By Kalkidan Lakew Yihun, Program Coordinator for CARE Women Respond Initiative and Morgan Meyer, TechChange Senior Manager for Education

A well-done Training of Trainers (TOT) is an effective way to boost the relevance, sustainability, and long-term impact of international development training programs. But in-person they are often high-touch, costly endeavors that require travel and a great deal of resources, from the convening organizations and participants. Can it be done online, while still giving participants the expert facilitation skills and content they need, now and for the future?

This year, CARE partnered with the digital training and events firm TechChange to successfully evolve what was once a five-day in-person training to a five-week blended learning experience for participants from every major region.

VSLA Model for Financial Stability

CARE’s Village Savings and Loan Associations approach provides people–mostly women–

in remote, rural, or low-income communities access to financial services such as savings, loans with interest, and access to social funds (an informal microinsurance) ordinarily reserved for social events and emergencies. These valuable programs offer tools for financial stability and mobility for those who wouldn’t otherwise have it.

The impact for beneficiaries are far reaching: small business creation, negotiating fair prices, advocating for gender equality in their communities, and even pursuing public office. VSLAs go beyond supporting financial inclusion, by engaging women and communities to address root causes of gender inequality.

VSLAs are powerful entry points and platforms for women to achieve increased confidence, negotiation and communication skills, improved agency and self-efficacy to support a range of outcomes across all aspects of their lives from improved health, increased market access, leadership and economic resilience. Through VSLAs, CARE has reached close to twenty million people in 64 countries.

TOT Equips Trainers with Needed Skills

In addition to the technical skills related to the VSLA methodology, trainers who work with the VSLAs must have expert knowledge of adult learning pedagogy, financial and life skill education delivery, and the community contexts in which they operate.

The CARE VSLA TOT addresses these needs through in-depth modules on each phase of a VSLA roll-out, all relevant financial concepts, and conflict management, along with extensive role-play scenarios such as introducing the concept and benefits of a VSLA to community members. These role-play scenarios give trainers real-time opportunities to learn effective communication and delivery of material, practice customizing content based on context, fitting for the cultural, social and religious context of the community– and learn from and with other trainers through each stage of the VSLA methodology.

For example, participants practice acting as “gatekeepers,” or community members such as local leaders or husbands, that would have to agree to women’s participation in the VSLA, in order to better emphasize with all stakeholders and hone their advocacy skills.

From In-Person to Virtual and Accessible

Historically, the VSLA TOT has been a five-day, in person training where VSLA trainers deliver the sessions, and then continue to mentor trained staff. The CARE Global VSLA team wanted to take the successes of the in-person model and build it into a more cost-effective model for sustainability, including building the ability for new actors to form VSLAs.

CARE team content and program experts worked with TechChange instructional designers to take the existing training material and build it into a five week online course, delivered as a cohort-based blended learning experience with asynchronous elements. These once a week, three-hour live sessions with all participants from Africa, Asia, and Latin America covered main topic areas and provided live, instructor-led opportunities to practice the skills covered in the TOT, including simulations and role plays just like previous participants had the opportunity to do in the in-person TOTs.

In between sessions, participants completed self-paced study on relevant modules to prepare for the next week’s meeting. A robust discussion board and weekly assignments through the interactive TechChange platform helped to keep everyone engaged.

Closing out the first cohort

The first cohort completed the blended TOT in June 2024, closing out the session with high attendance and positive feedback. According to the TOT post survey, 100% of participants were satisfied with the quality of the course. 90% of participants strongly agreed that the ToT improved their ability to effectively explain the VSLA Methodology, its benefits and have a deep understanding of the VSLA process. When asked if they would recommend this ToT to others, 100% of participants answered “yes, absolutely.” One participant referred to the technical support and interactive activities as “the icing on the cake.”

After successfully completing the training, participants are certified by CARE to train and mentor Community Based Trainers (CBTs) to strengthen and expand VSLAs in their home territories.

This growth of capacity and knowledge will help CARE to scale the VSLA model more broadly to other local organizations, development organizations and governments throughout the world.

Additional Diversity Training

In addition to rolling out the pilot program of the VSLA TOT, CARE also worked with TechChange to formalize the internal diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging training. TechChange’s instructional designers created a synchronous online course on these crucial topics, working with CARE’s DEBI Center of Excellence.

This course is meant to be taught live by trainers, so TechChange built an accompanying TOT, to train trainers in English, Spanish, French, and Arabic. Going forward, these trainers will train in all four of these languages, continuing the implementation of it as a synchronous program.

The VSLA TOT program will continue as well, learning from the successes of the pilot program, and past in-person versions, and improving in sustainability, relevance, and quality.

Working together, CARE and TechChange have seen that online learning tools paired with programmatic and technical expertise are a winning combination.

By Nick Martin, TechChange Founder and CEO

As the leader of a tech company that helps social impact organizations deliver rocking virtual events, you might be surprised that one of my favorite things to do is to mingle. IN person. To get out there and meet people who are working on the world’s most pressing issues, and hear how things are going and what trends that they’re seeing. At last week’s Society of International Development US annual conference, themed ‘World in Crisis: Sparks of Hope’, I had the opportunity to do just that, and those energizing conversations have me reflecting on the evolving talent landscape in our industry.

With the launch of our Impact Coach program to pair social impact professionals with leadership and career coaches, this is admittedly something I’ve been thinking about a fair amount already. But talking with a wide range of people, all with different backgrounds and specialties within international development, made clear to me three basic truths of talent right now.

#1. Everyone is looking for a job, even if they aren’t.

The flyers for our free, social-impact centered Job Board positively flew off the table at the TechChange booth, into the hands of people who were explicitly on the hunt, along with those who already have decent roles at development organizations. It may be a marker of the economic uncertainty of the times, the always-changing funding landscape, or a generational shift in so-called company loyalty, but it’s clear that folks are keeping an eye out for open opportunities. From a talent perspective, this openness to competitive offerings can widen your list of prospects when you’re head-hunting to fill a key role.

#2. Hiring needs exist outside of HR–and people want help.

Especially when it comes to hiring entry- and mid-level positions, many managers and senior leaders are tasked with finding their own candidates. Depending on the organization, there can be a variety of help coming from HR for this…or not. With slashed budgets in many contexts, this issue is only going to get worse. Managers need help finding and recruiting quality people, whether or not hiring and firing is their full time job.

In addition to mid-level folks, our booth at SID was visited by a ton of amazing students, many of whom are about to graduate and facing uncertain prospects. They’re eager to work in development, but many will struggle to find positions without relevant experience. On-the-job learning programs and coaching can help young, up-and-coming leaders to find their footing. Bonus: their tech skills may wind up an unexpected asset for the organization.

#3. There’s an evolving need for just-in-time expertise for project implementation.

This is true whether you’re compiling CVs for a proposal or staffing a new country roll-out of a global program. Your team’s hiring needs can go from zero to sixty with one email, and often, require an infusion of particular skill sets such as digital development fluency, local languages, and other forms of technical expertise. TechChange’s targeted country specific recruitment drives for staffing projects can help you to quickly meet localization objectives, along with our executive search offerings, which focus on placing DEI, senior leaders, and technical candidates.

Pathways for diversity are essential

As the technical event partner for the SID conference, we ran our signature Pop-Up studio, where we broadcast interviews with speakers and in-person attendees out to virtual participants of the hybrid event. In an interview with one of my favorite development professionals, Ryan Ubuntu-Olson, the current Global Manager for Diversity, Equity, Engagement & Inclusion at DAI and up-and-coming author, had this to say about diversity and talent.

“Just like you, we work in a mission driven industry. A lot of people really care. They want to know how to do diversity better, how to be more inclusive. We haven’t done a good enough job of showing them pathways to do so.”

You can watch the full interview video here.

Providing democratized and open access to job opportunities within the industry is part of providing those pathways to and for diversity. So is curating lists of qualified job seekers based on expertise, location, and other demographic attributes in order to ensure the widest possible swath of people get to work in making the world a better place. And offering on-the-job coaching to allow folks to grow into those dream roles can be a big help too.

Want to learn more about the TechChange talent offerings? Schedule a call with me or contact our team for one free curated list of qualified candidates for any position.

SID-US (formerly SID-Washington) is the largest and most active chapter of the Society for International Development (SID), an international network founded in 1957 to serve as a global forum dedicated to sustainable economic, social and political development. SID-US brings diverse constituencies together to debate critical ideas, innovations, policies and practices, advancing equitable development.

TechChange has had the honor of supporting the SID-US Conference annually since 2020, including the upcoming 2023 SID-US Annual Conference taking place on May 24 online and in Washington, DC. SID-US President Katherine Raphaelson shares her reflections on their 2022 hybrid experiment and what’s in store for 2023.

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Q: Leading up to the SID-US 2022 conference, what were you most excited for?

A: We were excited (and nervous) to see how a truly hybrid conference would work. We had a vision for what the day would encompass and how it would feel for in-person and virtual attendees and were eager to see our vision take shape.

Q: What were you most worried about while organizing a hybrid conference?

A We were very worried about the many, many moving parts and something falling through the cracks or simply not working. We realized that having a truly hybrid conference is really like running 2.5 or even 3 conferences at once – the in-person one, the virtual one, and connecting the two. We were worried some link in the chain would not hold and it would be messy.

Q: What were some of the benefits of hosting a hybrid conference compared to an in-person or virtual event?

A: We were able to include participants from all corners of the globe – attendees and speakers. This made for much richer conversations and interactions and made it all more inclusive. At the same time, our in-person attendees were able to have the connections they had missed so much during the pandemic, engaging in ways that virtual just doesn’t really support.

Q: How did you ensure that both in-person and virtual attendees had an equal opportunity to participate and engage with the conference?

A: We tried to give equal attention to both aspects of the conference and to make sure our virtual attendees did not feel as though they were simply watching all of us in person interacting. We tried to ask questions of the virtual attendees and to bring video to them from the exhibit hall floor via the Pop Up Studio. We had staff assigned specifically to manage virtual pieces vs. in-person.

Q: What was your favorite session or feature of last year’s event?

A: We all loved the Pop Up Studio and felt that surpassed expectations. It truly connected the virtual and in-person participants and made it a hybrid event. We also liked the lunch session which was hybrid and involved several in-person and several virtual speakers, including one who was both deaf and blind and needed an interpreter. It was very challenging putting that together and we thought it worked extremely well and felt truly inclusive.

Q: Did you receive any feedback from attendees about the hybrid format? If so, what were some of the key takeaways?

A: Yes we did. Many felt that it worked quite well. We did learn that attendees do not like pre-recorded sessions, not surprisingly, and prefer all sessions to be live, whether in-person or virtual.

Q: What are you most excited about for this year’s conference coming up on May 24?

A: I am excited to be doing most of the same things as last year to hold a fully hybrid conference but with more confidence since we have done it before. Last year was a little nerve wracking. This year we are genuinely excited. We feel we can improve on many aspects and attract a really vibrant crowd – both virtually and in person. In fact, we already have a lot more people coming than I would have anticipated at this point. I also think people feel a little safer gathering in person than we did last year so I am excited about that.

Q: What new features or improvements will be made to the conference based on feedback from last year’s event?

A: We will not have any pre-recorded virtual breakout sessions – they will all be live. We hope to have a way for in-person attendees to gather in certain spaces to see the virtual programming throughout the day. This is challenging due to the configuration of our space at the Ronald Reagan Building but we are working on it.

Q: How are you approaching the theme and agenda for this year’s conference?

A: This year’s theme was determined via crowdsourcing – we asked SID-US members and the broader international development community to vote and the clear winner was Power Shift: Defining the Next Decade of Development. This is a great theme for where we are right now and what our priorities and those of our members are. Power shift addresses so many key priorities from localization to DEIA to private sector engagement, youth engagement and so much more. And it really is what will define the next decade of development. The agenda is still in the works! We hope to have more to say on this soon but we anticipate keynote speakers, high level panels, and many breakout sessions – both in-person and virtual. Of course, we’ll also have networking time.

Q: Can you share any keynote speakers or panelists that you are particularly excited about for this year’s event?

A: Not yet! But soon!

Q: Where can people find out more?

A: Here! http://www.sidusconference.org/

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!

Featured image: water filling a metal pot, taken March 26, 2009

This article was written as part of the course “Mobiles for International Development” offered through George Washington University, taught by TechChange’s CEO and founder Nick Martin.

Over 650 million people in the world do not have access to safe water. In many cities in India, the water supply is intermittent and water utility customers only receive main-line water supply once every 2-10 days for roughly 2 hours at a time. In many cases, the customers have no advance notice prior to the valve being shut off. For some, this could be a minor annoyance but for many, this interruption can prove life threatening. NextDrop, a mobile application that works through text messaging, seeks to address these critical gaps in water provision by using locally sourced data to improve water supply networks and access to information.

How Does NextDrop Work?
After paying a fee of between 5 to 10 rupees, the resident of a locality registers for the service by calling NextDrop. NextDrop will log the caller’s location and identify his or her closest water valve. When an engineer next examines the valve, he can send an interactive voice response (IVR) message to NextDrop. The message is then forwarded to both the local residents and to the water utility, allowing residents real real-time updates regarding when they will be receiving water and for how long. The valve-man can also record where there may be a water supply cancelation on a particular day so that residents can prepare accordingly.

Although NextDrop had its fair share of challenges, such as working with existing private contractors and the government providers, and training poorly paid and undereducated valvemen, the product has been endorsed by the Gates Foundation, the Clinton Global Initiative, and Google. First launched in Bangalore, NextDrop now has about 70,000 users across India, with the majority in Hubli, Dharwad, Mysore and Bangalore, all of which now boast nearly 90% coverage.

The Implications of NextDrop on Development Efforts
NextDrop has significant implications for the development field. In a country that is still plagued by corruption, NextDrop signifies a move toward crowd-sourced service delivery, eliminating the typical asymmetric information that often defines utilities in India. With NextDrop, residents don’t have to rely solely on the word of utility employees who may or may not have the community’s best interests in mind. Residents are involved from the ground up, empowering and enabling them to force transparency in service delivery.

One limitation to these mobile-based services is access to cell phones for the poorest citizens in a community. While programs like NextDrop base their services on their consumers having cell phones, this does not necessarily alienate citizens without phones. In future applications of mobile-based programs, organizations can partner with mobile phone providers to try and source used phones from wealthier citizens, creating an integrated community of providers and beneficiaries, potentially fostering a spirit of inclusion.

As part of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) passed during the U.N. General Assembly in 2015, Goal 6 specifically addresses the need to ensure clean water and adequate sanitation for everyone, everywhere. As individuals and organizations alike work to address this goal, innovations such as NextDrop will get us one step closer to equitable access to this life-sustaining resource.

Featured image credit: Wonderlane Creative Commons License

About Sreya

Sreya Panuganti has an MA in International Politics and Human Rights from City University London. She is currently pursuing her MA in International Development Studies at the George Washington University where she concentrates on water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). Ms. Panuganti has a background in a variety of capacities in both the private and public sectors, leveraging skills in research, analysis and cross-cultural communication – most recently, with the U.S. Department of State and the NGO WaterAid. She continues to pursue opportunities that allow her to further her understanding of the development field.

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.

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.

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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.

3D printers make creating new prosthetic limbs look easy. Smart systems enable farmers to perfectly plant, fertilize, water and harvest their fields. Innovative analytical tools allow governments, NGOs, and businesses to see trends like never before, and cloud computing technologies allow the terabytes of information created daily to be shared from partner to partner across the globe. Worldwide, Information and Communications Technology (ICT) increases output and productivity.

If utilized effectively, these technologies will build the capacity necessary to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2016-2030, lifting millions out of extreme poverty as we move toward a healthier, brighter, global future. The SDGs expand upon the foundation laid by the 2000-2015 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by taking a more holistic approach to development issues and approaching economic, social, and environmental development as pieces of the same puzzle.

The SDG ICT Playbook guides organizations in the development sector as they leverage the power of ICT to achieve these goals, providing the context for:

Governments to build new, innovative, and sustainable ways to connect their populations to technology, thus enabling improved connection with their citizens, making processes more transparent, democratic and efficient, and improving the accessibility of government services.

NGOs to utilize this new suite of tools to conduct better research, plan more effective initiatives, and analyze their impact.

Entrepreneurs to enter into emerging markets with innovative products in an efficient, cost-effective manner that supports sustainable development.

In our work toward the SDGs, all actors should support policies, within organizations and on a national and international level, that make technology more accessible to the public.

We must create cross-sector partnerships to build the infrastructure that makes ICT possible and use those partnerships to enhance the efficacy of ICT solutions. From businesses, to governments, to organizations focused on agriculture, health, education, WASH & power, disaster relief, and environmental protection, we all stand to gain from it wouthe increased use and availability of ICT.

Acknowledging that organizations within the ICT field are situated to lead the charge on technology’s accessibility, the SDG ICT Playbook was spearheaded by a partnership between NetHope, Catholic Relief Services, Intel, Microsoft, CDW, and TechChange. While we all occupy a diverse array of organizations, we believe that our institutional differences are what give us, as a group, the holistic view that technology needs to be made accessible from a variety of perspectives, in order for it to be accessed by a variety of potential users.

Check out NetHope’s press release and blog post about the playbook.

TechChange alumni are always doing amazing things. They have launched mHealth apps to help with HIV prescriptions in South Africa, started mapping projects for maternal health in Ghana and more. Today, we feature an alumna from our Mapping for International Development course, Dominique Narciso!

Since taking our course last year, Dominique has gone on to found her own mapping platform, AidWell. We caught up with Dominique to hear more:

Tell us about AidWell
D: AidWell is a crowdsourced mapping and collaboration platform that would make it easy and simple to know the development stakeholders within a given issue area, such as youth development or water.

What inspired you to start AidWell?
D: During my time at Georgetown’s Master of Science in Foreign Service Program, I began to see the emerging trends in international development, where new players were growing in influence and new types of innovations were being implemented across the globe. I thought to myself, what if there was a way to see how all of these organizations are connected, visually?

Then I took TechChange’s Mapping for International Development course and really saw the possibility of visualizing this information, which pushed me further to make AidWell a reality.

Why a mapping platform?
D: If you are looking to learn about what issues different organizations are working on today, there is currently no mapping tool that consolidates this type of information in an easy and user-friendly way. Right now, it is a tedious process to find that out; you may do some google searches, reach out to your networks, or laboriously look at some NGO directories.

AidWell steps in to make it easier to just see it all in one platform on a map. It would serve US-based organizations looking to make connections with local development stakeholders and for in-country organizations looking to collaborate and learn from one another.

Dominique with her AidWell team

Where is AidWell right now?
D: Since starting-up, I’ve conducted a multitude of informational interviews with international NGOs, foundations, social enterprises, and donors to learn more about the need and potential viability of a mapping platform. Currently, our small AidWell team is conducting mini-experiments to understand demand and pinpoint the major challenges faced by potential users, when looking for local information of organizations.

Where do you see AidWell in a few years?
D: My vision for AidWell is to create the leading stakeholder mapping platform for the international development field, a mapping platform that opens up the possibilities for new connections and innovative ways for sharing knowledge. In the next 3-6 months, the AidWell team will be working on proving the concept, building a minimum viable product, and testing the platform in three pilot countries.

Some potential uses for this platform would include:

A first stop for program designers and donors when gathering information to design partnerships, cross-sector collaborations, or collective impact strategies
A resource for local organizations to see who is working on the same issues in their country, and potentially a virtual space for collaboration and learning
A country stakeholder map service for grantmakers and implementing organizations, that inform funding and stakeholder engagement strategies

Where does AidWell fit in the bigger picture?
D: With the Sustainable Development Goals being released the end of this year, there has been lots of conversations around cross-sector collaboration and public-private partnerships. One goal that stands out in this sentiment is Goal 17: ‘Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development.’

This one goal is a sign that the way development is being done will continually change, as we reimagine the way organizations work with one another, how knowledge is shared across sectors and across borders, and how unlikely players can contribute to innovative approaches for development. I believe AidWell can be a part of this bigger goal, by helping organizations make that first step in knowing and engaging with the right organizations from day one.

Check out Dominique’s platform, AidWell here. If you would like to help with AidWell’s research and/or share ideas on mapping, please get in touch with Dom at dnarciso@AidWell.org with the title ‘TechChange: AidWell Suggestion.’

Interested in learning more about how mapping can impact social good, check out our upcoming course on Mapping for Social Good that begins on October 26, 2015.

About Dominique

Dominique Narciso is a skilled relationship builder, creative implementer, and forward-thinking leader in the international development space. She has over eight years of experience working on community development initiatives, social enterprise, and economic development. She is the Founder of AidWell, a start-up organization working to catalyze cross-sector collaboration through a web-based mapping platform to connect and map out players in the development space. She worked at Social Impact as a Business Development Manager, designing their international processes for future business opportunities. During her service as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Costa Rica, she co-designed several youth, women, and economic development initiatives with community members and local leaders. She has a Master’s of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University and a dual BA from UCLA in Communication Studies and Women’s Studies.

Meet Charlie Weems, TechChange’s project manager. Like many of us here, Charlie wears many different hats at TechChange. Read more and get to know Charlie and what he does as a project manager here.

Where are you from?

Amherst, Massachusetts

What did you do before working at TechChange?

I worked at USAID/Tanzania as well as two other USAID contractors. Before that, I graduated from Whitman College where I majored in Politics and wrote my honors thesis on the regulation of commodities markets to prevent price spikes of staple foods.

How did you hear about TechChange?

As lame as this sounds, I actually saw a TechChange job posting on LinkedIn and responded. The deadline for applications was already a few months past, but I decided to apply anyway and I’m really glad that I did.

TechGirls Ghada and Nataly learn about photography with Charlie during their visit to the TechChange office

What exactly do you do at TechChange? What does a typical day look like for you?

Lots of things! I rotate from videography, to script writing, to front-end web development. I also have been working on proposals for new contracts, which is exciting. When I first started at TechChange, I was mostly focused on assembling self-paced courses, like our course about diagnosing and treating Malaria that has now been deployed in Nigeria and Uganda. Building a training for TechChange requires a lot of multidisciplinary skills such as design experience, conducting video interviews, proofreading technical content, and being able to create engaging learning exercises.

Recently, I’ve pivoted towards web development with the redesign of our website. This was a great experience because I was able to collaborate with our graphic designer Yohan, as well as the rest of the tech team to get the website launched. Overall, I ended up contributing 395,179 lines of code to the github repository for our main website; it feels great to know that thousands of people are viewing it every month. Next, I’ll be focusing on the future of TechChange’s online learning platform. We have some great mockups so far and I think folks in our courses will really love the features we’re adding.

How did you get into programming and social change?

My dad was the author of a fairly popular series of C++ and Java textbooks, so I kind of grew up with computers around all the time. In high school I began exploring web-design and briefly ran my own shop building websites for small businesses that I knew. Being at TechChange has really taken my development skills up a notch though, and there’s a lot more left to learn. Pair coding with Matt or Will, our tech team is a great experience.

As for the social change part, I was always involved in volunteer work growing up, but going to Whitman College was a huge turning point for me. The politics program there has a strong social and economic justice focus, so organisations with that focus was first and foremost in my mind when I started looking for jobs.

Charlie in Uganda for the Malaria Consortium project

What is the most important lesson you’ve learned in international development so far?

Projects and innovations need to have a laser-beam focus on being sustainable, and that often means incorporating a for-profit incentive. It’s really easy to get excited about a new innovation geared towards developing countries (think of how many different battery-charging cook stoves we see each year), but the real test for any innovation is whether or not it’s useful enough that people are willing to buy it. Cell phones and solar panels are fantastic examples of products that have passed this test in many developing country contexts, while others (such as the Playpump) run into major issues with long-term sustainability.

How do you keep up with the latest news in software development?

Hacker News keeps me pretty up to date most of the time.

What do you love most about working at TechChange?

It’s really hard to pick! But I’d probably have to say the people. It’s wonderful to come in everyday and work with folks that are not only super smart, but also really funny. I think I’ve laughed more while working here than at any other place.

Charlie’s birthday gift from the TechChange team: a personalized beer label for his home brews

What is your favorite TechChange moment so far?

Probably when we finally turned in our Malaria Consortium project. Catherine, Swetha and I literally had to sprint to the nearest Fedex so that it would get to Uganda on time. It was great to come back to the office having completed TechChange’s largest project ever.

What do you do when you’re not at TechChange?

Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time working on my 3D printer! It’s been a lot of fun to assemble. Once I get it fine-tuned I think I’ll take on making drone parts. Beyond that I usually like going out camping with friends or hanging out at happy hours after work.

Charlie with his 3D printer

If you had to direct someone to the best place to eat in D.C. where would it be?

I’m a Huge fan of Right Proper Brewing Company in Shaw.

What is it like to work in marketing and communications at an edtech social enterprise? Check out what TechChange’s Director of Marketing, Nancy Ngo, has to say about managing global campaigns that promote social change through technology training.

Where are you from?

I grew up in the DC Metro Area in the city of Falls Church, Virginia – a very multiculturally diverse suburb of Washington, DC.

What did you do before working at TechChange?

I started my career at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, California where I promoted several of the company’s core Search products and advised senior executives including Marissa Mayer. Since then, I’ve done marketing and communications at various tech companies, U.S. government agencies, and non-profit organizations.

While completing my graduate program in International Economics and International Relations at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), I specialized in Southeast Asia international trade issues which ultimately brought me to a rapidly growing internet company in Vietnam called VNG Corporation (formerly known as Vinagame). Although I had done many online trainings independently, it was in Ho Chi Minh City where I had my first professional foray into edtech. I saw online education as a practical solution to address broken education systems that impact the global economy.

How did you hear about TechChange?

I found out about TechChange when reading the 2012 Economist article, “Geeks for Good”. As I learned about the company, I was struck by how unique TechChange was as a B Corporation – a certified social enterprise – located in downtown DC. I saw TechChange as a confluence of my interests in technology, international development, and an opportunity to apply my marketing and communications skills at an edtech startup to help grow the business at the ground level.

What exactly do you do at TechChange? What does a typical day look like for you?

No two days at TechChange are ever exactly the same. Generally, I manage integrated marketing campaigns to grow TechChange’s global learning community. These campaigns involve working with the team to communicate TechChange’s story and the impact of our trainings and alumni. They also involve finding new ways to reach more students across the world through partnerships and events. In addition, I manage the TechChange blog, social media channels, and media relations.

Nancy, Nick, and Erik prep for TechChange’s FailFest performance

How did you get into marketing and communications?

I’ve always been a media junkie that loves writing. My passions for media, writing, and international affairs brought me to a public affairs internship with Time Magazine in New York City while attending the University of Pennsylvania. Since then, I’ve always been fascinated with the challenge of crafting the right messages to target audiences around the world in the right way and at the right time.

What is the most important lesson you’ve learned in international development and marketing?

It comes down to understanding your audience, wherever they are in the world, and being empathetic to their experience. In the context of the audiences we work with at TechChange, we constantly have to think about the constraints they are under including limited access to internet, inconsistent electricity, coordinating globally dispersed teams, and/or managing projects in the field. The key is understanding that there is no one size fits all approach to reaching customers, especially ones that are transient, based around the world, and focused on different functional areas and contexts.

Also, the best way to be successful at promoting a brand or product is when you wholeheartedly believe in what you’re promoting.

How do you keep up with the latest developments in marketing, communications, technology, and international development?

These days, I get my news mostly through social media platforms including LinkedIn (Pulse), Twitter, Facebook with the help of some very smart friends sharing useful links, and email newsletters. I also use aggregators including Feedly, Google News, and FlipBoard. I’m always looking for inspiration from great global brands that execute clever and effective campaigns. In addition, I find it very useful to learn from PR crises and branding mistakes that companies and organizations make as well.

The ever-evolving media landscape forces marketers to constantly keep up to speed on different ways to reach and interact with customers. I try to keep my marketing and comms skills sharp by teaching myself the latest technology tools and best practices in implementing these tools. I do this by frequently attending webinars, taking courses online and in person, reading industry blogs, keeping in touch with colleagues in my industry to share lessons learned, and trial and error in my day to day work.

What do you love most about working at TechChange?

TechChange is the type of place where you proudly wear your nerd on your sleeve! I enjoy the culture of fun camaraderie among tech-savvy international development nerds that have lived all across the world. It’s a work environment that empowers you with creative freedom to take ownership of initiatives that help grow the company. We’re all very autodidactic and are constantly learning new skills from both each other and outside of work with online courses and trainings as well.

Nancy and the TechChange team with David Bray, Chief Information Officer of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) at the TechChange office

What is your favorite TechChange moment so far?

It’s tough to list just one. I’ve really enjoyed our Fail Song performances, coming up with clever band names such as “CAPS LOCK CRAZY” and “Beauty School Valedictorian”, the time when the CIO of the FCC, David Bray, came to visit as a guest speaker in one of our courses, and many more. On a day to day basis, I love interacting with our global alumni whether it means hearing the challenges community health workers are facing on the ground in fighting the spread of Ebola, or learning about their career success stories with the help of their TechChange trainings over the happy hours we host regularly in downtown DC.

What do you do when you’re not at TechChange?

Reading, spending time with family and friends, salsa dancing, and planning my next travels.

If you had to direct someone to the best place to eat in D.C. where would it be?

My favorite Vietnamese restaurants are all out in the suburbs of D.C., especially in Falls Church.