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    How Generative AI Can Improve Aid Outcomes

    Washington DC | By on January 26, 2023 | Comments Off on How Generative AI Can Improve Aid Outcomes

    Our first in-person Technology Salon DC in three years convened on January 25, 2023, to pose the question: Can Generative Artificial Intelligence Technology Improve Aid Outcomes? Thought leaders and decision makers across the international development space shared their optimism, skepticism, and uncertainty regarding generative AI and its consequences as we move closer to the uncanny…

  • Encouraging Innovation in Development Organizations

    New York | By on May 22, 2014 | Comments Off on Encouraging Innovation in Development Organizations

    Our February 6th Technology Salon in New York City focused on the organizational challenges that development organizations face when trying to innovate or integrate ICTs into their programs and operations. We looked at the idea of “innovation” and different ways to approach it. We asked what “innovation” really means and why “technology” and “innovation” seem…

  • How We Helped Small Organizations Be More Competitive in Grant Challenges

    New York | By on May 20, 2014 | Comments Off on How We Helped Small Organizations Be More Competitive in Grant Challenges

    This is a guest post from Jamie Narkunski, who works as a UX consultant at ThoughtWorks NYC. I recently attended a Tech Salon where the subject of grant applications came up. Part of the conversation revolved around the issue that the complexity, format, and investment required in the traditional grant application process acts as a…

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  • Tweet Tweet! Cuban Twitter and its Implications for ICT4D

    Washington DC | By on May 6, 2014 | Comments Off on Tweet Tweet! Cuban Twitter and its Implications for ICT4D

    On April 4, the Associated Press released a story about the ICT project in Cuba, reporting that the pseudo-Twitter platform, ZunZuneo, was a covert program created with the intention to ‘stir unrest’. USAID maintains the platform was created to facilitate conversation between Cuban citizens, and approved by the Government Accountability Office. (USAID refutes eight facts…

  • Who Does Monitoring and Evaluation and Uses the F-Word?

    Washington DC | By on February 11, 2014 | Comments Off on Who Does Monitoring and Evaluation and Uses the F-Word?

    33,000 stores, 61 years of business, and more than 1 billion served. Can you guess which organization these numbers are associated with? McDonald’s. Imagine if development organizations had these kinds of statistics. Imagine if they could track results to this degree. Would programs save money? Be more efficient? What would it take to harness data…

  • How 3 Technology Initiatives Are Improving Education in Rwanda

    Washington DC | By on December 3, 2013 | Comments Off on How 3 Technology Initiatives Are Improving Education in Rwanda

    The Technology Salon on “How is ICT Impacting Education in Rwanda?” in Washington, DC featured lead discussants David Rurangirwa, ICT/Education Specialist for USAID/Rwanda, who described the Rwanda Education Commons and Jacques Murinda, Executive Director, OLE Rwanda, who explained initiatives that OLE is implementing using TeacherMates and OLPC XO-1 laptops.

  • 7 Considerations for Mobile Money Cash Grants to Change Development

    Washington DC | By on December 3, 2013 | Comments Off on 7 Considerations for Mobile Money Cash Grants to Change Development

    Let us start with the classic (borderline cliché) development proverb: if you give a man a fish, he eats for a day, but if he is taught how to fish, he will eat for a lifetime. It was this analogy that got conversation started at the latest Technology Salon, “Are Mobile Money Cash Transfers the…

  • 8 Tips to Publish Open Data in Preparation for IATI

    Washington DC | By on December 3, 2013 | Comments Off on 8 Tips to Publish Open Data in Preparation for IATI

    Siobhan Green, the founder of Sonjara attended the Technology Salon exploring “How Can USAID Development Partners Implement IATI?” and was inspired to define 8 steps to publish Open Data to prepare for the day when we all will need to be compliant with the International Aid Transparency Initiative standards. Here is her list:

  • Teachers Are Integral to ICT Success in Education

    Washington DC | By on December 3, 2013 | Comments Off on Teachers Are Integral to ICT Success in Education

    I am Russell Southwood of Smart Monkey TV and in July, I was at the “How is ICT Impacting Education in Rwanda?” Tech Salon DC on the experience of using technology in education in Rwanda. Several of those who spoke emphasized the importance and centrality of the teacher in the education system.

  • How New Technologies Can Make Every Voice Count in Government

    London | By on July 15, 2013 | Comments Off on How New Technologies Can Make Every Voice Count in Government

    Ten years ago, leveraging information and communication technology for development was all about getting people an email address. Today, there is an explosion in access to ICT thanks to mobile technologies – the CEO of Ericsson recently predicted, 92% of the world’s inhabitants will live in an area with mobile reception coverage by 2018 (see…

  • Why Information Security Matters in ICT4D

    Washington DC | By on April 2, 2013 | Comments Off on Why Information Security Matters in ICT4D

    The Technology Salon on Why Does Information Security Matter in International Development? was a predictably raucous debate on finding a sane balance between using 30-character passwords with symbols, numbers, and mixed-case letters that must be changed every month for your time sheet systems… and taking basic security measures to protect super-private data.

  • A Computer Can Do Your International Development Job Thanks to Open Data

    Washington DC | By on February 21, 2013 | Comments Off on A Computer Can Do Your International Development Job Thanks to Open Data

    At a recent Technology Salon on “How Can We Make Data Useful for Development,” one of the participants put forth an interesting question to the group: Could computers make better international development decisions than humans?

  • How to Use ICT for Citizen Participation

    Washington DC | By on February 11, 2013 | Comments Off on How to Use ICT for Citizen Participation

    The model citizen participation process has citizens holding their governments accountable to deliver quality public services in a transparent and responsive manner. At the recent Technology Salon on How Can ICT’s Support Citizen Engagement with Governments? around 30 thought leaders debated the best ways to empower citizens and governments to define what a government should…

  • How to Build Effective ICT Tools for Quality M&E?

    Washington DC | By on July 28, 2011 | Comments Off on How to Build Effective ICT Tools for Quality M&E?

    Last month, the M&E for ICT4D Technology Salon noted that we lacked quality tools to measure outcomes. We all intuitively know that ICT could be the basis for great M&E tools, but what about taking that feeling into action?

  • No one ever fails in ICT4D. Isn’t that amazing! Technologies come and go quickly – bye, bye PDA’s, Windows Vista, and soon Nokia – yet in ICT4D, each project has impact and we never fail. We just have lessons learned. In fact, can you name a single technology program that has publicly stated that it…

  • What Are Best Practices in Measurement and Evaluation of ICT Projects?

    Washington DC | By on July 11, 2011 | Comments Off on What Are Best Practices in Measurement and Evaluation of ICT Projects?

    Everyone talks about measurement and evaluation (M&E) like it matters. Yet, few of us do it well or even at all with ICT projects. So why should we measure and evaluate? How can we go about it? And what are the industry best practices, applied to the uniqueness of ICT? Our goal is to explore…

  • How USAID Could Learn – and Grow – from Failure

    Washington DC | By on June 22, 2011 | Comments Off on How USAID Could Learn – and Grow – from Failure

    I am Charles Kenny, and I spent part of yesterday at a United Nations Foundation meeting with Dr Maura O’Neill, Chief Innovation Officer at USAID.

    There was a lot of discussion of development applications using mobile phones (m-development) and how to do them better – things like interoperability and collecting models in an ‘m-app marketplace.’ And there was the usual back-and-forth between those who wanted to see more transformative projects where IT reformed whole agencies and ministries and those who thought that way madness (or at least obscene overruns) lay.

    But I thought the most interesting discussion was around learning from experience -particularly in an area where technology is evolving rapidly, so a robust evaluation may not be completed before the project itself looks as dated as an integrated rural development scheme or a structural adjustment loan. The randomized trial result suggesting limited evidence of educational spillovers from a distribution program of Nintendo 64’s might not carry too much weight for those wanting to hand out Wiis as part of a youth fitness program.

  • Spice Up Your Next Proposal with Software!

    Washington DC | By on May 3, 2011 | Comments Off on Spice Up Your Next Proposal with Software!

    You’re staring down a new Request for Proposal and you know the goals can be achieved quicker, cheaper, and more effectively with the help of a software solution. You want to include your killer app in the proposal but you’re a development expert not a hacker. Where to start?

  • Best Practices in Incorporating ICT into Funding Proposals

    Washington DC | By on January 24, 2011 | Comments Off on Best Practices in Incorporating ICT into Funding Proposals

    At the Technology Salon on “How to Incorporate ICT into Proposals”, we discussed some of the challenges and solutions for proposal writers when they try to incorporate information and communication technologies into future program design.

  • How to Incorporate ICT Into Proposals

    Washington DC | By on January 12, 2011 | Comments Off on How to Incorporate ICT Into Proposals

    We all want to add the technology sizzle to our proposals. Nothing wins an RFP these days like “e” this or “m” that. Yet ICT projects are complicated, and hasty technology additions in proposals often leave implementers struggling to achieve project milestones after the contract is won.