Announcing the First Annual

Impact-First Conference
Washington, DC

Spring 2020


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“Let's Digitally Transform!”

Yes, but where do I begin...


Begin with the Impact-First Conference and walk away with the practical guidelines and concrete steps to gauge and improve how you use data as part of your organization's digital transformation journey.


Join fellow program managers, digital transformation leads, M&E specialists, and data management experts this spring in a conversation around the practical challenges of implementing a digital transformation strategy through a practical impact-focused lens. Workshop with peers in the humanitarian, public health, and development sectors to evaluate and identify Impact outcomes in data management and strategize how to implement best practices into your organization’s digital transformation.

Become an Impact-First Organization Today


Transform your organization with a practical, intuitive framework to translate your data into insights and stories to help prove impact and improve data practices.



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“The Framework we were led through provided us with a practical set of principles, good practices, and tools that we could use with our digital leads at HQ and with our program managers at country level to ensure the successful adoption of new technologies and ways of managing data.”


- Senior Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Advisor at INGO working in 30 countries

The Impact-First Framework for Digital Transformation



Philosophy

A set of guiding principles to understand and craft an organization-specific digital transformation, from any baseline, in order to improve the speed and quality that Impact is delivered.

Methodology

A fundamental approach for implementing strategic interventions along an organization’s data management practice to facilitate overall impact growth.

Decision Model

An adaptive and evidence-based learning tool to gauge and evaluate challenges within an organization or program’s data management to reveal strategic areas and solutions for improvement.

Mission


Impact-First is a systematic approach to digitally transforming an organization. It is used to identify and improve tangible outcomes in your data systems like data quality, the sustainability of a given approach, its fitness or whether its fit-for-purpose, and the degree to which the system delivers accountability. Impact-First is a continually iterative framework that recognizes digital transformation as an evolving process, not an end state. As such, it is meant to evolve, and refine itself as experts in multiple fields systematically gather observations and continue to inform it.



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Control Knobs

Control Knobs are the general features in a data management system that organizations can adjust to improve performance. Any targeted adjustment to a Control Knob is defined as an intervention.

Outcomes

Outcomes are organized into four groups based on their similarities and interconnectedness. These four Outcome Areas are based on sector best practices and represent the central principles and desirable outcomes of the Impact-First Framework. These outcomes are determined by Control Knobs, and modified by interventions.


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Meet Members of the Team

A strong belief in the power of good data to save lives runs through the heart of Impact-First. The Impact-First Team represents those working at the cutting edge of technological innovation and humanitarian and development work. As field practitioners and former Program Managers, the Team has spent countless hours on the ground observing and implementing transformative digital strategies within NGOs, UN agencies and donors. Meet them here and watch this space for additions to the Agenda Steering Committee.

Dr. David Barros
Team Lead
Dr. David Barros received his medical degree from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México before continuing on to complete a Masters in Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health. His clinical and public health practice has taken him from Mexico to South Sudan and Lebanon. As co-founder and Director of Operations at Signal, he provided data science and digital implementation support to organizations working in complex humanitarian emergencies like MSF and WHO. Prior to his work at Signal, he coordinated several international projects at the Mexican Health Foundation (FUNSALUD) in tandem with the Harvard Global Equity Initiative. Dr. Barros also led the creation of The Healthcare Management and Leadership online course for the University of California Berkeley - Mexico Initiative. He is now the Vice President of Solutions and Head of Impact-First at Dharma Platform.
Katy Pullen
Founding Member
Based out of London, Katy was part of Dharma Platform’s founding team and has operational responsibility for overseeing Dharma’s successful deployment by customers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. She has sixteen years of management experience in the sector, ten of which was spent implementing and monitoring large-scale programs with UN, NGO and government partners at country, regional and HQ level. Katy has worked for the Global Fund, UNDP, WHO and INGOs on the delivery of multisectoral aid programs, with UNICEF, UN Women and governments to implement gender equality policies and programmes, and with NGOs to monitor and evaluate aid programs in fragile and conflict settings. Katy received her MSc. in Gender, Development & Globalisation from the London School of Economics and Political Science and her undergraduate degree from the University of Oxford.
Josh Balser
Founding Member
Josh graduated from George Washington University with a B.S. degree in Economics before moving to Honduras to work in bilingual education. He has over 8 years of experience in international development and humanitarian response programming, both as head-quarters support and field management roles. Highlighted by his deployment to Liberia during the 2014 West Africa Ebola Outbreak, Josh has responded to many international crises, conflict and natural disasters in South Sudan, Yemen, Nigeria, Puerto Rico, Colombia and others. Highlighted by experiences in Yemen, Liberia and Puerto Rico, Josh is a strong proponent of digital data solutions that improve decision making and program delivery. Josh has influenced the design of custom e-voucher platforms and geo-spatial mapping to facilitate coordination and increase program efficiency. With the management experience, Josh is able to implement these transformations in a systematic and participatory way that achieves immediate results in highly dynamic and resource-constrained environments. He brings this first-hand project management experience to help Dharma partners utilize the tools and data to maximize their impact.

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