Pulse on the Principles

In Episode 2, Ian Gray provides some background on one of the biggest challenges in creating a sustainable business model for digital projects, businesses, and solutions in the humanitarian and development sectors: the feasibility risk problem. We'll hear from Vanessa Goas, Chief Operating Officer at Development Gateway, and Tyler Radford, Executive Director at Humanitarian Open Street Map.

Episode 1 kicks off the mini-season and delves into the sustainability challenge for the digital humanitarian and aid sectors. It will also provide a bit of background on our Fondation Botnar-funded project to build a toolkit to help entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs. We'll hear from Aarathi Krishnan, Strategic Foresight Advisor at UNDP, and Lars Peter Nissen, Director at ACAPs and the H2H Network about the challenges of constructing value propositions that hang together in real life - and what that means for the ethics of our innovation ecosystem.

We're in the final episode for Pulse on the Principles: Series 1! Tune in with Claudine Lim as she chats with Maurice Sayinzoga, DIAL's Senior Manager of Policy and Research, and Grace Nyakanini of the Smart Africa Alliance to break down components of digital transformation and how development actors are using digital tools to change the way traditional services and systems work.

The world's population has more than doubled in the past 50 years, but food systems have not kept up. The problem is not the amount of food produced, but food systems and distribution; malnutrition and undernourishment in all their forms continue to be a growing challenge. Claudine Lim sits with Qingfeng Zhang (Asia Development Bank) and Sibi Lawson-Marriott (World Food Programme) to explore how technology is unlocking new ways to improve supply chains and food security, but also how policy and markets must rise up to help meet the potential

We're wrapping up the first series of Pulse on the Principles' with a mini-season on governance! Government investment strategy is a crucial pillar to delivering on national digital transformation, but challenges like corruption, failure to protect human rights or build for sustainability lead to suboptimal investments and loss of public trust: what strategies and technology are in place to help governments operate openly and responsibly? Host Claudine Lim sits with Angela Kastner, DIAL's Procurement Strategy Director, and Warren Smith, Deputy Director of the UK's Government Digital Service, to explore best practices in public procurement that drive digital transformation.

In our last episode, Laura and guests discussed challenges and solutions to address the digital gender divide: however, approaching this work through a gender binary lens is insufficient at best, and dangerous, at worst. For the final episode in our "Leave No One Behind" mini-season, we're joined by Mala Kumar and Dr. Carlos Acosta to break down unique privacy, security, and data ownership concerns and protocols for the LGBTQIA+ community.

Digital technologies have become a common reality, changing the way we use information, making inclusion more important than ever. Yet, women still fall behind in participating in the digital revolution and remain largely invisible in international development datasets. Host Laura Walker McDonald examines causes and consequences of the digital gender divide and gender data gaps with guests Dr. Revi Sterling (USAID), Naomi Naik (GirlUp), and Professor Mmaki Jantjies (University of the Western Cape) and solutions to tackling gender inequalities.

Laura Walker McDonald hosts the third mini-season on 'Leave No One Behind.' She sits with Joelle Hangi, co-founder of Refugee Artist and Authors, and Olivier Nkunzurwanda, founder of Refugee Innovation Center, where they share their experiences as refugees as well as the work they are doing to improve refugee financial and digital literacy, the results of policies applied to refugees, and development of projects that aim at improving the their self-reliance and rights.

Delivering quality education to remote and isolated communities is a challenge for international development programs, and has only become more pronounced in the COVID-19 reality. For the final episode in the Education mini-season, host Allana Nelson chats with Amplio's Toffic Dapilaah and InformEd International's Lisa Zook about tools and initiatives that provide educational information to rural communities - and how they're doing it in safe, socially distanced ways.

While online health platforms and digital tools offer young people new ways to safely access information about their physical wellness and sexual health, its quantity is limited and its quality is often poorly regulated. Sahil Tandon, public health and human rights advocate, and Pavita Singh, Acting Executive Director of Girls Health Ed, sit with host Allana Nelson to discuss the importance of Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) and considerations in the digital health ecosystem.