Glific is a WhatsApp based two-way communication platform (and SaaS service).

Glific uses a combination of automation and manual processes to enable NGOs to easily scale to thousands of conversations a day with few staff. It empowers NGOs to distribute content, provide the right information at their pace & get feedback over Whatsapp. Glific also integrates with Google BigQuery & DataStudio so NGOs can analyze their interaction, see the users’ pain points, and visualize & measure their impact.

Glific has been deployed by NGOs supporting various SDGs, such as

• for education programs, to send learning resources and activity based evaluation, 
• for career counseling, 
• to disseminate farming advice, 
• as a helpline for intellectual and developmental disabilities

Some of the case studies can be found here.

Avni is an open-source platform for community service provisioning. Using Avni, organizations can easily create applications for their fieldwork programs for managing their interactions with community members, recording and reviewing community members data. Avni goes beyond data collection/reporting and provides a complete solution. 

Avni is sector agnostic, already used to power a wide spectrum of applications in areas such as Health, Water Management, Sanitation Facilitation, and Social Security Facilitation. Around 25 organizations have used Avni to serve more than half a million beneficiaries. Here are Avni’s current usage metrics. Some case studies are available here. 

Organizations choose Avni

• To adopt a single solution for different stakeholders across multiple community programs 
• To easily and comprehensively analyze data, visualize trends and patterns 
• To make decisions backed by data – in the field and in the office 
• Because It is the most affordable solution in the market 
• Because it is Reliable, Secure and Scalable

NGOs typically don’t have in-house technical expertise and they feel intimidated by technology. Often, the NGO staff have the vision but because of their non-technical backgrounds, they feel unable to engage with technology professionals. This pattern is fairly prevalent in the social sector in India.

Over the past few years, Tech4Dev has built a network of whetted and reliable software partners who know how to work with NGOs, have proven experience of working with NGOs building applications for them and work with NGOs professionally and with high integrity. Tech4Dev technologist associates act as Fractional CxOs to evaluate technology needs, help recruit technology personnel and to recommend and evaluate a reliable and proven software firm to carry out software projects. 

We see this program to help NGOs that don’t have any technical expertise in-house as well as those that need help evaluating their technology needs, suggest solutions etc. The details of the program are as follows

• An engagement with a technologist who spends a few hours a week with the NGO.
• Assistance with identifying a technically sound solution
• Assisting with hiring technology personnel at the NGO

We believe this program will also help NGO participants to demonstrate to their funders that they have a reliable organization helping them with capacity building. 

This is a paid fellowship for women from technology institutions; we solicit candidates from all years of college. Tech4Dev runs this fellowship with its partners and focuses on engineering institutions from Tier II and Tier III cities.

The program mentors fellows in a wide range of non-tech related subjects such as written and oral communication in English, business communication etiquette and tech-related subjects such as digital technology, programming in general and Python and front-end technologies. The goal is to make them more confident, well-spoken and technically proficient candidates as they enter the workforce for internships and beyond. 

Tech4Dev plans to run this fellowship in cohorts from engineering colleges in different parts of the country, The fellowship cohorts are run by two partners at a time: one partner providing mentoring on soft skills and one partner focusing on their technical development. 

The first cohort is in the Tehri area with Hyperverge Academy (HVA) and ColoredCow. HVA on soft skills development and has deep experience in running such fellowships and they have demonstrated success in previous cohorts before this Tech4Dev cohort. 

Technology mentoring and standups for the first cohort are managed by ColoredCow, a Tech4Dev partner with offices in Gurgaon and Tehri. ColoredCow manages the technology part of the curriculum, holds regular standups and guides the fellows in their technical advancement.  

Our next cohort will be run by HVA and Soft Corner with students from various colleges in Nashik/Satara area. Soft Corner is a founding partner of Tech4Dev and has been in the software business for over 25 years. They are headquartered in Pune.

Our fellows write regular blogs describing their experiences and learnings. Read the blogs from our fellows here.

The Development Data Platform (DDP) provides a low maintenance, low cost, SaaS data platform composed of open source software elements to tackle data ingestion, storage, transformation and visualisation. It mirrors a modern data stack found in the private sector, while specialising in integration tools and is tailored to the needs and goals of the development sector. 

This platform came about from our experience of working with multiple organisations in the Indian NGO ecosystem where we saw challenges in disjointed data sources, data ingestion pipelines constantly breaking down and needing to be fixed with changes in data schemas, data synchronisation problems between source data and data warehouses, data quality issues, up-to-date versioned documentation of data transformations and aggregations, and usage of open source visualisation tools.

It was also influenced by how we can work with NGOs to use data in a “smart” manner to provide better, deeper and more meaningful insights for greater impact.

DDP leverages the power of data to optimise processes and program operations. The platform replicates data from multiple existing tools used by the social impact space organisations (like CommCare, SurveyCTO, Glific, Avni, Google Sheets) as part of an open source data integration pipeline that has high visibility of issues and maximum uptime. Using top of the line open source packages for transformations and visualisations, DDP aims to satisfy the analysis and visualisation needs across most NGOs. 

We are currently in beta mode piloting with a few non-profit  organisations.

Aam Digital is an easy-to-use case management software for the social sector that empowers field workers in their in-person interactions with participants. Having simple, reliable documentation helps improve the effectiveness and transparency of projects.

For example, Aam Digital helps social workers and teachers of an education support programme to easily manage all information about students’ development, attendance and health. That way staff can spend time working with people rather than doing paperwork, while the tool helps them collaborate and keep an overview of progress and critical cases. This data also helps them evaluate the impact of their activities and show achievements to their donors. [also see case study]

Aam Digital’s open-source platform can be adapted to different use cases and is currently used by NGOs across four continents. It’s designed for projects that

• Regularly interact with participants over time and track various data and notes
• Have to work offline and still share information across the team
• Analyse individuals’ and programs’ progress beyond a simple spreadsheet (e.g. avoiding double counting or inter-relating various data)