We’re excited to have one of our top viewed TechChange animated videos featured in The Guardian! Check out our “Why Is It So Hard to Try Something New in ICT4D?” video created by TechChange animator, Pablo Leon, and narrated by Laura Walker Hudson of FrontlineSMS.

TechChange animation video in The Guardian

To view the video in The Guardian’s Impact and Effectiveness Hub, click here.

 

Technology alone won’t change an organization, but people might.

Last week Forbes featured our upcoming course on Social Intrapreneurship in a post on 2014’s Most Valuable Employee: The Social Intrapreneur. While we’ve posted in the past on how businesses are already being redefined to enact change (TechChange is a registered B-Corp), it is increasingly it is individual intrapreneurs that are innovating within organizations to implement start-up practices and catalyze innovation. The timing is fortunate, as the old model of how to fit employees into an established organizational model is undergoing a fundamental redesign.

A recent Economist special report on tech startups stated: “[T]he world of startups today offers a preview of how large swathes of the economy will be organised tomorrow.” Organizations that thrive will not be the ones with passive employees, but rather those with team members able to adapt organizational processes around the possibilities of ever-improving technology. However, as we’ve covered in our World Bank animation (Why Is It So Hard to Try Something New in ICT4D?), these increasingly rapid technological disruptions of “sexy gadgets” still require individuals to manage organizational change.

Fortunately, you won’t have to figure it out alone. Since our last update, we have two additional speakers that can share their experiences. Ken Banks (@kiwanja), founder of FrontlineSMS and author of a new book on The Rise of the Reluctant Innovator, or even FCC CIO David Bray (@fcc_cio), a prodigy of government IT who started his first federal gig at 15.

Class starts Feb. 24. We hope you’ll join us. Apply now!

Freedom Polio India mHealth programWe’re excited to be mentioned in the New York Times in an article on mobile technology for social good!

The article, titled “Ubiquitous Across Globe, Cellphones Have Become Tool for Doing Good”, discusses how mobile phones are becoming more useful beyond entertainment in developing countries and emerging markets. Increasingly, organizations are using SMS text messages to provide goods and services including water, energy, financial services, healthcare, and education.

Here’s an excerpt from the article:

The number of [mobile public-private partnerships] seems likely to increase. “The development community is eager to learn more about how to use mobiles effectively,” said Nick Martin, a founder of TechChange, a social enterprise based in Washington that educates development practitioners via online courses.

Mr. Martin said his most popular course has been Mobiles for Development. In the last three years, TechChange has taught the course eight times to nearly 400 participants from over 60 countries.

MHealth, or mobiles used for health services, is the most “evolved” of the mobile sectors, Mr. Martin said. Large-scale campaigns in mHealth have focused primarily on maternal health and vaccination campaigns.

Check out the entire article in the New York Times here.