Team4Tech, as a part of a celebration for National Volunteer Week and Global Volunteer Month, engaged employee volunteers from eight companies to provide skills-based volunteering resources for our Uganda-based NGO partner, Far Away Friends, in an Innovate for Impact Event.
Ideating to Support Learners in Rural Uganda
Far Away Friends works in the rural Amolatar region of Uganda, operating Global Leaders Primary School (GLP)—a school serving 500+ pre-k through primary 7 students. The NGO operates Global Leaders Primary School, fully equipped with robust solar power throughout their campus, and they have been partnering with Team4Tech to work towards bridging the digital divide for their students. With growing access to technology, Far Away Friends wants to seize the opportunity for GLP staff and students to connect more consistently and directly with their global community by creating a digital storytelling system that empowers GLP students and staff to share their experiences in their own words.
During our 3-hour virtual event, Team4Tech facilitators led volunteers through a design thinking process to ideate and prototype potential solutions to the identified design challenge: “How might Far Away Friends design a sustainable and accessible digital storytelling system that empowers Global Leaders Primary School students and teachers to authentically share their voices with a global audience?”
Volunteer deliverables provided solutions that allow students to share their voices and engage with global communities, despite limited access to technology or the internet.
Flexible, Sustainable Nonprofit Solutions
Participants engaged with staff from Far Away Friends to learn more about their work and ask questions to inform their responses to the design challenge. Following the initial learning session, Team4Tech facilitators placed volunteers in small groups to collaborate virtually, brainstorming ideas and rapidly prototyping their solutions. Volunteers flexed their innovation skills while adjusting their ideas to accommodate a low-resource environment with limited access to internet.
Deliverables included prototypes for:
- A structured storytelling workflow with global publishing support
- A concept around video pen pals and a peer-to-peer story exchange
- A student-created content library with live video sessions
Far Away Friends’ Co-Founder and USA Board Chair, Jayme Ward, left the event energized and particularly encouraged to see ideas that were low-lift, leveraging skills and systems the nonprofit is already using.
Isn’t this unreal? Not just that we have computers, but that we have this amazing team of people working on problems for us. We definitely are going to take these ideas and pilot them in our own way.
— Jayme Ward, Co-Founder, Far Away Friends
Opportunities like this bring team members and employees together in a collaborative setting. It allows them to use their skills to drive impact while also acquiring new skills.”
— Innovate for Impact Volunteer
Team4Tech is proud to facilitate connections between volunteers and education-focused NGOs like Far Away Friends, improving education that ultimately prepares learners for better jobs. Our Innovate for Impact programming is just one example of how Team4Tech leverages skills-based volunteering to accelerate the impact of nonprofit organizations globally. Our next Innovate for Impact event will take place on September 18, 2025. Learn more about how your team can strengthen teamwork and collaboration, build innovation skills, and support global education by volunteering with Team4Tech.