2. TechChange
• Killer application is a verb, not a
noun
• How we learn to use technology
is broken
• Social, interactive, online
learning platforms can help
3. Killer Application
In marketing terminology, a killer
application (commonly shortened to
killer app) is any computer program
that is so necessary or desirable
that it proves the core value of
some larger technology.
11. Lessons Learned
• It’s not about how shiny your
tech is, it’s how you use it.
• Holistic approach required for
good implementation.
• Keep learning what’s out there
and who’s working on neat stuff.
12. Who here has trouble keeping
up with technology?
13. Tech Learning Is Broken
• Individual skills are fast outdated
• Org knowledge is incomplete
• Learning networks are
undeveloped
Definition is from the ever reliable Wikipedia. For humanitarian intervention, Killer Application is a verb not a noun. It’s usual something you do to apply tech in an innovative way and rarely a high-tech flashy thing you build. Stop thinking about how techies can develop new killer applications, start thinking about the killer application of appropriate technology by the rest of us
Old joke, when finish BA, think you know everything, finish MA, realize you don’t know anything, finish PhD, realize nobody else knows anything either. I don’t have a PhD, and my MA is in democracy and government, but one of the things I’ve realized working at TechChange is that nobody can be an expert in everything they need to use technology well. You need to be a technologist, practitioner, academically grounded, and understand local context to do programs well. So that got me thinking about how I’ve seen tech applied well, and I don’t have a lot of experience with bright shiny things, so started thinking about how I’ve seen that in the past.
Started there and problem was communicating information to NGOs in the field. We got updates from the UN via email which we aggregated and sent, but that’s no good if you’re already out there. So we developed a system that let any and all of our field state get an instant update anytime they like about the status of violent incidents, etc.
It’s uh, an answering machine.
Why Excel? Two reasons: First, it’s the way we got the data from the PEC – Palestinian Election Commission. Second, uh, it’s what we had around. We didn’t have hard quant info, we had a copy of Microsoft Office and the Data Analysis Toolpak.
We’d do cool events, but audience isn’t just who’s in the room. So we pushed online events. But not just a TV channel, take questions from the audience.
Why did we use Twitter/Facebook/YouTube and Google Maps to display it? Because they’re free and we had no money for promo.
Anyone taking detailed tech-related classes? GIS, STATA, SPSS, etc.? Cool. Congrats. The problem
Why did we use Twitter/Facebook/YouTube and Google Maps to display it? Because they’re free and we had no money for promo.
This is my colleague, Nick Martin, talking to a room full of very serious-looking diplomats in a closed-room meeting at the International Peace Institute in New York last week. The United Nations, well UNDP took TechChange was invited to present on tech tools on “Crowdsourcing for Conflict Prevention.” We started off with a pretty standard powerpoint slide, covered some case studies, and talked about two of our favorite tools: FrontlineSMS and Ushahidi. We’ll talk a bit more about that later, but the main idea is that the two combined let you text in a message that gets put up on a big map. Then we did something different – before the event we taped little index cards underneath many of the seats. The cards had instructions about a “monster” attack on New York with details about location, time, and action. Also on the cards was a phone number to text. We provided a little context for the story about how a
Switch from malaria simulations to zombies. Have fun, get your hands on the tools.
This is my colleague, Nick Martin, talking to a room full of very serious-looking diplomats in a closed-room meeting at the International Peace Institute in New York last week. The United Nations, well UNDP took TechChange was invited to present on tech tools on “Crowdsourcing for Conflict Prevention.” We started off with a pretty standard powerpoint slide, covered some case studies, and talked about two of our favorite tools: FrontlineSMS and Ushahidi. We’ll talk a bit more about that later, but the main idea is that the two combined let you text in a message that gets put up on a big map. Then we did something different – before the event we taped little index cards underneath many of the seats. The cards had instructions about a “monster” attack on New York with details about location, time, and action. Also on the cards was a phone number to text. We provided a little context for the story about how a
Godzilla
How did the UN find out about us? The person who invited us took one of our online classes on tech tools for emergency management. 170 students in 43 countries. Here’s pin marks of a few of them. Using tech to teach tech.
