ICTworks

Please submit a session idea, register to attend, or reserve a demo table for MERL Tech London, on March 20-21, 2018, for in-depth sharing and exploration of what’s happening across the multidisciplinary monitoring, evaluation, research and learning field.

Building on MERL Tech London 2017, we will engage 200 practitioners from across the development and technology ecosystems for a two-day conference seeking to turn the theories of MERL technology into effective practice that delivers real insight and learning in our sector.

MERL Tech London 2018

Digital data and new media and information technologies are changing MERL practices. The past five years have seen technology-enabled MERL growing by leaps and bounds, including:

• Adaptive management and ‘developmental evaluation’
• Faster, higher quality data collection.
• Remote data gathering through sensors and self-reporting by mobile.
• Big Data and social media analytics
• Story-triggered methodologies

Alongside these new initiatives, we are seeing increasing documentation and assessment of technology-enabled MERL initiatives. Good practice guidelines and new frameworks are emerging and agency-level efforts are making new initiatives easier to start, build on and improve.

The swarm of ethical questions related to these new methods and approaches has spurred greater attention to areas such as responsible data practice and the development of policies, guidelines and minimum ethical frameworks and standards for digital data.

Please submit a session idea, register to attend, or reserve a demo table for MERL Tech London to discuss all this and more! You’ll have the chance to meet, learn from, debate with 150-200 of your MERL Tech peers and to see live demos of new tools and approaches to MERL.

Submit Your Session Ideas Now

Like previous conferences, MERL Tech London will be a highly participatory, community-driven event and we’re actively seeking practitioners in monitoring, evaluation, research, learning, data science and technology to facilitate every session.

Please submit your session ideas now. We are particularly interested in:

• Case studies: Sharing end-to-end experiences/learning from a MERL Tech process
• MERL Tech 101: How-to use a MERL Tech tool or approach
• Methods & Frameworks: Sharing/developing/discussing methods and frameworks for MERL Tech
• Data: Big, large, small, quant, qual, real-time, online-offline, approaches, quality, etc.
• Innovations: Brand new, untested technologies or approaches and their application to MERL(Tech)
• Debates: Lively discussions, big picture conundrums, thorny questions, contentious topics related to MERL Tech
• Management: People, organizations, partners, capacity strengthening, adaptive management, change processes related to MERL Tech
• Evaluating MERL Tech: comparisons or learnings about MERL Tech tools/approaches and technology in development processes
• Failures: What hasn’t worked and why, and what can be learned from this?
• Demo Tables: to share MERL Tech approaches, tools, and technologies
• Other topics we may have missed!

Submission Deadline: Friday, November 10, 2017.

Session leads receive priority for the available seats at MERL Tech and a discounted registration fee. You will hear back from us in early December and, if selected, you will be asked to submit an updated and final session title, summary and outline by Friday, January 19th, 2018.

Register Now

Please register to attend, or reserve a demo table for MERL Tech London 2018 to examine these trends with an exciting mix of educational keynotes, lightning talks, and group breakouts, including an evening Fail Festival reception to foster needed networking across sectors.

We are charging a modest fee to better allocate seats and we expect to sell out quickly again this year, so buy your tickets or demo tables now. Event proceeds will be used to cover event costs and to offer travel stipends for select participants implementing MERL Tech activities in developing countries.