Built with input from gender and tech experts, our free Gender Data 101 course illuminates the gender gap and equips professionals with the tools they need to understand and analyze data from a critical gender perspective.
Gender Data 101 was originally funded by Meta (formerly Facebook), whose mission is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. The course is now supported by TechChange and other partners.
There is an urgent need for real-time and representative data related to the Sustainable Development Goals; in particular, reliable data sources, indicators, and understanding are needed to illuminate gender inequality and power dynamics across complex and diverse topics.
TechChange convened more than 20 data, gender, and development experts in an Ideation Workshop to define the audience, purpose, and ideal learning journeys for an online course, and then created a comprehensive suite of learning products including a blended, facilitated course, a virtual alumni event, and a self-paced adaptation of the course.
TechChange specializes in building beautiful and engaging learning experiences on topics that matter. The gender data gap matters to many development professionals, but there was a lack of clarity in the field around the audience, purpose, and objectives of an online course that could address the problem. TechChange provided thought leadership on these questions and applied human-centered design to the process, convening subject experts on gender and tech and facilitating a powerful Ideation Workshop to target the course effectively. TechChange creative leads then developed captivating media and videos and engaging, interactive activities to bring the learning to life. We tested the course with our contributing experts and refined it based on their feedback prior to launch.
*Event attendance refers to the number of times a participant accessed a virtual session.
The original plan was for a 200 person cohort in the pilot of the blended learning course, but the massive interest in the course — over 2,000 applications — inspired TechChange to expand Gender Data 101 to more than 400 participants. The blended course included self-paced virtual activities, live events with gender and data experts, and a relevant case study each week that illustrated a section of the gender data life cycle. Blended learning allows for a wide range of participants to learn and share practical applications of the material in a community of practice. Course pre- and post-assessments showed that a majority of participants learned new skills, understood the gender data lifecycle, and could process gender data with a critical lens. Participants shared that the blended course was informative and fun and highlighted the focus on community building as a key strength of the visual platform.
Ultimately, what started as a desire to create a helpful course evolved into a response to provide a budding global community with a common language and a means to engage with like-minded practitioners all over the world. TechChange continues to offer free cohorts of the blended learning class to provide top-tier learning and engagement opportunities as well as open access to the self-paced version of the course to ensure inclusive participation. A new Virtual Alumni Innovation Showcase provides additional community and knowledge building for alumni to share their work and research in gender data and related fields with their peers.
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