SIMLab’s Mobile Technology Trainings for NGOs Launches as an Online Course

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In September 2014, supported by funding from the United Nations Democracy Education Fund (UNDEF), Social Impact Lab launched a new web platform for training and supporting civil society organizations on how to use inclusive technology in their work.

The inaugural course supported 21 participants from 17 organizations across eight countries (mostly from across Africa and Asia) to plan for and use mobile technologies in their democracy, transparency, and accountability related work. UNDEF are supporting us to run several more courses like this throughout 2015.

Materials presented throughout the course drew heavily on institutional knowledge accumulated from thousands of technical support questions answered on the FrontlineSMS and FrontlineCloud platforms as well as lessons learned in conducting context and mobile infrastructure assessments, data integrity analyses, navigating non-governmental politics, and supporting SMS project planning in dozens of countries and sectors.

Since NGOs and their staff are often stretched for both time and resources, we attempted design the course in a way that would adapt easily to busy schedules, tight budgets, and inconsistent connectivity levels. The flexible presentation of course materials seemed helpful for balancing busy schedules, though we underestimated difficulties in accommodating different connectivity levels.

Discussions, readings, and hangouts incorporated program design and planning cycle considerations in low cost, low bandwidth environments, including how the choice of communications platform can be inclusive or exclusive, and how to identify and mitigate risk. The final course module focused on monitoring and evaluation techniques for mobile-centered or mobile-enabled projects using SMS.

We still have a lot of work to do and are grateful for the feedback that beta participants gave us on how to better address connectivity issues, accommodate time constraints, and consider existing workstreams. A key challenge and a key piece of learning is that it’s tough to teach an online course, using audio and video resources, on technology for low-bandwidth environments. For the future we’re challenging ourselves to come up with a way to provide interactive learning without demanding too much of our participants’ internet connections.

What’s next?

Starting in early 2015, we’ll open registration for additional online trainings, demos, and platform-specific learning related to mobile- and inclusive-technologies. In the meantime, we are working to integrate lessons learned from this ‘beta’ course into future iterations, and exploring subject matter for future courses. For more information or to find out about the next course announcement, email us at courses@simlab.org.