About the Design Center

The Design Center combines promising methods with emerging information and communication technologies to enhance UNICEF’s service to vulnerable children and youth.  DC explores challenges and opportunities related to service delivery and the use of information, and leverages advances in mobile, open source, and social technologies to prototype solutions.

The accessibility of new and disruptive technologies—from mobile phones to “big data”—present unprecedented opportunities to better our service to children and youth. Developing and employing these technologies—or even piggybacking on or repurposing their commercial application—means we can analyze and understand the dynamics of need and service provision in ways never previously possible: we can uncover pockets of vulnerability, understand need in real time, and radically increase transparency and accountability.

Projects

Real-time Monitoring Platform for Home Visiting

In collaboration with the Health Section of UNICEF Kosovo* Office, the Design Center is developing a real-time monitoring platform for the Home Visiting programme. Nurses who conduct home visits in different Municipalities across Kosovo regularly collect data on their patients. The platform assures that this data is collected digitally via smartphones or tablets, both in online and offline modes. This data is then transmitted to a centralized database where, via an analytics tool, different stakeholders are able to run different reports, including baseline indicators report for Home Visiting, as well as performance monitoring reports.

Human Performance Monitoring Application

Human Performance Monitoring Application (HPM Wire) is a combination of tools built in anticipation of an increase in refugees and migrants entering the Balkan Countries due to the current humanitarian crisis. HPMWire enables real-time humanitarian performance monitoring of services and goods distribution for children and their families.  The HPMWire Android application used by teams on the ground allows the collection of data from different locations, which is then stored in a cloud data warehouse. Saiku, an open source data analytics tool allows for the creation of real time reports as per indicators to be observed. Finally, the HPMWire Dashboard, as an intermediary platform, allows UNICEF partners to access and observe the data that has been collected on the ground using the android application, and generate their own customized reports.

Skills Assessment Tool

Skills Assessment Tool  is the Design Center’s product built jointly for the UNICEF Middle East and North Africa Regional Office.  The tool enables real-time monitoring of the impact of life skills training and other capacity development measure delivered to children and adolescents in the regions. Skills Assessment surveys have been designed to collect data before and after trainings, where the analytics toolbox allows for the collection and visualization of data and the measurement of impact on children undergoing training. The tool also allows for offline data collection and storage on cloud data warehouse, from which reports are then generated. The tool has thus far been deployed in Palestine, Jordan, and Syria, where it is used to monitor impact for 16,383 beneficiaries.

Techstitution

Techstitution is a technology related program of the Lab that engages youth in learning practical software engineering skills by developing technologies to digitize institutional platforms. Techstitution empowers youth and adolescents to understand the technology that shapes our lives, become active citizens, hand-craft a portfolio of their own technological solutions, and to become part of the greater local tech community.