Design for Impact: Adobe and Dost Education

Dost Education Fosters Early Childhood Development

90% of brain development occurs before age 6.  Dost Education, an India-based nonprofit, knows that quality education must start early and at home. Their program supports a child’s caregivers through communication on mobile devices. These resources equip parents of any literacy level with the skills to nurture cognitive and socio-emotional development in their children. To date, Dost has reached five districts within three states, impacting 42,500 caregivers.

To continue their scaling efforts, Dost Education partnered with Team4Tech and Adobe to tackle two organizational challenges using the human-centered design process. 

1. How might we create a digital presence as an organization that has expertise in caregiver support and play?
2. How might we engage with and motivate the frontline workforce of preschool workers and teachers to support parents effectively?

Adobe Volunteers Engage in Design For Impact Workshop

Adobe has been a Team4Tech corporate partner since 2015, contributing to long-standing partnerships with Cambodian Children’s Fund and completing 15 strategic and three Design for Impact (D4I) projects. Volunteers have engaged in such diverse ways as virtual mentorship to in-person digital training, contributing more than 13,500 hours of pro bono support valued – an in-kind value of more than $2 million. Read more about our collective work in this case study.

Sixty-four Adobe volunteers engaged in a four-day D4I workshop where they practiced using the Human-Centered Design Thinking process. Team4Tech’s D4I workshops emphasize skill development and problem-solving using empathy, ideation, and iterative feedback.  Volunteer groups developed problem statements based on the design challenge, prototyped a solution, and presented their designs to the larger group and Dost staff members. Example prototypes included relationship building between caregivers and frontline staff, digital app integrations, and revised training programs for frontline staff. 

Impact on Employee Engagement and Dost Success

D4I workshops provide nonprofits with valuable technical input and allow volunteers the opportunity to grow in their own leadership skill development. Participants often express that they look forward to incorporating what they learned about human-centered design into their daily work. In fact, 92% of participants considered the skills they honed applicable to their future work at Adobe. 88% of volunteers said that they would be more engaged in the nonprofit sector as a result of participating in this workshop.

The outcomes of this D4I will progress into a strategic project between Adobe and Dost Education in late 2022.  Below, Adobe volunteers and Team4Tech staff members pose for a group photo of a creative activity performed during the Design for Impact workshop.

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