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Category: Blog
Yohan Perera recently joined TechChange as a Graphic Designer. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Digital Arts & Design from Full Sail University, Winter Park, Florida. Born and raised in the beautiful island nation of Sri Lanka, a country that was torn by civil war for 30 long years, he received an opportunity to work as a Graphic Designer for Sri Lanka Unites, a Youth Movement for Hope and Reconciliation in 2011, where he gained his true passion to use graphic design & media for social change. He enjoys seeing the world around him through his camera.
Welcome to the TechChange team, Yohan!
So long, 2014! Building on our annual posts in 2013 and 2012 (as well as a repeat performance at FailFest 2014!), we wanted to share a few highlights from our year, as well as appreciation for our amazing learning community, partners, and staff.
TechChange continues to flourish as a social enterprise. Our DC-based and recently re-certified B-Corp recently outgrew our old location near Capitol South and moved to U St. We welcomed new team members including Sara Pitcairn, Kendra Keith, Delanie Ricketts, Yohan Perera, Samita Thapa, and Liang Cai. We also launched a fellowship program for college students and recent graduates to apply their programming skills to social change, just like our junior programmers in 2014: Oscar Chen and Sean Bae.
This progress has been thanks to our new partnerships and growing learning community. We’ve partnered to create over 15 self-paced courses on topics such as scaling HIV prevention with A&PI Wellness Center, a free two-hour self-paced course on mobile data solutions with USAID and FHI360, and eight modules on NGO management with Creative Associates International. For our own open enrollment courses, we’ve welcomed 680 students in 13 facilitated four-week sessions, as well as launching two new topics in 3D Printing for Social Good and Technology for Monitoring and Evaluation.
To complement these courses, we’ve created powerful educational content, including 45 total minutes of beautiful animations for projects by Search for Common Ground, Feed the Future, and more. (Watch our new animation reel to get an idea.) We’ve also tried to end boring PDFs and open up reports with our Organizational Guide to ICT4D.
Underpinning all of this has been the extensive improvements developed by our tech team. We launched a new user and course management system that now has 2,461 users and 72 courses. We also provided white-labeled platforms for 8 organizations including USAID, TOL, MAMA, URC, THNK, Ashoka, A&PI, and more. Stay tuned for new offerings in the space of educational technology for development as a service.
TechChange has also invested in public communications, as we’ve grown to 12,500 followers on Twitter, revamped our YouTube channel and launched a weekly educational email series. We’ve also been recognized in publications such as Forbes and the the Guardian, while our staff have received received awards and nominations from 50 on Fire, Arianne de Rothschild, and Society for International Development. We also had opportunities to participate in Tech@State, SwitchPoint, the Action Summit, Swarthmore College, and M&E Tech.
But the most exciting development has been the initiatives undertaken by our alumni, including mHealth Apps for HIV, convening meetups in Zambia, finding jobs for alumni, and health mapping in Uganda. That’s why we’ve been happy to convene gatherings with General Assembly and Udemy, sponsored a team of Kosovo youth social entrepreneurs, and hosted the TechGirls #jobshadowday again!
Photo Source: EvalPartners
Today marks the first day of the International Year of Evaluation, which kicks off with an official celebration at the UN Headquarters in New York City. More than ever, evaluation is becoming increasingly important in international development. The global EvalPartners and the United Nations Evaluation Group officially declared 2015 as the International Year of Evaluation earlier this year. As the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will be replaced by Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015, measuring results and impact of development activities is increasingly critical. How can the international development community align their monitoring and evaluation skills with new technology to make progress toward the SDGs?
TechChange couldn’t be more excited to kick-off 2015 with the launch of the next round of our online course on Technology for Monitoring & Evaluation. Starting January 26th, this four week course will explore the vital role of technology in enhancing monitoring and evaluations efforts which could have a critical impact on SDG fullfillment. Sign up here to join the learning community!
The global development industry is generating a lot of data on the ‘developing’ world–data that has not always been available. As technology has made data collection easier and scalable, many in the development industry have already established that monitoring (i.e., data collection) is much easier than evaluating (i.e., data insights). However, both aspects of M&E require good methodologies to ensure the data are accurately represented.
Despite making my living working with data, I am somewhat of a data skeptic. Specifically, I am skeptical of the notion that numbers and data are truth. Much like geographer Doreen Massey’s conceptualization of space as a product of social relations, data embodies social relations and biases. In other words, it is difficult to guarantee the neutrality of data and numbers in terms of how they are collected, what they show, and how they are analyzed. All of this information is subject to human bias – whether intentional or unintentional – with the way humans label data, the limitations of finite data samples, and the human-designed technology that might reinforce biases.
The way humans label data
Does the way we identify data represent cultural bias? In some ways, yes. Labels can be culturally problematic in the way we classify data and the way people interpret those classifications. For example, when collecting demographic information for a survey, limiting gender to two categories, we can reinforce our own notion of gender categories and unintentionally bias the data. India and Nepal, for example, both recognize a third gender on official documents. M&E data in these countries however, do not always reflect this change. Mortiz Hardt, a researcher at IBM, notes five ways that big data is unfair. Along with different cultural understandings and the consistent, if unintentional, representation of social categories (e.g., race and gender), Hardt notes sample size as a problem.
Limited sample sizes of data
The issue of certain groups not being represented in the data is a particular problem for global development. A recent study by the Global Web Index highlights that geolocation can lead to groups in the ‘developing’ world not being counted by web analytics. Virtual private networks (VPNs), which are a common tool for accessing blocked sites, and shared devices are some of the main culprits. Additionally, issues of privacy can change responses and skew the data and limit the sample size of quality data. For example, in some societies, even if a woman owns a cell phone, she is not always free to respond without having her calls and text messages monitored.
Are we training machines to mimic our cultural biases that are in data?
This human bias within data is of particular concern for predictive modeling and big data, both of which are starting to enter development as seen in report reports by UN Pulse and the World Economic Forum. But an algorithm for predictive modeling is just training a machine based on the data that it’s given. So if the data are biased, the prediction will be biased. According to Wired Magazine article with Danielle Citron, a University of Maryland law professor, humans can trust algorithms too much, in that “[…]we think of them as objective, whereas the reality is that humans craft those algorithms and can embed in them all sorts of biases and perspectives.”
So what does data bias mean for global development and M&E professionals?
Global development needs to continue being data-driven. This is emphasized by one of the principles for digital development being focused on data driven decision making. It is equally important we recognize and understand the biases we incorporate into datasets and the biases of the datasets of the datasets we use.
At the end of the day, Tech for M&E begins with the humans behind the data. With the vast amounts of data provided with modern digital data collection tools, M&E practitioners need to understand how they can act as gatekeepers to ensure that we note the bias we are embedding in our data.
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Interested in this topic on data in global development and measuring results? Join our top selling online course on Technology for Monitoring & Evaluation, which begins April 20, 2015.
As 2014 has been a big year for us at TechChange, we celebrate more failures and lessons learned at Fail Fest 2014 with the TechChange band. This year, we had members across our team on perform with vocals, guitar, drums, oboe, and – of course- PowerPoint. From connectivity issues when doing online training sessions on Ebola to unanticipated challenges of moving into a new office, we loved participating in Fail Fest again to share our experiences in providing interactive training for social change.
Stay tuned for a recording of our performance that we’ll post here soon.
Missed our performance at Fail Fest 2013? See how we celebrated lessons learned in launching eLearning courses in Sudan and Pakistan in TechChange’s first Fail Song.
Kendra first connected with us almost a year ago while taking our mHealth online course. She was interning with the USAID Bureau of Global Health, mentored by the eHealth Coordinator of the Office of Health Systems. Having recently returned from Zambia, where she collaborated with ZCHARD and the Zambian Ministry of Health to scale Programme Mwana, an SMS test result delivery system to support early infant diagnosis, Kendra was interested in exploring how integration of mobile devices with public health programs could increase impact.
As a TechChange Alumna now team member, she has led facilitation of TC105: Mobiles for International Development and TC309: Mobile Phones for Public Health, coordinating live events, developing content, case studies and activities, and moderating discussion forum. With a background in global public health and project coordination, she provides content support and management for a variety of TechChange projects, while also supporting overall TechChange operations. Passionate about user centered design, she studies development and design in her free time, aspiring to ultimately improving mobile health and online learning user experience.
Prior to joining the team, Kendra completed an MPH with Boston University, as well as a Bachelor of Science from the University of Florida. She also worked in the non-profit sector, supporting the mPowering Frontline Healthworker and mHealth Working Group initiatives with Jhpiego.
Welcome, Kendra!
In honor of World AIDS Day 2014, we celebrate several TechChange alumni who are heroes in the front lines of fighting HIV and AIDS across the world. From their communities in San Francisco, Vietnam, Malawi, South Africa, and Zambia, these extraordinary individuals are using mHealth technology, online training for HIV preventing, and more to save lives with HIV awareness campaigns through online trainings and SMS campaigns, Android mobile apps for accurately prescribing antiretroviral medication, and more. Check out the top five ways TechChange alumni are using technology to fight HIV.
1. Encouraging HIV testing and care in Vietnam with mHealth gamification programs
Caroline Francis and her team across FHI 360 Vietnam have launched mHealth pilot programs to encourage HIV testing and care maintenance through gamification with mobile phones. In their programs in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, mHealth is a key strategy for FHI 360 “to incentivize health-seeking actions, increase the timeliness of data collection, improve patient communications, and document system-client interactions. MHealth can also facilitate workforce development through task shifting, performance support, and human resources management.”
Check out this video on their “Fansipan Challenge” mHealth pilot program here.
2. Promoting HIV support group and health management classes with SMS reminders
In her blog post on “mHealth: Healthcare Reaching Remote Places with Mobile Phones and SMS”, Reverend Neelley Hicks describes the success of a community health worker’s use of SMS messages to remind HIV+ members of a community in Malawi to attend support group and HIV health management classes. The significance of reaching these program beneficiaries was not small, as “community health workers often must walk miles to find someone only to learn they are away. But the mobile phones stay with the person – making them much easier to reach.”
Mercy (pictured with Maeghan Ray Orton from Medic Mobile) at UMCom workshop in Malawi
3. Scaling HIV Prevention in California via eLearning
A&PI (Asian and Pacific Islander) Wellness Center, a San Francisco-based organization with that started to fight the HIV/AIDS crisis in A&PI communities beginning in the late 1980s, collaborated with Project Inform and TechChange to develop the California Statewide Training and Education Program (CSTEP), a curriculum that sets the standard in HIV treatment and technically and culturally competent training for clinical and non-clinical providers working in the HIV field. The A&PI Wellness Center works to address the health needs of marginalized and vulnerable groups, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, or immigration status.
To register for these free online courses on HIV prevention training, please click here.
To help clinicians to correctly prescribe antiretrovirals, Dr. Musaed Abrahams, an alumnus of our mHealth – Mobile Phones for Public Health online course, has launched a mobile app for managing antriretroviral treatment (ARV) medication in South Africa.
The Aviro HIV mobile app acts as a virtual mentor for clinicians to easily consult for proper ARV (Anti-retroviral) initiation and treatment during the patient consult. Designed for Android and based on the current South African guidelines, it provides real-time, immediate feedback and guidance for the clinician, so that excellent and reliable care can be delivered to every patient. Following a care checklist, it gives clinical prompts aiming to educate and raise the standard of patient care.
Download the Aviro Android app on the Google Play store here.
5. Advocating for reproductive health education in Zambia with SMS
After taking several online courses with TechChange, Priscilla Chomba-Kinywa created a SMS solution called U-Report to promote sex education to prevent HIV in Zambia among youth. She incorporated the feedback from Zambian youth in the process of building out this campaign and program. The first year of the program’s pilot in 2 provinces had 50,000 young people voluntarily sign up and engage the 24/7 trained counselors by asking them questions on HIV, sexually transmitted infections, and other reproductive health issues.
Want to learn how you can use technology to address challenges such as HIV and other global challenges? Enroll in one of our online courses here and get $50 off any course with the coupon code, ENDAIDS2014, before December 5, 2014.
Where are you from?
I’m originally from Israel, specifically a city south of Tel Aviv called Rishon Le Zion.
What did you do before working at TechChange?
Before I worked at TechChange, I worked as an Animator/After Effects Compositor on a few different children’s cartoons. The shows were produced either in Israel, or in Europe. I worked both in a production studio environment and I spent some time traveling and working where ever I had a stable internet connection and a desk.
How did you hear about TechChange?
I heard about TechChange through a job posting on indeed.com.
What exactly do you do at TechChange? What does a typical day look like for you?
I coordinate the work of our amazing creative team, with the vision of the instructional design team and provide feedback and guidance for different projects. My typical day would start by talking to my team, getting their input on current projects, checking their progress and setting goals for the day. Followed by answering clients and team emails. After that I would go into either storyboarding, drafting a concept note for a project, editing video boards (for animation), animate, figuring out next steps for larger projects, hop on check-in calls with clients or any other task that requires my input. At the end of the day I would make sure that the creative team has delivered completed tasks, check in with Nick or Chris on long term deliverables and plan my next day. The job is pretty diverse and requires a lot of long term planning, as well as attention to details. The things I always try to ask myself are: Are we on schedule? Are we improving? Are the team members in the loop?”
How did you get into animation?
As a kid, I was (and still am) a geek that spent a lot of time indoors watching TV and movies – especially cartoons and Disney movies. With heroes like Bugs Bunny, Spiderman and the Genie, I was amazed by the power of animation. I couldn’t believe that there were people out there creating visual representations for stuff that I thought only existed in my head. Growing up, I went to an engineering high school, and my sense for design and animation wasn’t very encouraged. After I finished my mandatory military service, my girlfriend at the time (now my wife) sent me a link to the animation department of Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem. I had no idea that a career in animation and design was even an option, but I told myself that if I get in, I’ll go for it. I applied and some how got through the tests. The first two years were very hard, but even after a lot of failures I couldn’t give up, because my drive to animate and draw kept growing as school was getting harder and harder. 4 years after graduating, I look back and I know that taking that chance was one of the best decisions I ever made.
Alon Alaskov creating interactive infographic
What is the most important lesson you’ve learned in creating animations for international development and social change?
The most important lesson in international development that I’ve learned is that there is a lot of room for creative thinking. Coming from a design background, I try to approach animation projects with a clean slate and do a lot of exploration. I’ve learned that this approach can applies to international development-related work as well, especially when explaining data-intensive concepts in visually compelling ways that make it easier to understand.
How do you keep up with the latest developments in animation/multimedia technology and trends?
A lot of web browsing. I have a Google News feed that keeps me updated on these issues, as well as colleagues who post interesting articles on Facebook and Twitter.
What do you love most about working at TechChange?
The people. This is by far the best team I’ve ever had the chance to work with. There’s a wonderful environment here, amazing energy, and hard working individuals.
Alon with his birthday gifts from TechChange: cupcakes and a sketch of himself made by his co-worker Pablo
What is your favorite TechChange moment so far?
After almost two years of living in the US, I finally got to have a proper Halloween office party. In the party I had the privilege to participate in a short intellectual experiment called: “Between Two Nerds”. Thanks to Nick Martin, Pablo Leon and Charlie Weems, it turned out to be one of the best productions I ever took part in.
What do you do when you’re not at TechChange?
I enjoy spending time with my wife, watch movies, read comics/books, work on personal animation/design projects, hike, play PC games, and hangout with friends.
If you had to direct someone to the best place to eat in D.C. where would it be?
Busboys and Poets. Great food, awesome atmosphere.
Does Alon’s job sound like your dream job? Apply to our Animator/Videographer position here.
By Timo Luege, TC103: Tech Tools and Skills for Emergency Management facilitator
As technology for disaster response evolves, digital mapping is playing an increasingly important role in helping emergency managers in humanitarian emergency response operations. When considering the best tools and skills to respond to the Ebola crisis in West Africa, earlier this year, Doctors without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) sent a dedicated Geographic Information Systems (GIS) officer to Guinea, to support the local and international medical teams who are fighting the Ebola-outbreak. To find out whether that was a good investment, the MSF GIS Unit asked TC103 facilitator Timo Luege to write a case study showing the impact of this field-based GIS officer.
Some of the key observations are:
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Most of the the areas close to the border of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone had not been mapped previously. This meant that it was very easy to see the changes.
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Despite being in a very remote area, the GIS officer had decent internet connection which allowed him to reach out for remote support. Among other things this made it possible for the volunteers of the OpenStreetMap community to contribute directly to supporting the response. So this is also a case that shows what crowdsourcing can contribute to humanitarian emergency response.
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Since the GIS Officer was in the field, he and his local staff were able to provide context to the basemaps that were produced remotely. Both components were important: without the remote support, the GIS wouldn’t have been able to create all basemaps at the granularity that is available now. But without the GIS in the field, a lot of the traced outlines would not have been meaningful, because you need local knowledge to know whether a building is a school, a hospital, a police station etc. Also: assigning the correct names to villages is at least as important as mapping roads. Again, you need people in the field to do this.
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Because MSF chose to use formats and tools that encourage or even require sharing, many maps created for MSF will add value to local communities, local government and help other humanitarian and development organizations working in the area. This means that the outputs will continue to be beneficial and can be built upon.
You can download the complete case study here:
“GIS Support for the MSF Ebola response in Guinea in 2014”
This post originally appeared in Social Media for Good
Interested in learning more on how to use digital crisis mapping tools for humanitarian emergencies and natural disasters? Enroll now in this online course on Mapping for International Development and Tech Tools & Skills for Emergency Management.
About the TC 103 facilitator: Timo Luege
After nearly ten years of working as a journalist (online, print and radio), Timo worked four years as a Senior Communications Officer for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in Geneva and Haiti. During this time he also launched the IFRC’s social media activities and wrote the IFRC social media staff guidelines. He then worked as Protection Delegate for International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Liberia before starting to work as a consultant. His clients include UN agencies and NGOs. Among other things, he wrote the UNICEF “Social Media in Emergency Guidelines” and contributed to UNOCHA’s “Humanitarianism in the Network Age”. Over the last year, Timo advised UNHCR- and IFRC-led Shelter Clusters in Myanmar, Mali and most recently the Philippines on Communication and Advocacy. He blogs at Social Media for Good and is the facilitator for the TechChange online course, “Tech Tools & Skills for Emergency Management“.