2017 ICT4D Conference

In this session, we learn from practitioners who have played key roles in successfully reaching the next milestone in digital solutions, especially past the 4-5 year mark of a service.  Challenges to reaching this stage may be a funding cliff, a leadership change, an expansion to a new market or location, new competition, or the entry of government into program ownership.  Deployments face common questions as they navigate transitions, with respect to their program strategy, business models, solution design, human capacity and regulatory policy.  BBC Media Action, the BBC’s international development charity, will discuss lessons learned about private and public sector business models from the national scale up of an mhealth service in India.  PATH, which leads the Better Immunization Data Initiative (BID) funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, will discuss from the country perspective of Tanzania and Zambia its approach and lessons learned to make the program sustainable, including transitioning to government.  Esoko, a private for-profit social enterprise connecting smallholder farmers in Africa to agriculture markets, information and finance through simple mobile and web technologies, will share from a private sector perspective its lessons learned expanding across geographies following the 4-5 year mark of its service, and the approach to its business moving forward.