2018 Workshop: Community-Centered Participatory Design

Register by June 1

Tuesday Keynote:
Participatory Development Methodology

Learn to create solutions from a user-need perspective. Caravan Studios believes that communities should be deeply involved in developing tools to solve the problems they face. The methodology Caravan Studios uses to create technology products (Design Thinking) rests on bringing in the community at all stages of development.

In this keynote session, Marnie Webb describes the methodology Caravan Studios uses to create technology products like the Safe Shelter Collaborative, elaborating on the steps necessary to develop a project and also the community engagement methods possible for building and supporting the use of the product.

Wednesday Workshop:
Techniques to Understand and Engage Your Community of Supporters

Marnie will share her strategies for helping members of a community listen to problems and find solutions together, resulting in faster adoption and greater impact.

Developing a successful public-good technology project requires engagement from a wide variety of community stakeholders. The process Caravan Studios uses to develop a technology tool involves community participation at every stage.

Participants in this workshop will leave with an understanding of how to identify the stakeholders necessary for the product development, the development process, and then the steps of refinement and feedback.

This is a day-long hands-on workshop limited to 50 participants.

About Caravan Studios

Marnie Webb and her team at Caravan Studios build apps that help communities organize, access, and apply resources to their most pressing problems. Apps from Caravan Studios are designed to meet specific needs identified by nonprofits and communities.

Caravan Studios relies heavily on in-person events (#Apps4ChangeDemos) to generate opportunities for technology intervention. Designs are developed with the community, not by techies for the community. Caravan Studios has used this methodology to launch projects in the United States, Brazil, and Qatar.

Caravan Studios has received funding from Microsoft Philanthropies, Vodafone Americas Foundation, Humanity United, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, among others.

About Marnie Webb

Marnie Webb is the CEO of Caravan Studios, a division of TechSoup, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Previously, Webb was co-CEO of TechSoup Global, a 28-year-old organization that distributes more than $600 million in donated technology to NGOs world-wide. In this role, Webb counseled Fortune 500 technology companies, such as Cisco and Microsoft, on philanthropic initiatives that align with their business objectives and recognize the creativity and innovation that nonprofits have to offer.

Named in 2009 one of the Top 10 Silicon Valley Influencers by San Jose Mercury News, Webb is a sought after writer and speaker on innovation, community, and the social web. In 2008, she won the NTEN “Person of the Year” award and was included in to the Nonprofit Times’ list of the 50 most influential leaders in the U.S. nonprofit sector.

Webb developed, led and launched NetSquared.org, one of the first crowd-sourced funding communities for social benefit innovation. NCTech4Good is a NetSquared local group.