ICTworks

We came together online last May to celebrate the global ICT4D community at the start of COVID-19 Digital Response for the first Global Digital Development Forum.

GDDF 2020 was an amazing success! Over 2,600 people participated across 154 sessions (6 keynote presentations, 37 lightning talks, 72 breakout and workshop sessions, and 39 technology demos) in English and French, spanning 16 hours across the workday from Asia, to Africa, to the Americas. Here is a summary of key GDDF 2020 findings and stats.

Now it’s time for an encore with Global Digital Development Forum 2021. This year, we are expanding our focus on community-driven sessions across the English, French, and Spanish languages.

Please RSVP for GDDF 2021 on May 5th

Please RSVP Now for the Global Digital Development Forum on May 5th, 2021, co-organized by USAID, Chemonics, Digital Impact Alliance, IntraHealth International, TechChange and Save the Children.

GDDF 2021 will be different from other ICT4D conferences and other online events. We are committed to community-driven sessions that explore digital development challenges and opportunities with four key benefits:

• ICT4D Focus: Explore the long-term challenges to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and your opportunities to build an open, inclusive, and secure digital ecosystem for a safer, more prosperous future for us all.
• Peer Connections: Join your friends and collaborators from around the world and meet new leaders with emerging ideas, as well as the donors and partners working with them – and you – to leverage technology solutions for greater impact.
• Your Ideas: Share your experiences and insights with thousands of other digital development professionals in exciting presentations, lively discussions, and personal conversations across multiple fora.
• New Experiences: Expand your concept of an ICT4D conference by joining innovative sessions using emerging tools, music, and virtual worlds to improve on physical interactions with your personal and professional peers.

GDDF 2021 will continue to remove barriers to the inclusion of participants from low- and middle-income countries by providing free admission for all, and:

• A headlining keynote presentation from USAID and multiple interactive online sessions, led by trained facilitators in English, French and Spanish.
• Sessions spanning the globe from 4:00 GMT to 20:00 GMT featuring your peers at the cutting edge of technology and development in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas.
• Free participation in engaging, compelling, relevant sessions on TechChange‘s online learning platform.
• Inspiring experiences and results from innovative projects that achieve development goals by the creative use of new and emerging technologies.

Don’t miss out on #GDDF2021. Because thousands of participants will join this unique online event from dozens of countries, we will have capacity limits to ensure a great conference. Please RSVP Now to be considered for participation and pay special attention to the Relevance section when you fill out the form to apply for admission.

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
English – French – Spanish Language Tracks

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

Submit your idea now. If selected, you will be asked to submit the final session title, summary and outline by May 5th. All session leads will receive dedicated training in online learning from TechChange to ensure an engaging virtual event.

Suggested Session Construction

We want GDDF 2021 sessions to be different from the usual ICT4D conference events. Please propose true conversation topics with lead discussants from different organizations. We want to foster lively debate on key questions with multiple viewpoints, not listen to rote presentations on implemented projects.

Here are several session topic ideas to guide your design direction:

• What learnings from COVID-19 can we use to improve our HIV responses?
• How could agritech solutions improve food security in the Sahel?
• Who in South Asia is reducing digital gender divides and how?
• Where can educational outcomes be improved with assistive technology?
• When will we see constructive responses to disinformation campaigns?

See past Technology Salon sessions for further inspiration on how to develop your session theme and recruit diverse discussants. Session ideas that focus on one solution or with discussants from one organization will not be accepted.

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 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 and Human Rights
• Humanitarian Response: Natural disasters and Conflict/post-conflict
• Responsible Data: Collection, Analysis, Presentation, Risks and Protection
• Information Integrity: Media, Disinformation, Social Accountability, Information Literacy
• Safeguarding and Protection: Cybersecurity, Digital Safety Technologies, Policies, Guidelines and Training
• Emerging Technology: Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning, Remote Sensing, Digital Identification

We expect a COVID-19 Digital Response theme in many non-health sessions, featuring learning from 2020 activities as well as Ebola, HIV and other viral infection epidemics.

Each session should include underlying concepts like data privacy and security, constituent protection and safeguarding, inclusion, the role of gender and how to monitor, evaluate and learn from 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 successes and failures in short, 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!