing a demo of VOTO Mobile’s tools, before diving into a Q&A session with participants. Check out what she has to say about the field of mHealth!

Can you tell us about your background and experience in mHealth?

As a generalist and M4D enthusiast, I’ve been observing mHealth projects over the past 10 years. Personally, I’m excited by the possibilities technology provides in this space. From the household all the way to major hospitals, there is a role for tech. During my time with VOTO, I’ve been able to explore how pairing mobile phones and information can change and save lives.

How is mHealth incorporated to your work currently?

The beauty of VOTO is its ability to share information and promote behavior change at scale almost instantly. I get to spend my days collaborating with leading health organizations to adapt existing or design new approaches across all health needs. From finding ways to better support, train, and retain frontline and community health workers to thinking about how to disseminate critical and urgent outbreak information directly to households in real time, we are pushing the limits on what you can achieve with a basic mobile phone. I also benefit from learning from other sectors as we co-design projects across all sectors with international and local organizations around the world. For example, we’ve learned that calling Brazilians between 5-7 pm has a 4x higher response rate than 8-10 am. Sharing context-specific information like this helps us all be better development practitioners who provide even better services.

Why do you think mHealth is important / what impact can learning about the use of mobile phones for public health have on development projects?

In my mind, the health sector is one of the most diverse and complex ones out there and there is no silver bullet. With that said, tech does offer some significant enhancements to traditional health projects. You are able to reach more people directly, frequently, and cheaply. This can be incredibly useful ensuring adherence to life-saving drugs or vaccines and it was nearly impossible 15 years ago. Technology also allows us to map the spread of diseases, better understand high need areas, and allocate resources as necessary. Doctors can treat more patients and save lives through telemedicine services. Community health workers can instantly access treatment information for new diseases or rare cases they haven’t been trained on. The list goes on and on. What an opportunity!

What are your thoughts on the future of mHealth, and where you think this field is heading?

I’m particularly interested in demand driven content, where individuals can self-diagnose or learn more about health topics through their mobile phones. Think WebMD on your basic phone. A way people can learn more about their bodies and their health on their own time and without internet connectivity. I’m not sure if this is the future of mHealth, but I will be keeping an eye on it!

One of the biggest challenges in mHealth is that practitioners don’t know where to start. The endless opportunities are often overwhelming and human nature is to stick with the things we know. One thing I hope the mHealth students takeaway from this course is how to think about the problem you are trying to solve and be able to make an informed decision on which mHealth tool will be most appropriate and successful. This skill will prove to be incredibly useful as students advance in their career, in health or otherwise.

Sound interesting and/or valuable to your work? Sign up for our mHealth: Mobile Phones for Public Health class here. Next session begins March 28, 2016!

About Melissa
Melissa Persaud is Director of Partnerships – North America at VOTO Mobile, a Ghana and US-based mobile engagement social enterprise. In her role, she builds and maintains partnerships with impact-oriented organizations in order to provide better choices for more voices around the globe. Personally, Melissa has a passion for program design and implementation, mobile for development (M4D), and financial inclusion. She holds a MPA in development practice from the SIPA at Columbia University and a BA from Lafayette College. Melissa is also a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (Cameroon ’11-’13) and is currently based in Washington, D.C.

In 2015, TechChange launched the Technology for Monitoring & Evaluation Diploma Program, which combined three TechChange courses (Tech for M&E, Tech for Data Collection and Survey Design, Tech for Data Visualization) into one comprehensive program. The program was meant to give busy working professionals a robust foundation in technology for M&E through the three core courses as well as workshops and office hours with course facilitators. Our first cohort is finishing up the program as we begin 2016, and a new session will launch on January 25.

Today we are very excited to chat with Sonja Schmidt, the Senior M&E Advisor to JSI’s AIDSFree project, who is one of the first participants to complete the Technology for Monitoring & Evaluation Diploma Program: Working Professionals Experience. She discusses her experience with the overall program, how each course influenced her work, as well as how she was able to better understand the use of ICTs in M&E.

How did you come across the Tech for M&E Diploma Program?

A colleague of mine from JSI had sent around some links for TechChange courses. When I clicked the links I noticed the Diploma Program, and thought that this would be a good option to take advantage of the three courses in order to get a wider foundation on the topic.

Have you taken online courses before? Did the program meet your expectations?

I had never taken an online course before, so this was a very new experience for me. I found it challenging in the beginning, particularly with the first course that I took, because I initially felt overwhelmed and struggled a bit with learning how to move around the platform and managing the material.

That being said, the program far exceeded my expectations. I have to compliment TechChange because, being an M&E expert, I look at most material with a critical eye, but I found that the material that was put together and all of the speakers/guest experts were stellar. I was also quite pleasantly surprised by the group dynamics present on the platform. I did not expect this from a virtual group, but in the end there were names that kept popping up, and I actually had the chance to meet someone from the course in person – I am almost said that it has ended.

Are you new to the field of M&E? If not, why did you think this would be valuable to your career?

I have many years of experience in the M&E field. Despite this fact, I realized that the concept of ICT and M&E emerged on the scene pretty suddenly – it did not really exist as an articulated concept even as recently as 3 years ago. I remember meeting someone a few years back who had created his own company around an app meant to improve data collection for surveys, and was surprised because I never thought that that would take off. Now, several years later I find it fascinating how this has become mainstream.

So, my main reason for taking the program was to learn more about this new and rapidly changing field, the intersection of technology and monitoring & evaluation, and get a better grasp of it.

How have you been able to use what you learned in the courses in your work, and how has the program overall been helpful to you?

I have definitely been able to use what I learned in the courses, and the Diploma Program, as foundations for my work. The Technology for M&E course, while a bit repetitive for me sometimes, as I’m an experienced M&E professional, still provided me with exposure to new materials as well as to other people’s perspectives and approaches. The Technology for Data Collection & Survey Design course was not as applicable to my personal work, however it did improve my capacities as an M&E advisor in terms of being able to recommend methods or software, or considerations to take into account, to in-country M&E folks who might be the ones actually designing M&E programs themselves. The Technology for Data Visualization course is the one that had the most impact on my work directly, because a big part of my work is reporting to stakeholders and presenting data. The Introduction to Excel for Data Visualization course was also extremely helpful because it is a familiar software, and Excel is something that I will always use; especially for organizations that do not have much funding, Excel is a very powerful and useful tool.

In general, I think the courses were useful in my work in that when I come across a particular issue, I can now think in a way where I ask myself how I can improve or do something better. I can then go back to the material and target specific areas and continue to use the program material as a tool for learning in my work. I am also currently working on developing a training in Tanzania on data quality, and I plan to discuss with my colleagues ways to use, for example, phones to more quickly submit data from site facilities to our central office.

Interested in the TechChange Technology for Monitoring & Evaluation Diploma Program? Get more information and apply here. Enrollment is open and on-going, but our next batch of courses begins January 25, 2016. It is still not too late to sign up and join this amazing program with participants from all corners of the globe!

About Sonja
Sonja has over 15 years of experience in international public health, with a focus on infectious diseases, including TB, HIV/AIDS and immunization programs. She has long-term country experience in Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Ethiopia and has worked for several UN organizations (UNIFEM, UNICEF, WHO) and numerous USAID-funded projects. Currently as the Senior M&E Advisor to JSI’s AIDSFree project, she oversees and coordinates the monitoring and evaluation of the project and guides country projects in M&E planning, data quality assessment, data analysis and use. Sonja has an MA in medical anthropology and an MPH with a focus on policy and management.

1. Privacy

Responsible data management is not new to development. However, with the use of technology-enabled tools for M&E, it has raised a few challenges related to the privacy of individuals. These include the growing use of biometric data for tracking and sensors to monitor daily habits. The collection of personal financial information and affiliation has also made it vital to consider data security when setting up an M&E framework. This can be addressed through data encryption, ensuring that individual data is not easily identifiable, and developing a policy that ensures responsible data practices. Furthermore, organisations need to be aware of the ethical implication of collecting data on people and the necessity to secure all the permissions and consents required. It is also important to be transparent about the methods of collection, why data is collected and how will it be used with the respective individuals. Finally, ownership has to be explicit when information is shared and a plan should be in place on what happens to data collected once a project ends. In South Africa, the Protection of Personal Information Act, 4 of 2013 also lends a relevant and interesting dynamic.

2. The end-user in mind

To select the most suitable technology-enabled tool(s), taking a human-centered design approach to the selection process will ensure that the organisation does not end up with an irrelevant or unnecessary tool. The approach starts with identifying what is desirable (one should consider project managers as well as community members, i.e. the people who will be using the tool), then viewing the solution through a feasibility and viability lens. This ensures and increases the usability of the tool as well as ensuring that no segment of the community is “ignored” as result of the selected tool, i.e. thinking of the accessibility of the tool and the training that would be required. Once identified, the tool should be piloted on one project before rolling it out.

3. Getting the right balance

Technology facilitates, but does not replace, M&E methodologies such as a well-thought out theory of change and quality M&E plan. So it may be tempting to fall into the habit of selecting or collecting data based on the easiest tool rather than what really matters to your program. Furthermore, technology can lead to over-dependence on digital data and missing the opportunity to observe and interact with communities in order to get a comprehensive picture of an intervention. To get the right balance, one must be very clear on the value the tool will add.

Although there are other factors to contemplate, the above three points offer a good guide to anyone considering the use of technology-enabled tools in their programs. With the ever-growing need to understand and measure impact, the integration of technology from delivery of services and monitoring of interventions to the evaluation of programs will continue as it offers possibilities and innovation to increasing reach, moving to scale and improving the efficiency and effectiveness of interventions.

This article was originally posted on the Tshikululu Social Investments blog. Photo courtesy of Jan Truter Creative Commons.

About Amira

Amira Elibiary is a Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) specialist with 10 years of experience in research, grant-making and program management; over two years of experience in the corporate social investment sector for education, health and social development projects. With a keen interest and extensive experience in democracy, governance, advocacy and rule of law work. Amira holds a Master’s degree in International Affairs from American University and a BA degree in Economics.

TechChange courses are designed with busy working professionals in mind. In any of our courses you will find yourself engaging with a vast network of participants from all corners of the globe who bring with them unique experiences and perspectives.

Today, we are excited to chat with Amy Noreuil, a Technology Advisor working at USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives. Amy has taken seven TechChange courses to date, both on-demand and facilitated. We caught-up with her to chat about her overall experience with TechChange as well as how our courses have impacted her professional life.

How did you find out about TechChange, and what caught your attention about TechChange courses, or got you interested in taking them?

I’ve been following TechChange for a number of years, but I think the first time I ever heard about it was through a TechChange-hosted happy hour where I ran into Chris Neu, Chief Operating Officer of TechChange. My curiosity was piqued because I always want to know about other initiatives going on when it comes to the use of technology for social good. I love going out and hearing about new projects that are under way to figure out how they could support our work or how we could support them. I’m a contextualist at heart – I believe the impact of technology can vary widely depending on the context – so I’m always interested in learning from the experience of others. I found the sense of community and diversity of students participating in TechChange courses to be one of the biggest assets. Everyone brings a unique perspective to the ‘classroom.’

After completing your first course with TechChange, what made you decide to enroll in more?

The first course I took with TechChange was Mapping for Social Good. After that first class, what drew me in – and what has kept me coming back to TechChange – is the people. To me, virtual learning experiences are inherently more individual experiences, but TechChange courses provide the opportunity to connect with other students and take what started as a quick chat to a more nuanced conversation. The interaction can be customized to what you want and need – a quick exchange of resources (e.g. reports, toolkits, etc.) or a deeper discussion about intended and unintended impact. The user interface is easy to navigate and caters to different learning preferences, including visual learners like me. It provides a high-level survey of topics or applications, while also giving the user the option to dig into the technical details of specific tools.

You’ve now taken seven TechChange courses – how have they impacted your career as a technology advisor for USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives?

TechChange courses allow me to discover new tools as well as share experiences and insights with a wide range of people. I’m always looking for ways to break out of traditional silos.

The three major ways in which TechChange courses have impacted my work are:

Meeting people who are passionate about the intersection of technology, media & data
Finding tools and workshopping how they could support our partners and programs
Connecting with people who bring different perspectives, ideas and approaches

What is your advice for other students participating in TechChange courses? How can they get the most out of the experience?

Come into the course with an idea of what you want to learn. Set your intention early and be open to change. This learning objective will help you navigate course content and connect with students. The facilitators are very approachable and accessible. I also really encourage participants to meet up in-person and offline with students who live in the same geographic area. There’s no replacing that face-to-face connection. Developing a community of practice and creating an environment that facilitates learning takes time and commitment. I’m excited to see the TechChange community continue to grow and change.

Interested in learning more about TechChange courses? Check out our online course catalog here! We will be launching new sessions of several of our most popular courses in the New Year!

About Amy

Amy is the Technology Advisor at USAID Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) where she supports staff as they decide how to integrate the use of information and communication technologies into their programs. She loves supporting co-creation spaces, leading digital literacy efforts and working closely with local staff to provide an outside perspective on the design of small grants. OTI supports U.S. foreign policy objectives by helping local partners advance peace and democracy.