This year, AVF is participating in The Big Give’s Christmas Challenge, the UK’s largest online match-funding campaign. We would like to ask our supporters to contribute to our vision and impact by making pledges before the deadline of August 30th. These pledges are commitments to match fund public donations made during the campaign between 27...
With a regional community of practitioners, including academics and experts, Dr. Sharath Srinivasan discussed innovative solutions to filling the evidence gaps on education in conflicts and protracted crises. The community of practice event was organised by the UK’s Department for International Development’s (DFID) central Education Research Team and took place in the British Council offices in...
Last week, we were invited to DFID to lead a ‘DEVtalk’ — a seminar for their global team on initiatives in the development sector. From their London office, DFID colleagues from around the world joined in person or virtually to hear our Director, Dr. Sharath Srinivasan, present on the “New advances in putting citizens’ voices...
Africa’s Voices researcher, Rita Zagoni, recently attended ‘Data Science Africa 2017’ in Arusha, Tanzania. The conference aims to encourage African researchers to engage with big data and real-time analytics for public good. A two-day workshop (20-21st July) invited participants to discuss the applications of data science methods to the African context, and Rita presented on...
On 17th July, Africa’s Voices’ Dr. Claudia Abreu Lopes, led a workshop on the Applications of Big Data to Social Sciences at the 7th conference of the European Survey Research Association in Lisbon. Presenting alongside Well Told Story’s Research Lead, Dr. Anastasia Mirzoyants-McKnight, Claudia used examples from Africa’s Voices projects in Kenya and Somalia to...
In June, the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR) hosted a webinar on ‘Farm Radio, Community Radio and Participatory Radio’ as part of a series on Communications in Agriculture, and focused on the challenges and opportunities of working with interactive radio. Impact, Learning, and Communications Manager, Rainbow Wilcox, joined the session to share AVF’s learnings...
We’re thrilled to announce we have won a Shuttleworth Foundation Flash Grant! These grants are awarded by nomination only, from Shuttleworth Fellows, to individuals they would like to support/reward/encourage in their work for social good. Dr. Sharath Srinivasan, representing Africa’s Voices, was nominated by Gavin Weale of Livity Africa — who we worked with in the run-up...
Since 2014, Africa’s Voices and Well Told Story (WTS) have worked together to develop a set of social change metrics within the digital space that can sidestep the many fallibilities of traditional monitoring and measurement. AVF Director, Dr. Sharath Srinivasan, together with Rob Burnett of WTS, presented ‘Monitoring and Measuring Social Change’ at the annual TICTec conference, showcasing...
Learning is core to Africa’s Voices development and innovation. Recently with our partner, Oxfam Kenya, we reflected back on the challenges and lessons learned from our interactive radio project that sought to understand peoples’ motivations for paying taxes and their perceptions of the quality of public services. In Oxfam’s write up of the discussion are suggestions for improving the...
The World Bank states that we’re “in the midst of the greatest information and communications revolution in human history”. Harnessing ICT for development can be transformative — yet pitfalls exist. “SMS surveys are cheap, easy and accessible, and reach a large number of people quickly. But many surveys are implemented without testing or providing enough...
