Commons11 Presentation on Technology and Development at #IDS2013

1. Technology and New Media in
Development
by Melanie Gorka and Claire Buré, Commons11
Inspiring Development: Ideas Unleashed
University of Toronto at Scarborough
February 9-10, 2013

2. Commons11 Who we are

3. Appropriate
Implementation and Access
Technology

4. Problem
Opportunities and Challenges
Identification

5. Discovery and Refining Random Hacks of Kindness

6. Case Study:
WaterAid America
and Ram Rati’s Story

7. Agile and Open
Designing Development
Processes

8. 1. Iteration
2. Incremental
3. Customer
Agile Involvement
Development 4. Feedback
5. Communication
6. Collaboration

9. Workshop Challenge
Small scale farmers are increasingly impacted by weather conditions and
challenges due to climate change. How do they maintain a stable income
with extreme and unpredictable weather fluctuations?
A funder has given your organization (your choice of org. type) funds to build a
mobile phone-related project to help rural farmers become more resilient (and
therefore more productive). It has been suggested so far that a micro-insurance
scheme where seed prices include insurance that is paid out to farmers in event of
a natural disaster are possible solutions to making the farmers more resilient. Your
task is to create a solution using mobile phones that supports this program. Work
with your group to plan out what your mobile-farming project would look like. The
region (choose your own country!) has a high rate of mobile proliferation of basic
SIM mobile phones.

10. Your Task
Create a solution to the provided challenge. You have ten minutes to brainstorm as a
team. We will ask that your present your idea to the group with the following criteria.
1.Type of Solution:
Is it an application, or a program and what it would look like. Describe the
solution and who would implement it
2. If you have time, create a list of necessary “assets” needed to solve that
problem (such as: resources, technology, training, implementation plan)

11. Constraints
We have provided each group with a particular constraint. Please adapt your solution
or create a new solution. When you present the final solution we will ask that you
consider the following questions. You have ten more minutes to incorporate this
constraint into the solution.
1. How did the constraint affect the budget, list of assets and who would
implement?
2. Were you able to adapt your project, or did you have to implement an
entirely new solution?
3. Which solution better answered the original challenge?

12. Melanie Gorka & Claire Buré
Commons11
twitter: @melgorka
twitter: @clairebure
email: info@commons11.com