ICTworks

We are all rapidly mobilizing for COVID-19 Digital Response. At the same time, we still need to solve long-term challenges to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and build an open, inclusive, and secure digital ecosystem that provides a safer more prosperous future for us all.

Digital technologies and implementation methodologies offer the potential to accelerate change and increase social and economic development. ICT4D is no longer optional — the field of Digital Development has matured into a formal component of global humanitarian and development efforts.

Yet barriers to achieving ICT4D success remain. Policy and legal frameworks have not kept pace with innovation, market failures limit access, privacy and cybersecurity risks threaten marginalized and vulnerable populations, and overall, the international development community has not yet adapted to the new challenges presented by this digital age.

As a community, we need to share our experiences, learn from others, and advance our collective ability to effect change, using technology. We must leverage online collaboration tools to include practitioners in every country. And we can lead by example.

RSVP for the Global Digital Development Forum

Please RSVP Now for the Global Digital Development Forum on May 6th, 2020, co-organized by USAID, Chemonics, Digital Impact Alliance, IntraHealth International, TechChange and Save the Children.

This virtual ICT4D conference will be a global transformative peer-learning digital development event specifically designed to include practitioners from low- and middle-income countries. We aim to move past the significant travel and cost barriers that restrict attendance at traditional events and lead the industry with:

• A headlining keynote presentation from USAID and multiple interactive online sessions, led by trained facilitators.
• Sessions spanning the globe from 6:00 GMT to 22:00 GMT featuring your peers at the cutting edge of technology and development in Asia, Africa, Europe, and Americas.
• Free participation in engaging compelling, relevant sessions on TechChange’s robust online learning platform.
• Inspiring experiences and results from innovative projects that achieve development goals with new and emerging technologies.

Please RSVP Now to be considered for participation and pay special attention to the Relevance section. Hundreds of participants will join this special online event from dozens of countries, however, we still have capacity limits to ensure a great conference and you don’t want to miss out.

Submit Your Session Ideas Now

The Global Digital Development Forum will feature thoughtful keynote presentations, exciting lightning talks, captivating breakout sessions, interactive workshops, and enlightening solution demonstrations from your peers.

Please Submit Your Session Ideas Now for Consideration
Deadline: Friday, April 3, 2020

This forum will be a highly participatory, community-driven event and we are actively seeking practitioners from around the world with a wide range of ideas, experience, and backgrounds to lead each type of session. Special consideration will be given to sessions led by LMIC practitioners.

Submit your idea now. We’ll respond by April 10th, and if selected, you will be asked to submit the final session title, summary and outline by April 15th. All session leads will receive dedicated training in online learning from TechChange to ensure an engaging virtual event.

Suggested Session Topics

We seek a wide range of ideas and viewpoints across the international development and humanitarian relief sectors, within these broad topic categories.

• Digital Health: COVID-19, HIV/AIDS, Mother & Child, Family Planning, Health Workforce, Supply Chain
• EduTech: Primary, Secondary, Tertiary, Adult, Informal, and Digital Literacy and Skills
• AgriTech: Smallholder Farming, Animal Husbandry, Aquaculture, and their Value Chains
• Digital Economy: Digital Financial Services, Digital Identity, Agency and Inclusion
• eGovernment: Community Engagement, Elections, Activism, Human Rights
• Humanitarian Response: Natural disasters, Conflict/post-conflict
• Responsible Data: Collection, Analysis, Presentation, Risks, and Protections

We expect a COVID-19 Digital Response theme in many non-health sessions, featuring learning from past interventions with SARS/MARS, Ebola, HIV, and other viral infection epidemics.

Each session should include underlying concepts like data privacy and security, beneficiary protection and safeguarding, inclusion, the role of gender, and how to monitor and evaluate success.

Suggested Session Types

We want to curate multiple interactive online session formats that engage and inspire participants to action. We encourage session ideas that utilize these broad session types:

• Keynote Presentations on transformative digital development topics of global importance
• Lightning Talks that showcase new ideas or focused learning on ICT4D success and failures in quick, fast-paced presentations
• Breakout sessions featuring lively debates on key contested issues or interactive roundtable discussions that explore complex deployment challenges
• Workshops and skill-building sessions with practical, hands-on exercises and approaches
• Vendor demonstrations of new solutions and key innovations ready for rapid deployment

All session leads will receive dedicated training in online learning from TechChange to ensure they have the skills to lead an engaging virtual event. This online facilitation skill is getting more valuable every day, so submit your session idea now!