Teach in Tanzania this Summer!
Looking for a way to use your technical skills in Africa this summer? Volunteer for Powering Potential as a teacher this summer! Janice Lathen is looking for people with linux experience to help teach in the school where she's holding "Technology Tent", a computer camp in which she's going to bring video cameras and cameras and let kids learn how to tell stories with digital media. Fun, huh? Anyways, I met her and others at the nonprofit panel this morning - my notes in the rest of this post. :)
Grace Hopper 2008
Thursday, October 2
11.20-12.20
Enabling Nonprofits to Accomplish Their Missions through Technology
Torreys Peak III
Panelists: Meghan Morrison (Swift River Consulting), Meghan Nesbit
(Salesforce.com), Sonja Karkare (NPower NY), Janice Lathen (Powering
Potential), Moderator: Kathy Gee (Anita Borg Institute)
Speakers will discuss how different technologies have benefited humanity by
enabling nonprofits to better meet their missions and improve impact. Topics
will include how organizations can apply technology resources to help create
healthy, vibrant communities, using Salesforce.com to improve communities,
inspire youth to be more successful, and support the world in times of need
and promote “compassionate capitalism”, and bringing and teaching computers to
students in rural Tanzania.
(Sorry I missed you Meghan)
Sonja Karkare (NPower)
* Started with (impressive) family history
- doctors, human rights officers, etc
- but she was a computer scientists
* Employed at Sapient
* Ankore Works 2004-7
* Npower - how to give back - computers and non-profit?
Time and Money - tracking inputs -> output
* Efficiency: ratio of inputs to ouputs
Biggest things we see i data management
- a lot of stuff we see is managed on paper
- systems are often built by some volunteer a long time ago, old home grown,
inflexible
Outcomes and impact reporting
- if data input is inaccurate, how can you measure your output?
- GOOD DATA is a source of ADDITIONAL FUNDING
Real life examples
* Children's Aid Society (Carrera Program)
- tracking after school teen pregnancy prevention
- moving to after school teen pregnancy prevention
* Center for Alternate Sentencing & Employment Services (CASES)
* Child welfare organization
* After school program in MA NY MI MD
- outgrown a Lotus notes system
- program wide replacement of functionality with new system
NPower works to build healthier, more vibrant and sustainable communities by
leveraging the...
Streamline processes -> Aid collaboration -> Achieve standardization platform
for non-profits -> go global -> connect to organizations in other countries ->
make the world a better place!
Layers:
* Infrastructure: Lights on
* Applications: Collaborative tools
* Secret Sauce: specific applications to make your
organization more efficient
Give you more affordable technology to make it easier for you to communicate.
Janice Lathen (Powering Potential)
(introduction in Swahili)
the tanzanians broke into applause because she had introduced herself in their
own language. she felt stunned.. and appreciated. and wanted to feel that
again. and wanted to do something for those students. and decided to come back
buy computers and come back to train them.
the headmaster said - oh that would be great, and we're going to be getting
electricity soon!
So she backtracked and decided to get laptops and batteries instead.
And later got a solar energy system.
And then a computer network.
And spent time teaching them.
The school's first graduation was September 19th, she just got back last
Friday.
The next project is the Technology Tent. She's going back to do a a camp, with
digital cameras, let them play, and guide their play, and let them do
slideshows, video, and tell stories.
[slideshow/video presentation with images]
Bookmobiles - wants to do a digital version of bookmobiles.
Also set up internet access at the schools.
Q: Open source?
A: (Janice) Yes, Linux.
Q: Experince - are there hidden costs?
A: (Sonja) - we just started using Drupal and Joomla, and we don't know the
hidden costs, but the availabily of a developers community is useful.
Q: Jill Diamond from GA tech for Janice. Tech is not gender neutral. Can you
talk a little bit - Are there different reactions between genders? Did you do
anything to mitigate?
A: I didn't see any difference - the school was co-ed, and they were equally
interested, and the school was commited to equal opportunity
Q: 2nd year phd student, trying to do action research helpful to non-profits.
Do you find action research helpful, do you look to it for insight? What tips
or suggtions do you have for making us relevant for ivory tower perspectives?
A: (Sonya) As npower has been strategies, one of the ideas has come to mind is
product. How do you do this if you don't know what the need is. That kind of
thing is something that could come out of research. Another thing is measuring
outcome and impact - that is something that could come out of academia. Some
of the impact that you observe is very long term. Those two areas - products
and how they can measure their impacts.
A: (Meghan) Echo - impact as well - so much work in social sector in being
transparent. Acadmia in establish benchmarks, vocabulary. We really struggle
between getting reports out there and what it looks like living and breathing
what is actuallty out there.
Q: (from salesforce) Maintaining technology
A: (Meghan) employee churn in non-profit is very high - 18 months.
intellectual capital is constantly lost. the best way to make sure it is not
lost is to make sure that the implementation makes sense and is a SOLID
implementation. fortunately there are lots of tools out there. (jame? jain?)
(oops I'm sitting 3 feet in)
A: (Sonya) we insist on talking to end users b/c the tools are for those
users. we tried train the trainers. show valeu of the product during the
process of the development. so that the end product is not a surprise.
Q: Katie dickenson, sun microsystems. Experince where volunteers are not higly
trained, come from different cultures, different language backgrounds, etc.
A: (Sonya) The Carero program. The staf was older and not computer savvy. We
had to go back 6 times to do the same training. the brute force approach. We
are currently in another project where we are doing wireframes - sketches -
very details - engaging them in these meetings. If someone is going to
introduce them. Engage them in being part of the design of the product Q: they
won't have money, they use whatever is available.
A: We have accidental techies - champions of techologies - can they hold
training sessions,.
Q: Are theyre products or to train
A: (Meghan) Room to read: when you have diffferent people have different
languages.; Sales force supports 16 differnt languages. sales force is built
to be customized. It can be in their own langages, and you can customize their
own help, etc.
