2015 was a banner year for FabRiders. Here is what our current projects have us positioned to learn in 2016:
- We’ve explored hacking user centred design for social change efforts with the help of Aspiration and the International Budget Partnership. Look for our next post in the FabBlog on designing tech projects that will engage your stakeholders.
- We’ve been learning about the needs of digital security trainers who are involved with a valuable resource and a network of practice known as LevelUp. We’re taking a deeper dive into how practitioners share expertise with Kristin Antin for a future blog post and would love to hear from you about your own experiences.
- We’ve been working with Mariel Garcia on a research project for School of Data exploring data literacy. The results of our research will be released this month on the School of Data Blog – in the meantime you can see preliminary findings in this blog post.
Other things we’ve shared in the FabBlog in 2015 that we will use as a foundation for work in 2016:
- How to work with marginalised communities on using data and technology in advocacy, in What We’ve Learned from Sex Workers, a three part blog series written with Maya Ganesh and Beatrice Martini.
- Articulating the benefits and challenges of providing technology capacity building to non profit organisations, grassroots initiatives and funders in What We’ve learned about Tech Capacity Building.
- A round-up of curriculum for teaching data literacy to advocates in Data Advocacy Basics
- Theory of Change just might be old wine in a new bottle. It’s certainly been trending like mad in our sector. Does everyone actually need to have gone through an intensive process that works with stakeholders to define long-term goals and preconditions?
- Why ‘Impact Assessment’ might be an inappropriate process for civil society organisations.
Sticker swag featuring our new logo
And a major milestone for FabRiders was designing a new logo with ideainaforest. We wrote about the process in ‘what we learned about logos‘.
Stuff we read in 2015 that influenced us:
- You are not special – a book review in The Economist that transformed our lives.
- Post Capitalism. Paul Mason theorises that we are already seeing the end of capitalism and lays out some very hopeful reasons why we may be entering a new and more just phase of economics.
- Your Agile Project Needs a Budget, Not an Estimate. This article in Harvard Business Review points out how most IT projects come in at 200% over budget and provides tips for how to get your costings right.
- Seven Deadly Sins of a Software Project
And what we were listening to in 2015:
- Disco and data geeks share their favourite tunes for their weekly Friday data backup on twitter with #FridayDiscoBackup and a playlist is compiled every week on YouTube.
We’re always eager to share knowledge about the application of technology in social change work. So if you want to chat about a project you are working on or even co-author a blog post with us in 2016, please get in touch!