Last week, 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Muhammad Yunus, stopped by our booth for a quick interview on mHealth at the 2013 mHealth Summit. As the founder of the Grameen Movement, he shared his thoughts with us on the relationship between mHealth and “social business”, private enterprise focused on solving human problems.
Check out why Muhummad Yunus sees mobile phones as the “Aladdin’s Lamp for health care” here.
We’re excited to partner with Ashoka Changemakers to launch an online course on Social Intrapreneurship this February 25 – March 21, 2014! This four-week online certificate course on “Entrepreneurial Strategies for Social Innovation Within Institutions” aims to empower employees at private, public, and nonprofit institutions across the world with the tools and mindset of a lean startup entrepreneur looking to change the world by implementing socially innovative ideas within their organizations. For employers of these institutions, it discusses ways to foster a culture of innovation and staff engagement that drives social change.
What do you need to become an intrapreneur? How can employees of organizations promote social good?
TC108 will give participants experience with pitching, planning, advancing, and executing innovative and socially conscious programs within large organizations. Activities are geared to assist and inform organizations and individuals that want to cultivate and promote innovative, lean start-up, entrepreneurial approaches within their workforce to promote social good and provide an opportunity to engage with like-minded professionals. The course creates a global network of individuals who can expect an interactive learning experience to share ideas and strategies.
Social Intrapreneurship bootcamp: Changemaker competition and takeaways
Course participants will go through a customized Ashoka Changemakers concept formation and evaluation process and engage with accomplished guest experts who are leading social intrapreneurs at their companies, providing an insider’s view of what makes a good social intrapreneurial project proposal and what it takes for these ideas to stand out. By the end of the course, participants will have a two-page concept note, one page budget and powerpoint pitch for an innovative social change idea to be targeted to a specific organization. The TechChange/Ashoka Changemaker committee will review each concept note and once considered viable under the course principles, the approval will result in a TechChange Intrapreneurship Certification.
Join our learning community of Intrapreneurs
We couldn’t be more excited to be working with Ashoka, who has supported social intrapreneurship and entrepreneurship through programs such as the Ashoka Changemakers, the League of Intrapreneurs, and more for over three decades.
We’re also excited that Joe Agoada will be back to facilitate this course in February. He’s honing his intrapreneurial chops as a featured speaker at the 2013 Intrapreneurship Conference in Barcelona this week. Follow his live tweets from the conference @joeagoada and also from Jennifer Estevez @socialqgroup to follow the latest on Intrapreneurship.
Check out the syllabus and register now for the course to lock in early bird rates. Contact nancy [at] techchange [dot] org if your organization is interested in booking a group discount rate. Any questions on the course itself? Please email Jennifer [at] techchange [dot] org.
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About Ashoka Changemakers:
Changemakers convenes and connects high-potential changemakers, their ideas and resources, through the power of collaborative competitions and partner networks.
Changemakers builds on Ashoka’s three-decade history to engage a global network that embodies the Ashoka vision where “Everyone is a Changemaker”. In order to realize this vision, the world needs people to gain the skills and resources to collaborate on solving complex social problems. Visit changemakers.com to learn more.
About the Facilitator
Joseph Agoada is the Resource Mobilization Coordinator for the UNICEF New York headquarters’ Social and Civic Media Section, and founder of the mobile mapping project, UNICEF-GIS. He also implemented UNICEF’s 2010 World Cup in My Village initiative in Rwanda and Zambia. Joe is a recipient of several awards for his activism including: 2008 International Youth Foundation a Global YouthActionNet Fellow, 2009 Starbucks Shared Planet Grant Honoree, and 2012 Google Personal Democracy Forum Fellow. Joe has spearheaded the Intrapreneurship courses at TechChange, and is a featured speaker at the 2013 Intrapreneurship Conference in Barcelona. He graduated the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
In Online Learning, There Are No Shortcut Keys
Tonight, we’re having a blast celebrating lessons learned in ICT4D and international development at the 2013 Fail Festival in Washington, DC. Hosted by FHI360, and co-sponsored by Kurante, Plan International, and TechChange, we’re gathering over ignite talks, spoken word poetry, and song in the spirit of taking failure not so seriously.
Since TechChange was established in 2010, we’ve experimented with many different tech tools, platforms, products, and content; some of which that worked and others that didn’t. From continuing to recognize the importance of cultural and national contexts when applying technology worldwide, to testing hybrid learning models, we’ve strived to make online learning for social change better and better, and even wrote a song about it.
Check out a recording of the song:
And for the musicians out there, here are the lyrics with the guitar chords!
Curious about the other acts? Check out the photos we took at the event!
TechChange is proud to be working with Global OPS, a platform for global peacebuilding, to provide real-time, customized assistance and professional development training for policy makers and peacebuilding practitioners working on the ground globally for peacebuilding, conflict prevention, and post-war recovery.
Using TechChange’s interactive e-learning platform, Global OPS will offer tailored support and training facilitation for UN experts and agencies, senior diplomats, government officials, peace practitioners, inter-governmental organisations staff, ministry staff and local authorities, and international organisations. These communities of practice will be forums to exchange lessons learned and timely knowledge on peacebuilding, prevention, crisis management, post-war recovery and stabilisation, and mediation and support for peace processes across the world.
To address key needs for peacebuilding, mediation and peace processes, conflict prevention, and post-war recovery, Global OPS modules have been developed to benefit peacebuilding practitioners based on extensive consultation with missions, agencies, organisations and governments in the field. Module facilitators are selected among a highly competitive pool of leading professionals with proven on-the-ground knowledge, expertise, and experience.
The first two modules of Global OPS begin in a pilot phase on November 20th 2013:
A further launch of 9 modules will take place in March 2014 in the first full semester of Global OPS.
For more information on these courses, please visit http://globalopsonline.org/global-ops-modules/.
About Global OPS
Global OPS is a joint programme of the Department of Peace Operations and the International Peace and Development Training Centre (IPDTC) of PATRIR. It has been created to meet a critical need in the peacebuilding and global crisis and conflict management community to provide high quality customised support for agencies, experts, practitioners and policy-makers in the field through real-time, targeted and customised assistance.
You can check out the Global Ops website at www.globalopsonline.org.
If your organization is interested engaging employees with interactive and customized online training, please contact TechChange at info [at] techchange [dot] org.
What if your old phone could help improve the health of populations in developing nations? Did you know that 500,000 cell phones are discarded in the United States every day?
TechChange is donating phones to empower global health practitioners in developing countries via Medic Mobile’s Hope Phones mobile donation program. The program’s goal is to responsibly reduce hazardous waste from mobile electronics while simultaneously promoting public health in developing countries.
When Nick Martin and Medic Mobile’s president, Josh Nesbit, last met during PopTech 2013, they instantly connected over their common interest in mHealth. Although the number of mobile phones and mobile subscriptions are increasing worldwide, there is still a significant need to empower global community health workers with these tools to promote better health for more people. According to the Medic Mobile, “If we can recycle just 1% of disposed phones each year, we can outfit 1 million health workers, improving the lives of 50 million people.”
There is also a need to learn the latest best practices and innovations in mHealth. Learn how you can donate your phone here and join us in our upcoming mHealth online course with the mHealth Alliance! This course regularly attracts an exciting global community of doctors, public health practitioners, mobile service providers, health research specialists, and others to learn how mobile technology can address HIV, tuberculosis, maternal health, vaccinations, and improve healthcare delivery. Hope to see you in the course!
We’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.
Curious about the future of online learning? Don’t miss TechChange Founder & CEO, Nick Martin, discuss this topic and our work at TechChange on Friday, October 25 via livestream of the 2013 PopTech conference.
Nick Martin, one of the 2013 PopTech Innovation Fellows, is attending the “Sparks of Brilliance” PopTech conference this week. He will be speaking between 2:30 PM to 3:00 PM EDT (14:30- 15:00 EDT) on Friday, October 25 about our work at TechChange to train international development practitioners to use technology better. In Session VII, Nick will be speaking alongside Miriah Meyer, Francisco Cervera, Lisa Servon, Dan Schulman, and Nicole Stubbs.
Catch Nick’s talk streamed live here: http://poptech.org/live and join the conversation with #PopTech using the channels listed here.
Go Nick!
Since TechChange was founded in 2010, our logo has always had a dynamic quality to it. This past summer, we began playing with the logo to make it come alive, both visually and audibly, to better reflect the TechChange brand as interactive and engaging. That started the creative process behind the current TechChange animated logo known internally as the “Tech Sprout”. What follows is a conversation between the animator, Alon Askarov, and the sound designer, Erik Tans, on this creative and technical process.
Where did you begin to think about this animation challenge?
[Alon] “The first time I saw the TechChange logo I was struck by how dynamic it felt. The nodes that connect into the circuit board, the seed that grows into the plant, the clear, and yet, invisible line that is drawn between the blue and yellow halves of the circle. All of these elements, and some more, are what formed the story that is behind the ‘Tech Sprout.’”
How did you approach sound design?
[Erik] “In this particular logo animation, there is the progression of the animation from simple to complex, from seed to sprout and water, to the wider-environment scene. Within all of this I saw a certain ebb and flow. With the sound I wanted to mimic that tension and release, that anticipation that I saw in the animation. After seeing this pattern, I decided to make my production a roughly two-part composition: the first section being the tension-building audio following the growth of the sprout, and the second part being the release of the static logo bringing on a short, memorable theme.”
Screenshot: Working on the “TechSprout” in After Effects – Audio and Animation Timing.
Was there anything different from how you had approached a similar process before?
[Alon] “Usually when I start animating, I break the static image down on the page into rough thumbnails and I look for composition, arcs, negative spaces, color, and shape. However with this animation I took a slightly different approach and Instead of laying down all the elements as a sketch, I just broke them apart and started timing them individually, like lego blocks. First the nodes, then the connections, then the plant with the leaves, and finally the blue and yellow circle.”
What was your next step in the process?
[Alon] “After I had the basic animation done I could see that the elements are telling a story, but it wasn’t complete. I sensed that there was something there but it wasn’t clear. At that stage of the production I went back to a basic step in the creative process which is: ‘share your work at early stage and get feedback’. Through other colleagues’ reactions, I could start figuring out what was working and what wasn’t.”
[Erik] “So much is communicated in sound: the rhythm and number of instruments; their sequence; organic or inorganic sounds; a fast tempo or a more slow and deliberate speed. What is communicated here should gel with what the brand is trying to communicate, and any audio can amplify the emotional response gained from the visual. With this in mind I began running through various instrument sounds and melodies, looking for something that would help tell the “story” of the animation. What really inspired me was the initial circle, and how it seemed to bounce into the frame like a violin starts up an orchestra: one violin for one circle. As the other circles entered the frame, the rest of the violins come in and crescendo like an inhaled-breath. I was aiming to mimic the rise in the graphic with this rise and tension in the music, and help to tell the “sprout story”.
“The flash which introduces the text logo is a turning point: with a swooping sound the graphic sprout is established, and the previous tension is released with the four-note melody coming in via a ‘tech-like’ synthesized sound. I wanted to leave the viewer with a short and memorable audio statement at the end to serve as an anchoring identity.”
How did the audio and visual elements work together?
[Alon] ”Now that I had the instruments tuned to the pitch, I could start building the beat. Finding the right timing was a lot of trial and error, timing each element to it’s natural pace and bringing them all together in harmony. I ended up producing 8 versions of the timing, each time pushing it a little bit further.”
[Erik] “From this point, we started a back-and-forth “improvisation” where we traded changes and influenced each other’s process. We took feedback from the rest of the production team as we changed the length, placement of hits, and- working within the limitations we set for ourselves- honed the feel of the story. In this way we balanced our artistic instincts with a craft-process which allowed us to change a static logo into a story with an emotional response.”
Get over 50% off tuition for Introduction to Intrapreneurship online course
Could the U.S. government shutdown be an opportunity for innovation? Being outside the confines of the office presents an opportunity for employees of any agency to develop the ideas and skills needed to advance innovation. In other words, here’s a chance for furloughed U.S. federal workers to focus on government innovation, and TechChange wants to help: starting today, TechChange is offering furloughed U.S. federal employees to take our Introduction to Intrapreneurship course for only $50.
More than ever, U.S. federal employees must find ways to maximize impact on a budget in one of the largest bureaucracies in the world. But where does innovation in a big bureaucracy come from? Ideas can come from every level of an organization, and are sometimes initiated by middle management or those in junior level-roles in a hierarchy. There’s a saying that, “Scarcity fuels innovation.” Outside the normal confines of the office, in a fresh setting, creates a breeding ground for new and innovative ideas. Thus the furlough is a great opportunity for government workers to discover and plan for new value-creating ideas.
Fortunately, government innovation has precedence. Todd Park, the Chief Technology Officer of the United States of America, is a great example of a government innovator. At the age of 24, he co-founded AthenaHealth, a company providing digital healthcare business services including electronic medical record services and virtual medical billing that went public on NASDAQ in 2007. In 2009, he accepted a job in the White House as the Chief Technology Officer of Health and Human Services (HHS) where he championed open innovation for government initiatives. He launched a series of hackathons and “datapaloozas” to make government data more available to public. In 2012, Park was promoted to CTO of the United States and special advisor to the president on technology. He has since launched the Presidential Innovation Fellows program.
TechChange wants to make it easier to empower U.S. federal employees to become intrapreneurs, applying entrepreneurial and start-up practices like Todd Park, to create innovation within their respective government agencies. Our Introduction to Intrapreneurship course, which was recently mentioned in Fast Company, is an opportunity for furloughed workers and other institutional innovators to learn from each other and be empowered to inspire change at their respective organizations, whether it be a federal government agency, an NGO, or a corporation.
According to the mHealth Alliance, in developing countries, the average doctor to patient ratio is 1 doctor for every 250,000 patients. Yet those same countries account for nearly 80% of the over 5 billion mobile subscriptions worldwide.
For people everywhere, access to a mobile phone can mean better access to health information, which leads to more informed choices and improved well-being. A great example of how mobile phones are making a difference in promoting health is with the Mobile Alliance for Maternal Action partnership that “has developed free, adaptable messages informed by experts in maternal, newborn and child health” that are being used and downloaded by 161 organizations in 54 nations around the world.
To learn more about how mobile phones are affecting developing nations in the realms of public health and beyond, check out our upcoming courses on Mobiles for International Development and mHealth. Also see our guest blog post from the mPulse blog on how we’re teaming up again with mHealth Alliance to mobilize mobile health with online learning.
