The UK Government recently launched a new scheme aimed at improving the lives of individuals in developing countries who work for suppliers operating in the global supply chain. The program, Trade in Global Value Chains Initiative, uses UK government aid money to...
JN Fang writes about her experience as an Opportunity Labs Technology Fellow with engageSPARK in Cebu City, Philippines during December 2013 and January 2014. At some point between getting my news from Junior Scholastic and joining high school debate, I decided that I...
The technology industry has a problem. It’s not a new one but one that the importance of which only grows and expands. This problem is that of diversity in the tech industry. The tech world is not diverse. The computer industry in particular is a disappointing...
Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda, which recently ravaged the Philippines, has inspired us at engageSPARK to spend even more time thinking about how to built great SMS and Voice tools that can be used for disaster awareness and disaster relief efforts. The GSMA has been...
I recently read about D-Tree’s case study in Malawi on using mobile-based decision trees for Community Case Management (CCM) at the ict4chw google group mailing list, ICT for Community Health Workers. I was impressed by how organisations like D-Tree are using as...
At engageSPARK, we are strong proponents of using Voice for Mobile and ICT Development projects, so it’s great to see large organizations such as the GSMA putting their support behind Voice as a mobile development service method. GSMA focuses on voice in its article,...
The world is predicting the next financial crisis in the form of youth unemployment that threatens to destabilise economies. Youth unemployment is a cause of major concern as we witness increased violence in the Middle East and North Africa, high rates of income...
You work at an international NGO in Kenya that focuses on agriculture. You go out into the field and meet with poor smallholder farmers from whom you’ve gathered 20,000 mobile phone numbers. These farmers all happen to be literate, so you’ve decided to engage with...
SMS is one of the most transformative technologies that we have. At least, it has the power to be. Increasing numbers of people across the world have access to mobile phones, and SMS is a very cheap way to communicate on them. The amazing versatility of SMS can be...
Mobile privacy and data security have become a big topic as more and more NGOs use mobile phones as a way to disseminate information and engage their clients. Jenny Adlem discussed these issues in her blog post addressing the potential benefits and pitfalls of big...
