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!

Today is International Day of Persons with Disabilities.

Persons with disabilities constitute the world’s largest minority, 80% of whom live in developing countries – an estimated 800 million people. Approximately 20% of the world’s poorest people have a disability. In response to this reality, the United Nations (U.N.) adopted seven disability-related targets (e.g. Targets 4.5, 11.2, 11.7) as part of the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) developed in October 2015. (UN Enable)

Persons with disabilities should therefore be key stakeholders and beneficiaries of any development or humanitarian initiative, and monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems should be capturing how programs impact them. Below are some resources that outline how technology can act as a tool to facilitate the inclusion of this largely marginalized population in M&E processes.

disability-logo

Core Data
Valuable program or country-specific data about persons with disabilities to collect during M&E may include:

  • Disability prevalence, disaggregated by type of disability, age and gender
  • Definitions of disabilities to compare to World Health Organization (WHO) and other definitions
  • Legal framework
  • Policies on segregation, institutionalization or community-based rehabilitation in health, education or penal systems
  • Education and employment rates
  • Representatives in government and civil society
  • Program administration data (i.e. rates and modes of inclusion in an activity, program or organization)

Early and consistent collection of this data is needed to determine where and how M&E can best occur in collaboration with persons with disabilities.

Using global datasets can increase the efficiency of data collection and facilitate comparative analysis. See:

E-accessibility
E-accessibility is a measure of the extent to which a product or service can be used by a person with a disability as effectively as it can be used by a person without that disability.

E-accessibility should be among the criteria for choosing a device for data collection or dissemination. Consulting with local Disabled Persons Organizations (DPOs) can help determine if a tech tool will create barriers or enhance participation.

For example, mobile phones with hands-free, voice command features (think “Siri”) can enhance accessibility. Large print and screen reader compatible formats should be used to collect and provide information electronically to persons with impaired vision, blindness or dyslexia. Visual elements of documents, like photos, should have captions that can be read aloud. Radio or audio recordings deposited with a DPO can make evaluation results accessible across a range of disabilities. Real time captioning, or printing hard copies of the main script of a video or lecture, can increase inclusion of the hearing impaired. Braille printers (often available through a local DPO) can produce reports or surveys for the blind. These technologies enable persons with disabilities to participate independently and confidentially in surveys and other feedback mechanisms.

E-accessible technologies not only enhance M&E processes, but also can be low cost. Some operating systems have built-in automated voice read or Assistive Touch technologies. Software to read aloud or translate documents into Braille on-screen is often free (to read DAISY books, download here). Self-captioning software, such as Overstream and MAGpie, is also widely available for free. Training sessions for DPOs or enumerators on how to use these features or software may be necessary.

The following provide more information on e-accessible tools, methods and procurement:

Technology can change an environment that is disabling into one that is empowering by creating channels for persons with disabilities to have an equal voice in the programs that affect them.

 

About Leigh-Ashley
headshotlipscomb

Leigh-Ashley Lipscomb is an independent analyst and Adjunct Research Fellow with the WSD Handa Center for Human Rights and International Justice at Stanford University.

3D printing has been around for a while, but the global development community is only recently exploring how it can be used for social change. From printing low-cost prosthetics to providing basic supplies after a disaster, 3D printing’s potential to benefit society is undeniable. These were the kind of topics we set out to explore with participants from 10 different countries in TechChange’s first 3D Printing for Social Good online course.

We started the course with a deep dive into 3D printing, examining how it works, how it can be used, and the tech ecosystem in which it exists. We enlisted the help of guest experts like Jeremy Simon of 3D Universe and Colin McCormick, who brought us a live 3D printing demo. Course participants also had the opportunity to learn more about free CAD tools and practice creating digital 3D models of objects, as well as find a makerspace or Fab Lab near them.

Then we examined how 3D printing is being used for social good through the work of e-NABLE, techfortrade, and Field Ready, and course participants had the opportunity to interact with key stakeholders in each organization. Based on the insights from our sessions with e-NABLE’s founder Jon Schull, Matthew Rogge of techfortrade, and co-founder of Field Ready, Dara Dotz, participants discussed the potential for adapting the models of these organizations to create change in their own contexts.

Finally, we focused on the challenges and opportunities in 3D printing for social good. In particular, we learned how 3D printing fits into the larger Maker Movement and explored how the methods, mindsets, and tools adopted by the Maker Movement could be leveraged for social good with the help of guest experts Robert Ryan-Silva of DAI Maker Lab and Kate Gage of USAID Global Development Lab.

Here’s a recap of our guest expert sessions:

  • Gabriel Krieshok of the US Peace Corps spoke from his experience implementing technology solutions and shared his excitement about the potential that 3D printing holds for underserved populations living in low-resource settings.
  • Jeremy Simon of 3D Universe shared his experience with a variety of 3D printing technologies and demonstrated the power of 3D printing on a personal level by discussing projects he has worked on with his family and the e-NABLE community.

P1310001
Sara and Colin, during the 3D printing demo

  • Colin McCormick brought us a live 3D printing demo, walking us through the process of finding, modifying and printing an object from a digital 3D model he found online. In addition, he described his experience building a 3D printer from a DIY kit.
  • Matthew Rogge of techfortrade explained the work that he’s doing in Latin America with ethical filament, and in East Africa with 3D printers made from e-waste. Through both of these projects, techfortrade is using locally-sourced materials that are available in abundance to improve livelihoods and increase access to 3D printing technology.
  • Jon Schull, founder of e-NABLE, provided insight into e-NABLE’s crowdsourced model for providing low-cost prosthetic devices to people in need, and the future of the e-NABLE Community Foundation.
  • Dara Dotz, co-founder of Field Ready spoke about her experience 3D printing in extreme environments, from implementing Field Ready’s pilot program to 3D printing medical supplies in Haiti, to designing a 3D printer used in the International Space Station with ‘Made in Space’. Dara demonstrated how 3D printing can disrupt the supply chain in both extremes by dramatically reducing costs and the time it takes to access or produce parts; recycling, reusing and reprinting parts; and prototyping and producing tools from waste.
  • Robert Ryan-Silva of DAI Maker Lab talked about how increasing access to maker tools, such as 3D printing, CNC tools, and electronic building blocks, can help people create, champion, and iterate upon solutions that meet their needs, in their own context.
  • Kate Gage of the USAID Global Development Lab provided examples of innovative solutions that have come out of the Maker Movement. She also stressed the need to create pathways that help makers apply their skills to some of the world’s greatest challenges and create viable, human-centered solutions.

While all the developments in the field of 3D printing are exciting, it is important to understand that implementing 3D printing technology in low-resource settings comes with a few challenges. Limitations like slow print speed, the resilience of 3D printed objects and 3D printers themselves, and access to resources like filament and a steady power supply to complete a 3D print job are important realities to consider when taking 3D printing to low-resource settings.

3D printing technology is advancing at a rapid pace to address some of these limitations. Far greater than the challenges inherent in 3D printing, conversations with guest experts and among course participants, as well as the projects highlighted in this course, have demonstrated the potential that 3D printing holds for social good- from improving healthcare delivery, to creating breakthroughs that can contribute to sustainable global development.

Who are the other players using 3D printing for social good? Or if you own a 3D printer, what are you using it for? Comment below or tweet at us @TechChange

About author

Sara-300x300 2
Sara Pitcairn is Co-Director of Instructional Design at TechChange, where she works with clients to develop and design custom online learningexperiences , ranging from webinar series to facilitated and on-demand courses. She is also the facilitator for TechChange’s 3D Printing for Social Good course. Prior to TechChange, Sara taught middle and high school STEM courses at the Barrie School, where she also led an Engineering Product Design program for high school students. Sara graduated from Yale University with a degree in Mechanical Engineering, which sparked her passion for design thinking and human-centered design. In her spare time, Sara enjoys reading, traveling, and perfecting her guacamole recipe.

As a Star Trek fan, I found the most amazing technology on the TV show to be not the ship cruising faster than the speed of light or even the life-saving tricorder: it was the replicator…or actually the “Holodeck”. These machines allowed the futuristic Starfleet crew to conjure up a real item, on command, be it Earl Grey tea or a prototype warp engine. They were able to go from idea to physical object in mere moments, with only their imaginations as the limiting factor.

Holodeck in Star Trek

Holodeck in Star Trek

Photo credit: Memory Alpha

3D printing is the closest invention to the Holodeck that we have today. The 3D printing industry has become a bit of a darling to futurologists, venture capitalists, and magic-bullet seekers aplenty—and for good reason. According to a report by the research company, Canalys, the industry is going to grow by 500% over the next five years, becoming a $16.2 billion industry by 2018. Given this estimate, it’s no wonder that 3D printing is being seen as disrupting the manufacturing industry and heralding a new industrial revolution.

A 3D printer at the TechChange Office

And despite the hype, they might be right. There are several ways that 3D printing can change and improve lives. Here’s why 3D printing will change the world as we know it:

1. 3D printing is advancing STEM education.

I put this one first because I believe it really is the biggest and cannot be overemphasized. Education, and specifically STEM education (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics), will be the single greatest beneficiary of 3D printing technologies and investment. These low-cost, simple, and fast 3D printers offer something that remarkably few technologies do: integration and application of school subjects in an engaging way. Students, in an effort to simply make things, are teaching themselves design, programming, prototyping, iteration, and production—all without realizing it. A school in Pasadena recently acquired a 3D printer and has already experienced the collaborative and creative problem-solving it allows among teachers and students. Teachers will tell you that getting students to solve challenges and learn the skills along the way is infinitely more effective than simply working through textbook chapters in a detached and uninspired routine.

Pasadena school students 3D printing in their classrooms

Pasadena school students 3D printing in their classrooms

Photo credit: Southern California Public Radio

2. 3D printing adds an entirely new dimension to repairs and customization.

Repairing items with 3D printing isn’t simply about cheaply replacing a broken wall hook (though it can do that too). For much of the world, a hardware store within 200 miles is a luxury. I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Madagascar, and the repair and tinkering abilities of my Malagasy friends was jaw-dropping. They would build lanterns out of tomato paste cans, and once use a cigarette filter on the gas line of his car to get us home. 3D printers can level-up the capacity of these folks the world over, and in ways that we can barely anticipate.

A time lapse video of a 3D printer at TechChange’s office

3. Healthcare and prosthetics got a new sub-field.
The most obvious application in 3D printing has so far been in the field of medicine, biomedical devices, and specifically prosthetics. In the world of artificial limbs for example, 3D printers are absolutely fantastic not because they completely upend traditional prosthetics, but because they benefit from it and supplement it in really powerful ways. Whole hands, arms, casts, and splints can be customized to fit individuals and their unique conditions. This area addresses probably more than any other sector, the “why” of 3D printing.

3D printing prosthetics

3D printed prosthetics for children during e-NABLE’s visit to TechChange

4. 3D printing is making the manufacturing industry more competitive than ever.

With the help of 3D printing, small-scale, adaptable, and distributed manufacturing will be competitive. Really competitive. It’s not going to happen tomorrow, but it’s moving in that direction. When you start adding up the landscape infrastructure where there is greater build quality, flexibility with a greater number of materials and sizes (Shanghai WinSun Decoration Design Engineering Co, is already 3D printing houses), and all at lower costs—a model emerges that competes directly with current industries at current wages for a large number of applications. It’s altogether possible that the phone you buy in the future will come built custom for you from a machine down the block; and probably also delivered via drone (which in turn would probably also be 3D printed).

Although we are still in the early days of 3D printing, there is still so much to learn, and new printers, materials, and ideas are coming into focus everyday. This is why the timing is so critical and the opportunity so golden to be a visionary and imagine all that we can accomplish through 3D printing.

What would you request in your own Holodeck/3D printer that could solve the world’s challenges? Let us know in the comments and/or tweet us @TechChange.

Interested in learning how 3D printing can promote social good? Enroll now in this online course.

TechChange Founder and CEO, Nick Martin, has been selected as a 2014 Ariane de Rothschild Fellow! The AdR Fellowship program connects social entrepreneurs with a well-connected network across sectors aimed at conflict resolution through cross-cultural discourse.

Nick is one of 28 competitively selected, visionary fellows who have demonstrate early achievements of a social good organization with a commitment to facilitating cross-cultural dialogue.

As part of the fellowship, Nick will be participating in an intensive series of Rothschild Fellow trainings at the end of August at the University of Cambridge, UK. There, the AdR program will focus on business training, unconventional social science approaches, and workshops to extend the impact of these selected social leaders.

To learn more about the Ariane de Rothschild Fellowship, please click here.

Please join us in congratulating Nick!

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

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

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

Lesson 1:

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

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

Lesson 2:

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

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

Lesson 3:

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

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

Lesson 4:

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

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

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

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

In the last decade, social media has spread quickly across the world and has grown not just in terms of number of users on popular platforms, but also in terms of new niche platforms tailored for specific populations.

With Facebook’s 1 billion active users, the 500 million tweets that flood the Internet daily via Twitter, and the 6 billion hours of YouTube videos available online, it is clear that social media has been integrated into the daily digital lives of many people globally. Combine that with the fact that 85% of the world’s population has access to the Internet – and to many of these social networks – and you’ll find a tool that has revolutionized the way groups around the globe interact with each other.

As popular as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are, the diversity of social media platforms and the way people interact on these platforms are as diverse as the different cultures of these users. According to the social media API aggregation company, GNIP, 49% of tweets in 2013 were in a language other than English. Facebook is also available in several dozen languages.

Twitter languages

Source: GNIP / New York Times

This “World Map of Social Networks” from Vincos.it shows how the dominant social media sites have changed since 2009.

wmsn_animated_dec013_690

Facebook has clearly become a global leader, but its prominence can be deceptive – many more country-specific social networks have grown rapidly with extremely active user bases. In countries like China, where Facebook and Twitter are banned, sites like RenRen and Weibo, which have similar user interfaces and features, have sprung up. According to a recent article by Forbes magazine, Tencent, the parent company of China’s leading social media platform, is poised to overtake Facebook in terms of average monthly users.

wearesocial-social-media-penetration-worldwide-e1389183989165 wearesocial-social-media-penetration-worldwide-2-e1389184630143

Source: We Are Social / MediaBistro.com

Alternative social networks are also popular in countries in which Facebook is legal. ZingMe, for example, is extremely popular in Vietnam among teenagers and young adults and Yookos is an emerging network in southern and sub-saharan Africa; the amount of existing social media platforms worldwide is in the thousands.

Social media is designed to bring people together in different ways; it connects governments and organizations with the public and allows for the diffusion of information across the world quickly and efficiently. The limits of social media and its uses are still being defined; issues such as privacy and freedom of speech – and the lack thereof – have been repeatedly debated around the world.

If social media is used differently across the world, what does this mean for social media campaigns for social causes? How do we know what the best tools are to use for targeting specific audiences? Defining and understanding who your target audience is is one of the first steps of designing an effective social change campaign. The ever-evolving social media landscape will be important to understand in order to communicate the right messages, on the right platform, for the right people, and in the right way, to be effective.

How is social media used in your country? Let us know in the comment section below or tweet us @TechChange.

Check out some of the additional resources we’ve come across that visualize the global diversity of social media:

Come and join us in our discussion about the global diversity of social media and more in our upcoming Social Media for Social Change online course, which begins this Monday!

What does the rise of #YesAllWomen mean for social change?

In our last post on #BringBackOurGirls, we examined whether social media activism could free girls who had been kidnapped in Nigeria. With the rise of #YesAllWomen, it’s worth exploring whether social media can improve the lives of women and men everywhere in shifting social norms around gender.

Less than a week after the killing spree at the University of California Santa Barbara, a torrent of more than two million tweets have been shared containing anecdotes, stories, and outcries against misogyny, sexual harassment, and violence against women.

Topsy YesAllWomen

Source: Topsy

Why has #YesAllWomen gained so much media attention? It can be argued that the #YesAllWomen hashtag has built off continuing momentum of other initiatives that have women (and some men) speaking out against misogyny in its many forms. A provocative article from TIME Magazine in April 2014, nearly a month before the UCSB murders, was a critique of the #NotAllMen argument, setting the stage for women to share how sexual harassment and misogyny are frighteningly common experiences that women face on a regular basis. Foreign Policy’s piece on “What do #YesAllWomen and #BringBackOurGirls have in common?” highlights:

“[…]the global Internet has during the last month seen an incredible outpouring of support for the full equality of women. Even if the two hashtags fail to end misogyny and free the kidnapped schoolgirls, they surely represent a step in the right direction in advocating for a better reality for women.”

Here is a heat map visualizing the use of #YesAllWomen hashtag on Twitter, showing the start of the hashtag in the U.S., in comparison to Nigeria, where the #BringBackOurGirls hashtag began.

Related campaigns using the hashtags #everydaysexism and #rapecultureiswhen have both been used in similar efforts to shed light on misogyny, as discussed in CNN’s article on “Why #YesAllWomen took off on Twitter.” Campaigns across U.S. campuses have also been pressuring universities to address sexual assault on campuses, as mentioned in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

What will be the ultimate impact of #YesAllWomen? Will this social media momentum change ingrained cultural norms of sexism across society? It did, at least for Kenneth Curtis, a man who described his reaction to the #YesAllWomen tweets:

“The courageous voices I saw on #YesAllWomen burst my bubble in all the good ways. They shed a light on my ignorance. They also shed a light on the work we men have to do. This is how change happens. Shed a light on the problem. Now let’s rally to fix it.”

But what about the societies where women cannot speak out as openly on social media due to censorship or lack of access to technology? With #YesAllWomen, social media has succeeded again in being a tool for raising awareness on a social issue, but it will continue to be a long journey to shift entrenched cultural norms.

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Interested in this topic and how social media can be used to create social change? Enroll now in our upcoming Social Media for Social Change course.

In our modern times of media cycles fighting for our short attention spans, it is easy to ride the momentum of a highly visible campaign that can quickly fizzle out once another competing story emerges. Since the kidnappings of approximately 300 Nigerian girls by militant Islamist group Boko Haram last month, the international community has embraced the hashtag, “#BringBackOurGirls”, in a very vocal and visible social media campaign demanding action to rescue the Chibok girls. But one month since the mass kidnapping without the rescue of the girls, do we need to take a different approach? Will #BringBackOurGirls be just another campaign we forget about once the next celebrity scandal becomes breaking news?

#BringBackOurGirls goes global starting in Nigeria

Most of the #BringBackOurGirls campaign activity has been highly visible on Twitter, Facebook, and international media outlets. In this fascinating Twitter heat map created using the tool, CartoDB, featured in TIME Magazine, we can see a time-lapsed digital map of how the hashtag, “#BringBackOurGirls” spread globally, starting organically from within Nigeria in mid April.

(We’ll be touching upon CartoDB, and other digital mapping tools in our upcoming Mapping for International Development course later this month.)

The #BringBackOurGirls hashtag has been embraced widely by many public figures and has garnered wide support across the world. Michelle Obama, David Cameron, and Malala Yusafzai have posted images with the hashtag, along with celebrities such as Ellen Degeneres, Angelina Jolie, and Dwayne Johnson. To date, nearly 1 million people signed the Change.org petition. Countries including the USA, UK, China, Israel have pledged to join the rescue efforts, and other human rights campaigns have joined the #BringBackOurGirls Twitter momentum, as seen on this Hashtagify map.

hashtagify #BringBackOurGirls

Is #BringBackOurGirls repeating the mistakes of #KONY2012?

Kony_2012_Poster_3

A great example of a past campaign where this happened was with the KONY2012 campaign, which brought some albeit short-lived urgency to addressing the child soldiers recruited by Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Michael Poffenberger, who worked on that campaign, will join us a guest expert in TC110: Social Media for Social Change online course in June 2013 and compare it the current #BringBackOurGirls campaign. Many have drawn parallels to both campaigns and warned of the false optimism that hyped social media messages can bring when context is not fully considered and understood.

According to Lauren Wolfe of Foreign Policy magazine, “Understanding what has happened to the Nigerian girls and how to rescue them means beginning to face what has happened to hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of girls over years in global armed conflict.” To some critics, this hashtag trivializes the weaknesses of Nigerian democracy that have been exposed. Critics of using social media in advocacy campaigns have used the term “slacktivism” to describe the passive, minimal effort needed to participate in these movements. Others have cited such media waves being exploited for individual gain, as opposed to genuinely benefiting the girls. Florida State University Political Science professor, Will H. Moore, argues that this hashtag activism is not only hurting the larger cause of rescuing the kidnapped girls, but actually helping Boko Haram. Jumoke Balogun, Co-Founder of CompareAfrique, also highlights the limits of the #BringBackOurGirls hashtag impact.

Hashtag activism, alone, is not enough

With all this social media activity and international press, what actual progress has been made in rescuing the kidnapped girls? If the objective is raising awareness of the issue, yes, the hashtag has been successful. If the objective is to rescue the girls, we still have a long way to go, even if the hashtag campaign has been part of a multi-pronged approach to galvanize resources into action.

The bottom line: social media can be a powerful tool to bring visibility and awareness to a cause, but a hashtag alone is not enough to bring about social change. There are a myriad of resources that must be coordinated to effectively implement this rescue mission, which will only become more difficult as more time passes. However, prioritizing and shining a sustained light on the problem, instead getting distracted by competing media cycles on celebrities getting into petty fights, is the first step toward a solution.

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What do you think about the impact of the #BringBackOurGirls campaign? We’re only scratching the surface here on the topic of social media for social change and invite you continue the discussion with us in our upcoming Social Media for Social Change online course which runs June 16 – July 11, 2014.

On September 17, 2011, a handful of people gathered in Liberty Square in Manhattan’s Financial District and sparked a movement that brought wide scale attention to income inequality and the growing gap between rich and poor.

Rewind to December 18, 2010. A man fed up with the ill-treatment in Tunisia, tragically immolated himself to protest the government, unleashing a wave of protests that has changed the political shape of an entire region. Both Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring leveraged the power of social media to exchange ideas, mobilize support, and spark a movement.

But, okay, we’re not all going to be able to spark a movement as big as those. But that doesn’t mean we can’t use social media to make an impact. In fact, I’d argue that going deeper to reach the right audience is more important than trying to go broader.

Take Molly Katchpole. She was 22, working two jobs, and struggling to make ends meet. When Bank of America announced a new $5/month banking fee, she thought it was unfair and decided to do something about it. She used Change.org to start a petition, shared the effort with her friends, and got 300,000 petition signatures, which pressured Bank of America to scrap plans to institute the fee.

Or take Sal Khan. When his young cousin was struggling with algebra, he created a few YouTube videos to help her with her studies. Soon, strangers stumbled onto the video and began requesting more. Sal realized he was onto something and began creating new videos on a variety of topics. Now, Khan Academy features more than 4,200 free lessons, has millions of students, and is changing the way come schools are thinking about education.

So, the point I’m trying to make is, social media has fundamentally changed the way that governments, nonprofits, companies, universities, and individuals interact with each other and with their communities.

But with so many platforms, channels, networks, and tactics to consider, successfully leveraging these channels and integrating them into our work can be a huge challenge.

That’s what Social Media for Social Change is all about. Using real world examples shared by a experts who manage social media at nonprofits, universities, government agencies, and NGO’s, participants will gain insights into what makes social work, how to build a community around an issue, and how to create change.

It’ll be a hands-on, exciting course with input from experts in the field and practical demonstrations and exercises to showcase the potential of social media. I hope you can join us. And, of course, don’t forget to spread the word about the class using #TC110.