Category: Community Service

When E-hailing Met Crowdfunding

E-hailing has saved lives around the world – used as an ambulance service for its low price, used as a way to deliver emergency medication, and more commonly used as a safe way to get home to prevent drunk driving.

Kitabisa in Indonesia recently developed an innovative solution merging the two tech products : e-hailing and crowdfunding

An 11-second video showing a teacher swimming across an island where he teaches, went viral on social media. A local nonprofit Insan Bumi Mandiri started a fundraising campaign #perahuuntukpakguru (#boatforMr.Teacher) on the Kitabisa platform to help purchase and give boats to teachers, to enable them to teach on islands in East Nusa Tenggara area.

Following the fundraising campaign, on-demand e-hailing transportation company GRAB donated 2 boats (approx 150 million rupiahs or USD15,000) to the campaign, bringing it to a total of 528 million rupiahs (approx USD40,000).

The two boats were painted with GRAB’s bright green logo and color – a creative display of positive social impact and brand enhancement. The first of its kind in the country, it has attracted attention from the philanthropic and corporate sector.

“Since the GRAB donation, Kitabisa has been approached by various companies reaching out to do similar events,” adds Vikra Ijas, Chief Marketing Office for Kitabisa.

Click here for full story and here for Facebook updates.

Vietnam’s New Community Philanthropic Tool

A central part of developing civil societies is to have an accessible integrated platform with relevant philanthropy resources that the local nonprofit sector can tap into.

Based on this concept, LIN Center Vietnam developed a unique bi-lingual platform “Vietnam Causes” marrying the various elements of philanthropy – skilled volunteerism, funding opportunities, a local nonprofit directory and community hub, and philanthropy resources.

Vietnam Causes is mutually beneficial to both the corporate and civil society sector: the extensive nonprofit directory allows corporates to look for partners who are aligned with their goals, match skilled volunteers to on-going community projects and post funding opportunities. Concurrently, civil society players who are registered in the database can list the social problems their organization is working on, the projects that need funding, and share upcoming events and resources that other organizations might find useful.

The LIN Center’s network currently serves more than 250 grassroots nonprofit organizations, more than 200 volunteers, individual philanthropists, and aims to “help local people address local needs”.

For more information on the platform, please contact Fundraising and Communications Manager at vicao@linvn.org

Digi-monetization of India

In November 2016, India announced a complete ban on the 1000 and 500 rupee notes, as part of the government’s efforts to crack down on the counterfeit economy.

Operating on a 95% cash transaction basis, the sudden move to a sudden cashless economy left the majority of Indians in a panic – vendors who mostly dealt in cash, households with savings in cash, were lost.

While on a macro level, these changes were being hailed as positive and transformative, the direct impact on the economy and the citizens of India was too large to be ignored.

The government’s think tank comprising The NITI Aayog (earlier called Planning Commission of India), The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, nationalized and private banks, NASSCOM and NASSCOM Foundation, were tasked to contain this crisis. The team quickly developed an action plan to handhold citizens switch to cashless transactions.

Large scale DigiDhan Melas (translated as Digital Money Fairs) were organized across more than 100 cities with all banks and digital transaction players coming forward and showcasing their cashless solutions.

NASSCOM Foundation, provided volunteers from the IT-BPM industry through its MyKartavya (Meaning: My Duty) program to help the citizens visiting these fairs adopt at least one of the available solutions.

In its attempt to further amplify this initiative, NASSCOM Foundation created its own step-by-step, easy to understand curriculum for all categories of digital transactions including eWallets, Unified Payment gateways (UPI – Mobile app based payment solutions for direct bank account transactions), debit cards, Aadhar (India’s Unique ID equivalent to Social Security Number in USA) enabled payment system and USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) and organized volunteer drives under ‘Each One Teach Ten’ pedagogy across various cities.

The Foundation engaged with more than 2000 volunteers who in turn were able to train over 18,000 people on different cashless modes of transactions.

The Ministry of Electronics and IT also launched a free TV channel called ‘DigiShala’ (The classroom of Digital Learning and cashless financial transactions) and ‘Cashless India’ website to help the citizens get hands-on practice with cashless transaction tools. In partnership with NASSCOM, the Ministry also set up a free helpline service with a toll free number to help people complete their cashless transactions with ease. This helpline was able to resolve more than 300,000 queries from across the country.

Owing to these efforts, by March 2017, the digital transactions had grown 23 times to 6.4 million amounting for INR 24.25 billion. Today, despite cash being the single largest mode of transaction in India, people are much less dependent on it with the most underserved of the citizens having basic knowledge of how to use an e-wallet or a debit card or a UPI app or similar digital transaction tools – a massive win for a country who is not just witnessing but living a digital revolution.

Techfugees Adelaide – In Aid of Refugees

Ref.u.gee: a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster.

Tech.fu.gees: Empowering the displaced with technology

In 2016, UNHCR revealed approximately 22.5 million refugees worldwide: the immediate assistance has now expanded beyond finding them a place to resettle.

How do communities help the refugees learn English as a third or fourth language, integrate into society, or hone existing skills and find suitable jobs? How do they find access to legal services, government forms and connect with the communities?

These questions and many more that focused on how to improve the lives of refugees, brought people together in an inaugural hackathon #techfugeesadl organized by Techfugees Australia, and funded by Connecting Up.

The Adelaide Techfugees hackathon saw amazing teams of like-minded hackers, and humanitarians co-designing innovative tech solutions to problems such as access to services, qualified employment opportunities, and making sense of government forms.

Mentors from Connecting Up talked to teams developing solutions that included chatbots, mobile apps, real-time anonymised data, and simple social messaging to raise awareness of the untapped potential of refugees in our community.

Winners of the various rounds receive grants from tech giants such as Microsoft, and many teams go on to become tech start-ups in their own right, developing and implementing their solutions “in the wild”.

For more news from the event, visit Techfugees Australia on Facebook, or Twitter, or look for #techfugeesadl. For information on how to get involved in the next Techfugees Hackathon in your area, visit techfugees.com.

Ageing in a Technological Era

Less than 30 years ago, ageing populations were perceived to be a burden to families and society – their contributions to community were heavily outweighed by the need to look after them.

In recent years, the emergence of new technology solutions, designed and built specifically to address ageing on different levels, be it dementia, Alzheimer’s or a physically restrictive condition, has changed the way societies adapt and manage ageing populations.

Gerontechnology, a new and growing field, works to improve quality of life among the elderly by developing technological solutions to issues they experience in their daily lives.

The Hong Kong government, recognising its growing ageing population, co-hosted the first Gerontech and Innovation Expo Summit (GIES) with the Hong Kong Council of Social Service (HKCSS)

Held from 16-18 June 2017, the objective of GIES is to promote community awareness and knowledge on the application of gerontechnology, and ways to use these solutions to help the elderly.

More than 100 local and international exhibitors showcased their inventions and products at the Expo. Highlights included robotic hand device for stroke patients; automated bathing equipment and Nao, a  programmable humanoid companion robot that could perform simple exercises and read Chinese poems.

Concurrently, the Summit gathered stakeholders from different parts of the world and disciplines to exchange views and share experience in order to shed light on the strategy for further promoting development of gerontechnology in Hong Kong.

More than 20 sessions of workshops and briefings were held, with focuses on specific streams of products or services such as application of robots, elderly food, elderly product design, smart city development, smartphone applications for the elderly, walking aids and digital healthcare.

The event was designed for all sectors of the community and the general public, especially stakeholders in elderly care and the services sector, elderly persons and their family members and caregivers. It has received an overwhelming response from the public, with more than 43,000 people participating in the event.

For more information, please check out the website and Facebook page of GIES.

Technology for Good Day 2017

The “Technology for Good Day” event, formerly known as “NGO Day”, has established itself as a key platform for non-governmental organizations (NGOs), public and private sectors to exchange experience, develop partnership and explore new ICT and strategies in meeting social needs of all kinds. It also signifies the 13th year collaboration between Microsoft Hong Kong Limited and The Hong Kong Council of Social Service (HKCSS) in enhancing the ICT capability of NGOs.

The theme of this year is “The Complete Cloud for Modern Nonprofits – Achieve More for Social Good”. Fruitful programmes include conferences, break-out workshops, exhibition on cloud solutions, case sharing by NGO speakers, and 1:1 Ask the Expert professional consultation service. The details are as follows:

Date:    21st March 2017 (Tue)

Time:    10:00am – 5:30pm

Venue:  Microsoft Hong Kong Office @ Cyberport

Details and Free Registration: https://aka.ms/j59hl6

Facebook Training for Nonprofits in Tokyo

In collaboration with Facebook Japan, Japan NPO Center and TechSoup Japan co-organized a social media training for Japanese nonprofits titled “Nonprofits & Facebook”. The training received 49 attendees from 46 nonprofits in Tokyo.

Facebook Japan volunteer lecturers shared their insights on a few key current issues relevant to nonprofits:
i) The impacts of Facebook on nonprofits
ii) Ways for nonprofits to leverage on Facebook
iii) Ways to develop marketing and events on Facebook

During the Q&A time, after the presentations, there were lively interactions between FB lecturers and the participants.

Taiwan: 2016 NGO Connection Day

Every year, we tour in different cities around Taiwan to explore new ICT innovation and trends with NGOs. In 2016, we hosted six events around Taiwan with topics covered “Office 365: Sharings and Experiences of NPO”, “Powerful Tool for Social Workers: Visio with Powerful Pedigree Stencil” and strategy of social media contents. 499 attendees, representing 309 local nonprofits. Those event was co-sponsored by the local MS office.

For more details, please visit our blog.

Q4F16 CaseStudies (1)

Q4F16 CaseStudies (2)

Q4F16 CaseStudies (3)

Hong Kong: ITRC Forum 2016 – Computing Everywhere

In December 2016, Hong Kong’s I.T Resource Center (ITRC) organized the ITRC Forum 2016 themed Computing Everywhere.
The forum served as a platform for nonprofits and ICT solution providers to meet and share relevant technology trends and development.
The main objective of the forum was to encourage the adoption of ICT applications among nonprofits, which in turn contribute to a better service delivery to the needy in our community.
Over the years, the world has witnessed breakthrough developments for mobile devices and rapid advances in communication technologies, alongside a remarkable penetration rate of smart mobile devices.
The technology environment has urged nonprofits to re-design their services, incorporating mobile technologies, to engage and serve their clients, and to streamline their operations.
ITRC will present research findings as part of helping the nonprofit organizations plan their mobile endeavors.
For more details, please visit http://itrcforum.hkcss.org.hk.