Center for Social Innovation

Demo Alley Speed-Geeking

Thursday, February 2, 2012
3:20 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Demo Alley, also known as “speed geeking,” is a participation process used to quickly view a number of presentations within a fixed period of time. At the USRio+2.0 Demo Alley, attendees will divide into small groups and each group will gather around a table where a tech company representative will make a quick presentation, with only the aid of a laptop, about connection technologies being used to support sustainable development solutions. After five minutes, a facilitator will ring a bell and the groups will rotate to the next table for another demonstration. This process will continue for approximately 10 presentations. Attendees will have an opportunity to continue conversations during a reception immediately following the conclusion of Demo Alley.

ArcGIS
A complete, cloud-based, collaborative content management system from Esri for working with geographic information. The platform provides an on-demand, secure, open, and configurable infrastructure for creating web maps, web-enabling your data, sharing your map, data, and applications. It includes global basemaps, data for maps, applications, configurable templates, GIS tools, and APIs for developers.

Beyond Access: Libraries powering development
How do you reach the people who can benefit from new technologies, and guide those with minimal tech literacy to gain value from the world’s information without unrealistic investments in new infrastructure? In many places, public libraries connected to the internet are the answer to bridge the last mile between information and those who need it.

CrowdFlower
A crowdsourcing Internet company that breaks large digital projects into small tasks and distributes them to workers around the world.

Development Gateway
Hosts global information platforms that provide access to development knowledge, data, and resources. They implement aid information management systems so governments can make more informed decisions; they geocode aid projects to create virtual feedback loops between donors and other stakeholders.

Development Seed
Data visualization and mapping that helps organizations use data to explain complex issues by working with governments, international development groups, and the private sector.

Frontline SMS
A free mobile phone plugin you can download that allows you to text message with large groups of people anywhere there is a mobile signal.

Global Forest Watch 2.0
Unites technology, transparency, and human networks to mobilize faster, more effective forest conservation and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. Data is sourced from a near-real-time deforestation alert system, complementary satellite data and systems, mobile technology, World Resource Institute’s maps, Google Earth Engine, and the networked world. Information about forest destruction anywhere in the world will be updated every 16 days and in a form that supports corrective action.

Grameen Foundation Technology Center
Develops mobile phone-based solutions that address the critical needs of remote, economically disenfranchised populations, focusing on Mobile Health, Mobile Agriculture, Mobile Livelihoods, and Mobile Financial Services.

Grassroots Mapping
A group of activists, educators, technologists, and community organizers and part of the Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science, interested in new ways to promote action, intervention, and awareness through a participatory research model for independent mapping.

The Guardian Project
Aims to create easy to use apps, open-source firmware MODs, and customized, commercial mobile phones that can be used around the world by anyone looking to protect their communications and personal data from unjust intrusion and monitoring.

InSTEDD
Designs and uses open source technology tools to enhance collaboration and improve information flow to deliver critical services to vulnerable populations. They launched innovation laboratories or “iLabs” in Southeast Asia and Latin America for collaborative engineering and entrepreneurial innovation.

Inveneo
Together with its in-country partners, InSTEDD designs and delivers highly sustainable and affordable ICT solutions for organizations that provide vital services — education, healthcare, economic development — in rural and under-served areas in the developing world. 

Kiva.org
The world's first and largest personal microlending website, enabling individuals to lend as little as $25 to help create opportunity for borrowers around the world.

Medic Mobile
Develops and extends existing open-source platforms to support community health worker coordination and management; community mobilization for vaccination and satellite clinics; logistics and supply chain management; referrals; routine data collection; and mapping of health services.

Mercy Corps
A global aid agency focused on disaster areas. They serve an area for extended periods of time to foster local entrepreneurship, rebuild social capital, and stimulate markets through "cash for work" programs and a variety of lending models.

Mobile Metrix
Mobile Metrix is a market research company that collects demographic
information about low-income populations in the developing world
(BoP).  They offer data collection, analysis and community mapping
services to governments, foundations, multilateral agencies and
busineses, in order to link critical products/services to these
populations. By employing and training local youth to act as
MobileAgents™ who carry out the surveys using mobile devices, MMx
provides income-generating opportunities in the communities where they
work.

Mountain Hazelnuts
When faced with the challenge of collecting timely and accurate data across widely dispersed fields in remote areas in the Bhutanese Himalayas, Mountain Hazelnuts launched its mobile-based Remote Monitoring and Traceability System to collect social and environmental baseline information from its partner farmers, agro-climatic and tree health statistics, and other critical data to analyze and include in their traceability database. All data is tied to individual fields and farmers, allowing auditable records and full visibility into previously unmanageable supply chains.

NetHope
Organizes a collaboration of 34 leading international humanitarian organizations that work together to solve problems and share knowledge, in order to help ensure that their members have access to the best information and communication technology and practices when serving people in the developing world.

Nexleaf Analytics
Collects data on environment, climate change, and public health. By combining the ubiquity of mobile networks with sophisticated server-side analytics, they are transforming regular mobile phones into leading-edge data collection instruments.

NextDrop
Provides households with accurate and timely information about local piped water delivery over cell phones in India. The information is from water utility employees who call NextDrop’s interactive voice response system when they open valves to distribute water. Crowd-sourcing is used to verify the accuracy of utility reports and create a feedback loop, introducing visibility for engineers in the water utility.

QuestionBox
An Open Mind initiative that helps people find answers to everyday questions in areas with limited internet access. Easily-accessed information is available in local languages via telephone hotlines connected to live operators, and uses SMS, mobile and solar technologies off the grid.

Samasource
Brings dignified, computer-based work opportunities to people in poverty. They secure contracts from customers to provide data entry, digitization, content moderation, and other outsourcing services. The work is divided into smaller "microwork" done by a distributed workforce.

Solar Sister
Eradicates energy poverty by empowering women with economic opportunity, combining solar technology with a woman-centered direct sales network to bring light, hope, and opportunity to remote communities in rural Africa.

TechSoup Global
A 501(c)(3) nonprofit, TechSoup Global was founded in 1987 on the belief that technology is a powerful enabler for social change. Since then, they’ve assembled a worldwide network of individuals and organizations that share this conviction. This network—one that you likely belong to—is working together to develop and share innovative solutions to our most urgent social challenges.

Souktel
Designs and delivers mobile phone services that link people with jobs and connect aid agencies with communities who need help.

SourceTrace
The eServices Everywhere™ (ESE™) platform sets the industry standard for remote data transaction systems, bringing e-services from central offices to end-users using networked devices even in remote, low-bandwidth environments.

Ushahidi
A non-profit tech company that develops free and open source software for information collection, visualization and interactive mapping.

Yahoo! Business & Human Rights Program
Protects users' rights to free expression and privacy around the world; identifies innovative solutions to human rights challenges; and promotes the Internet, media and technology as platforms to inform, inspire, connect and amplify diverse voices.