This piece has been crossposted from Health Unbound. If you’re interested in learning more, please visit our course page on mHealth: Mobile Phones for Public Health.

On November 14th the Mobile Phones for Global Health Online Certificate course officially kicks off and as we head into the final countdown we are offering a special preview of what participants can expect from the four-week course!

With 75 feedback surveys completed (thank you to all those who participated) we identified some of the most well-known thought leaders in the field speaking throughout the course.  Students will have the opportunity to engage directly with leading applications developers, and learn from practitioners who have had significant experience in implementing mobile phone based communication systems around the globe. The agenda will include:

Weekly Course Topics:

  • Week 1: Introduction to Mobile Health
  • Week 2: Strengthening health systems
  • Week 3: Moving towards citizen-centered health
  • Week 4: Technology Standards & Interoperability and Learning from other mServices

Featured Speakers:
Patty Mechael, Executive Director of the mHealth Alliance will provide students with an engaging introduction to the field, discussing the evolution of mobile phones for international health, and how these technologies are being used to today to respond to some of the greatest global health challenges.

Kicking off week 2, Joel Selanikio, co-founder of DataDyne, will present on the development of Episurveyor, and how mobile phones are being used to collect, manage, and sort data.

Also in week two, the class will be joined by Isaac Holeman, Chief Strategist for Medic Mobile, who will engage with students on the range of open source applications in the Medic Mobile toolkit – including the well-known Frontline SMS system that allows computers to send messages to large groups of people at a low cost.

A number of other guest speakers and presenters will also be featured. Stay tuned as we get closer by checking the course landing page.

In addition to these guest speakers, participants will engage with case studies, multimedia tutorials, interactive exercises, and live demonstrations of such tools as interactive voice recognition (IVR),  SMS (text message) communication programs, smartphone applications, and health information systems for data collection and management. Through this combination of hands-on experience, and engagement with practitioners on the ground, the goal is to provide students with an in-depth introduction to the field of mHealth.

Participate in the Live Twitter Chat and YOU Could Win 2 Free Passes!

Leading up the course, the mHealth Alliance and TechChange will provide an opportinity to for individuals to win a free pass to enroll in the course! Together TechChange and the mHealth Alliance will host a live-Twitter chat from @techchange and @mHealthAlliance using #tc309 on Friday, October 26 at 1pm EDT.

During the chat we will engage all participants in a variety of discussion topic and questions related to mHealth. We’re eager to hear from you about questions that you may have on latest innovations and projects in the field. All participants in the twitter chat will be included in a drawing to win a free seat in our upcoming course: mHealth Mobile Phones for Public Health. We will give a away a total of 2 seats. More details to come but tweet at @techchange or @mHealthAlliance if you have questions, and we look forward to having you join us there!

 

Interested in learning with TechChange? Check out our upcoming course with the mHealth Alliance: Mobile Phones for Public Health. Class starts on Nov. 12!

This month we introduced a new online class on Technology, Innovation and SocialEntrepreneurship in partnership with Roshan Paul, cofounder of the Amani Institute and senior staff member at Ashoka. The class has already attracted much interest from 30 students in 10 countries, including speakers from Groupshot.org, Shift.org, Digital Green, and Architects of the Future.

While we offered the class as part of the unprecedented enthusiasm around the ability of private-sector innovators to solve global problems, the last two weeks have made clear how the availability of new tools has been inseparable from the growth of TechChange as an organization. The path from starting our firm two years ago to being a recognized B Corp can be told first through our team members, but also through the technology that we’ve chosen to use to further our institutional goals.

While we usually avoid taking a tech-centric approach to business and education, these tools have solved a variety of management challenges for us, including core learning platforms and content management, community engagement, talent recruitment, relationship management, collaborative document editing, and task management.

1. WordPress (Content Management): Everything we do at TechChange that is website related is based on WordPress. Our main TechChange.org site, and our course site are heavily customized versions of WordPress.  We are big believers in responsive design and WordPress gave us the framework that we needed to build a system that could be managed by non-programmers. Some of our favorite plugins: GravityForms, Advanced Custom Fields, WordPress Database Backup, Disqus, Google Analytics for WordPress, and BuddyPress. But ultimately, whenever we’re asked why we chose to go with WordPress, we have to be honest: We chose the highly engaged WordPress developer community first and then figured out if the tech could meet our needs going forward.

2. Twitter (Community Engagement): Twitter has been absolutely crucial to our success. We got a late start (May 2010) but in two years we’ve grown to 6200 followers with an average of about 300 new followers a month thanks to the incredible direction of social media whiz kids Alex Priest and TJ Thomander. The secret sauce: our following has grown in direct relation to the number of tweets we’ve sent out every day.  We like to aim for tweeting 25-40 times a day and so should you.  Some tools we like: Crowdbooster, BufferApp, TweetDeck and Friendorfollow.

3. Idealist.org (Talent Recruitment): Whenever we hire someone new, we always post on Idealist.org, mostly because we care about attracting people who are passionate about social change in addition to tech nerds. For us, Idealist has been the best place to find them. If you’re hiring for a new position, we’d highly recommend spending the $70 for a job announcement.  Having an open web form application is also a great way to constantly be on the lookout for the right talent. Check out the TechChange application here.

4. Salesforce (Relationship Management): Where would we be without the web standard in customer relations management? Salesforce allows us to easily catalog everyone who applies for our courses as well as clients who hire us for custom courses. There is an incredible diversity of tactics organizations can use to tap into the power of Salesforce. We love what the folks at Vera Solutions are doing in terms of helping other organizations use Salesforce to enhance their M&E work and are excited to have CEO Taylor Downs speaking in our class this week. Salesforce has a number of discounts available for nonprofits and B corps.

5. Google Docs (Collaborative Writing): Google Docs is a our go-to way to share documents and collaborate in real-time. We do so much within this framework from managing cash flow, to sharing spreadsheets of student lists, to editing proposals. You do need a gmail account to use them and some folks may prefer not to be too cloud dependant but we’ve been very happy with this tool over the past two years.

6. Asana (Task Management): We’ve struggled over the past two years to find a good task management tool that everyone on the team actually uses. We tried Basecamp, Open Atrium and a bunch of others with limited success. The beauty of Asana is that it integrates nicely with Gmail. The interface is very intuitive and so far this has been the best one yet.

Other tools and platforms we love: Github, Rackspace, Quickbooks Online, Google Analytics, and Paypal.

What about you? What tools or platforms have been the most valuable for you and why? Feel free to share them below.

This past week I had the privilege of meeting and working with fifteen fellows from across the African continent who came to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for a two-week training organized by the UPEACE Africa Program with a supporting grant from IDRC Canada.

The training covered a variety of areas related to strengthening research capacity for governance and security in Sub-Saharan Africa and was designed to provide these fellows with critical support for carrying out their PhD work at various institutions of higher education across the continent.

Dissertation topics included:
– The Life of exiled Zimbabwean Soldiers in South Africa: Coping with the Repressed Memories of War and Political Violence
– The North & South Sudan Conflict on Abyei since 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement: Challenges & Prospects
– ‘Go back to your Ancestral Land’ Autochthony, Citizenship and the Quest for Return Among Internally Displaced Persons in the Rift Valley Province, Kenya

 

Session Overview: Mobiles, Maps, and Presentations

My sessions provided the fellows with a practical reflection on the role of technology in governance, peace and security as well as hands-on exposure to a variety tools and platforms that are being used to collect, visualize and analyze data.

On the first day, we explored FrontlineSMS, EpiSurveyor, GeoPoll, and OpenDataKit and their applications for supporting research via mobile data gathering. Activities from our online course TC105 Mobile Phones for International Development were used as a basis for this session.

On the second day, we looked at ArcGIS Online, Ushahidi and MapBox – all mapping platforms for data visualization and analysis. As part of this session, fellows had to create their own maps, analyze advantages and disadvantages of using different platforms, and reflect on applications for their own research.

We also spent time each day working with Prezi, the web-based zooming presentation tool. Prezi was probably the most popular platform of all the ones we explored, given what seemed to be a formidable and far-reaching frustration with PowerPoint. It sounds like almost all the fellows will be transitioning to Prezi for their classroom teaching and presentations in the near future.

 

Technology Capacity Building: Regional Implications

In the fields of international development and peacebuilding, attention is often focused on solutions and programs that meet basic needs and deliver urgent care (disaster response, food, water, shelter, health etc). For those efforts to have effective and sustainable impacts over time, countries must also have their own robust higher education and research sectors that provide critical analysis, develop comprehensive strategies, and train future generations of leaders. That is why programs like the UPEACE Africa Program that are focused strengthening the capacity of universities to carry out this work are so important. Special thanks to Tony, Jean-Bosco, Tsion and Tewodros and all the fellows for making this a memorable experience.

While the primary focus of TechChange has been and always will be online learning,
we believe it’s important to be connected to the communities like this and support this type of in-person learning. As an organization, we look forward to participating in similar projects, trainings, and initiatives in the near future.

Nick Martin is President and CEO of TechChange and is the Lead Facilitator for the upcoming course: Mobile Phones for International Development. Class starts Sept. 24. Apply Now!

In the last month, I’ve witnessed an exciting shift in how development in Africa has been treated in the media, especially with regards to mobile phones (Including this excellent post by Ken Banks in BBC). For the first time, we’re seeing the perspective shift from how the US needs to intervene to assist the helpless and needy, to a new frame of what lessons the US and the rest of the world can learn from the many innovations in high tech and mobile technology taking place across the African continent.

Just Saturday afternoon, I found myself checking CNN to see the latest headlines and events from around the world. The top story of the hour, “Seven Ways Mobile Phones have Changed Lives in Africa,” could have been written specifically for our upcoming course on Mobile Phones for International Development by referencing case studies such as M-PESA, the popular mobile money transfer program in Kenya and a case study that we look at extensively in a number of our online courses. I was also pleased to see other projects and organizations mentioned like m-FarmUshahidiMxit and more– all of whom are already pushing boundaries globally.

There were also references to mHealth initiatives directly relevant to our upcoming course with the mHealth alliance on Mobile Phones for Public Health.One of the organizations specifically mentioned is m-Pedigree, which is the result of Bright Simmons (disclosure: a colleague and International Youth Foundation global fellow) and the work he is doing in Ghana to prevent counterfeit pharmaceuticals with mobile phones.

It’s certainly exciting to see our field getting mainstream attention like this. I’m heading to Ethiopia this week with UPEACE to conduct a workshop, but mainly what I’m looking forward to is an opportunity to meet some of these innovators and see what’s happening first-hand. In Africa and elsewhere, it’s exciting to see the frame shift from “What can we teach?” to “What can we learn from each other?” Stay tuned for a post from the field!

This week will mark the launch of our new eight-week online certificate course on Mobile Money in partnership with the Mobile Solutions team at USAID and The QED Group. Today, we open our doors to over 70 staff from USAID and implementing partners in 10 countries to connect them with leading experts in the mobile money space and share best practices. Building on the materials in our TC105 Mobiles for International Development course, we will focus more specifically on how to implement and operationalize mobile money programs designed for scale.

USAID is the first bilateral donor to establish a dedicated Mobile Solutions team to help lever the power and reach of mobile technology to accelerate development outcomes. It is also an emerging leader in mobile money. Already, USAID’s work in Haiti led to more than 5 million mobile money transactions and a doubling of financial access points. In Afghanistan, USAID worked with the Central Bank to reduce regulatory barriers to entry for mobile network operators to establish mobile money products. And it is working to transfer large payment flows from cash to mobile money–this summer, for example, 110,000 households will have the chance to pay their electricity bills via mobile money. This online course will help inform this work and future programs, as USAID intends to expand its mobile money work to countries like Indonesia, Philippines, Malawi and a host of others.

Participants will explore at issues of regulation and interoperability, as well as strategies for working effectively with MNOs, banks and governments. We’ll consider case studies from countries like Pakistan, Philippines, Haiti, Uganda, Kenya and hear from guest experts such as David Porteous of Bankable Frontiers, Kabir Kumar of CGAP, Nadeem Hussain of Tameer Bank, Tomasz Smilowicz of Citigroup, Jordan Weinstock of Open Revolution, Chrissy Martin of MEDA, and more. Self-paced content including animated and interactive overview videos will complement live discussions.

According to Priya Jaisingani, Director of the Mobile Solutions team at USAID, this type of online facilitated course “will go a long way to ensure USAID’s mobile money work is informed by the best thinking in the field.”

TechChange president Nick Martin said of the partnership: “We often find that the biggest barrier to using mobile phones for international development is bridging the rift between development projects and technologists. We’re hoping this class can do exactly that through sharing best practices and connecting with leading experts.”

If you’re interested in mobile money and other possibilities for mobile phones for your projects, TechChange will also be offering an open-enrollment course TC105: Mobiles for International Development on September 24th.

Image link from USAID IDEA: http://idea.usaid.gov/tags/haiti

Description: The campaign to #StopKony is approaching a critical transition. On April 20th Invisible Children will launch its Cover the Night campaign on the heels of one of the most successful viral videos of all time.

Moving forward from online ‘awareness-raising’, in which over 85 million people viewed their video Kony 2012, Invisible Children is now asking their supporters for something more – offline action. Regardless of your position on the efficacy and appropriateness of the campaign, the upcoming Cover the Night will be an important event in the short history of digital activism. How will Invisible Children translate a resounding marketing success into tangible action? What does this mean for the greater advocacy community?

As a precursor to our course on digital organizing and good governance, TechChange plans to host an open twitter chat to reflect on the campaign and its successes and approaches to date.

Date: Friday 27th at 1:00pm EDT

Key Questions:

1.  One of the biggest criticisms of Kony2012 was that it oversimplified the history of conflict in central africa and the mechanisms needed to create change in the region. How do organizations handle conflicting demands of delivering a message in an accessible way vs attending to complexity and nuance of an issue?

2.  Invisible children was clear that Kony2012 Cover the Night was not intended for policymakers or for affected communities in central africa, it was targeted towards US based activists. Should organizations/campaigns segment or customize messages and actions for different target audiences and how might they do this effectively?

3. Kony2012 proved the power of viral video in getting the attention of tens of millions of people. How do organizations successfully translate online activity into meaningful offline action? how do they sustain success?

 

Hashtag: #TCTalk

Be sure to participate in the chat by logging on twitter on Friday April 27th between 1 and 2pm EDT. Please remember: use the #TCTalk hashtag, introduce yourself, stay on topic, be respectful and have fun. This discussion will be part of TechChange’s monthly twitter chat, which are real-time conversations structured around specific themes.

Have a question but can’t attend the chat?
Mention @TechChange before the chat with any questions you have or issues you are interested in exploring – or just comment right here on TechChange Blog. We’ll do our best to include this feedback in the chat.

Sample Tweet: Join @TechChange for a twitter chat discussing #Kony2012  and Digital #activism on April 27th 1-2pm. Use #TCTalk http://bit.ly/JcwMm9

Interested in continuing the conversation further and engaging with other activists across the globe? Be sure to check out TechChange’s upcoming online certificate course, TC104 Global Innovations for Digital Organizing: open data, good governance, and online/offline advocacy. This course will evaluate case studies where new technologies have been employed for effective change and what factors and contexts are most influential on outcomes. More information can be found at TC104 course description page on the TechChange website.

Zombies have started to make their way into the DC Metropolitan Area! Yesterday the TechChange team delivered another FrontlineSMS simulation, this time set against the backdrop of a Zombie Apocalypse. The training was part of Challenge Accepted 2012 a weekend conference for undergraduates hosted by Americans for Informed Democracy.

Participants were divided up into teams of the Zombie Control Task Force  (ZCTF) and tasked with responding to the sudden appearance and spread of zombies in the city. They then had to set up the FrontlineSMS platform and determine a strategy for communication between  field workers and HQ, and civilians in need of treatment (all while avoiding a roaming Zombie).

Participants were asked to consider workflow questions such as:

  • How will you alert civilians when new information becomes available?
  • Should all civilians receive the same information? How will they be grouped?
  • What types of information will you need to gather from you field workers? What strategy will you use to ensure adequate communication between HQ and the field?
  • How will you verify the integrity of information from the field?
We’ve found that this is a great way to learn the potential and pitfalls of a tool like FrontlineSMS while keeping things engaging and fun. We’re excited about running more of these in the months to come (especially now that we have all kinds of new zombie equipment:)
If you’re interested in learning more about our courses and simulations consider signing up for our next online course TC104: Global Innovations for Digital Organizing. The course starts May 14th and there are sure to a few zombie scenarios in that one as well:)

Next monday (Feb 20th) we begin the TechChange four week certificate course on New Technologies for Educational Practice. I’m excited to announce that rockstar educator Daryn Cambridge, Director for Knowledge & Digital Strategies at the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict adjunct professor at American University will be co-facilitating with me.

We’ve got an amazing group of educators, administrators, practitioners lined up from organizations like Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, UN University for Peace, USAID, Catholic Charities – Refugee Services, German Agency for International Cooperation, Close Up Foundation, IREX, Teachers College, Plan Finland, Graduate School, Marymount University, and more.

We’re also thrilled to welcome a number of guest experts to the course who will be giving presentations, fielding questions and interacting with the class.  A list of confirmed speakers so far (with a few more on the way):

●  Rafi Santo, New media & learning theorist Doctoral Student in Indiana University’s Learning Sciences Program.
●  Julie Lindsay, E-Learning & MYP Coordinator at Beijing International School. Co-founder Flat Classroom Projects
●  Noble Kelley, Executive Director of Teachers Beyond Borders
●  Rangan Srikhanta, Director of OneLaptop Per Child Australia

We’ve got an excited four weeks planned: we’ll be playing some video games for social change, learning about all kinds of new tools for classroom practice, diving a little bit into theories of social learning, active learning, connectivism, hosting twitter chats, discussing tablets and e-textbooks, trying to figure out if m-learning is for real, exploring case studies like Khan Academy, CodeSchool, engaging in online scavenger hunts and so much more.

There are still a few spots left so register today to reserve your spot and hit the ground running!

In the fall of 2011, TechChange facilitated its first series of online courses.  The courses were each three weeks long and covered the following topics (we will also be running these courses again in the Spring):

Participant Demographics

In total, we had 170 participants from 43 countries and the response has been remarkably positive. Participants came from a range of organizations, including:

Voice of America World Bank IREX
USAID World Pulse Media Mercy Corps
Plan International Freedom House UNDP
World Vision Concern Notre Dame
International Rescue Committee International Youth Foundation Teachers Without Borders
International Red Cross Office of the First Lady of the Dominican Republic Radio Station in Haiti (Minustah FM)

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