Team4Tech Impact Strategy

Team4Tech is an impact accelerator for education-focused nonprofit organizations working to advance education for high-quality employment.

Leveraging technology and training, we build capacity for community-based nonprofits or nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) serving under-resourced contexts worldwide, helping them improve education that ultimately prepares learners for better jobs.

Committed to SDG 4.4

We are guided at all times by our theory of change.

We work

to build capacity for education nonprofits through tech solutions and training

We support

strengthened local capacity, improved quality of education, and enabled tech solutions

We activate

an empowered nonprofit network to bring thought leadership for government and systemic uptake

We increase

the number of youth and adults who have relevant skills – including technical and vocational skills – for employment, decent jobs, and entrepreneurship.

Facing a growing digital divide between those with and without access to internet, technology, and the digital literacy skills to leverage both for learning—we see education as the equalizer. Investing in education in under-resourced communities is one of the most powerful tools to counter rising income inequality and fuel a more inventive, dynamic society.

Team4Tech supports our partner NGOs to achieve goals advancing educator and learner growth, learner engagement, and organizational sustainability and scale.

These positive outcomes help NGOs expansively impact their regional educational ecosystems, enabling millions of learners to demonstrate digital readiness, master foundational skills, and prepare for quality employment opportunities. 

Team4Tech’s NGO accelerator programming model fully connects learning to employability skills: a comprehensive skill set including digital, innovation, social-emotional, and cognitive skills necessary for the future.

Our Impact: Empowering Learners with Skills for Economic Opportunity

By 2030, 90% of jobs worldwide will have a digital component, but forecasts show that nearly 1 billion youth will not have the skills needed to access quality employment (Global Business Coalition for Education, 2030 Skills Scorecard). Investing in both technology-assisted learning and teacher training programs is a powerful equalizer in promoting access to opportunity (Weihong Zang).

Grassroots-level NGOs are key to impacting educational ecosystems for learners in under-resourced contexts. 350 million learners worldwide rely on community-based NGOs for education (UNESCO, Youth Report 2022).

To bridge the global education divide, Team4Tech builds capacity for community-based NGOs, with programs resulting in engaged learners, effective facilitation, and improved use of technology.

Team4Tech supports NGO staff with capacity-building programs resulting in engaged learners, effective facilitation, and improved use of technology. Our accelerator programming connects learning to employability skills: a comprehensive skill set including digital, innovation, social-emotional, and cognitive skills necessary for the future.

Team4Tech provides access to:

Structured conversations with our NGO partners have revealed a strong interest in learning more about evidence-based, contextualized practices for building employability skills in their learners, and in support for building an implementation and evaluation plan around use of these practices in their education programs.  We address their needs through:

  • Toolkits
    • The creation of toolkits supporting the implementation and measurement of evidence-based practices around the development of employability skills
  • Cohorts
    • Online learning cohorts of NGOs in our Community of Practice to customize and adapt these toolkits to local context
  • Microgrants
    • Supporting NGOs participating in the learning cohorts in implementing these practices in their education programs

“The magnitude of Team4Tech’s investment in S.O.U.L. is incredible and tough to put in words! The importance of good technology to run efficient programs is often overlooked and this unique funding approach is the most impactful. S.O.U.L. has more than doubled the number of students we can teach in our ICT lab and is also able to deliver so much more to our community with the installation of a solar set-up. After the funding from Team4Tech, our computer lab and office is now 100% solar-powered, and we are able to conduct our lessons without worries of power black outs.”

S.O.U.L. Foundation
Uganda

Our success stories demonstrate the power of accelerating the impact of our NGO partners. 

Integrating technology to improve learning outcomes

Two boy students giving the thumbs up and working on touchscreen tabelt

LEAP Science and Math Schools, South Africa 

LEAP Science and Maths Schools provide a high-quality education to historically under-resourced black students in the townships of South Africa. With Team4Tech’s foundation of technology and teacher training support since 2014, students have achieved a 96.3% pass rate on the national exam for university admissions (vs the national average of 82.9%). LEAP has attended many Community of Practice events and engaged with trainings to enhance their digital curricula. They have also presented their learnings to share best practices on cybersecurity, IT, and more with other Community of Practice members. 

Learning Links Foundation, India 

Learning Links Foundation (LLF) is committed to enabling equal opportunity for all learners. With Team4Tech’s funding, LLF purchased tablets for its Tab Abhyas and Road to School programs, reaching students in some of the most marginalized and remote communities. Volunteers digitized LLF’s math and literacy curriculum for students to practice from their tablets. As a result, there is increased engagement, with attendance rising by 60%, and assessments show a 15% improvement in student learning outcomes. LLF has plans to reach 20,000 more students. LLF has engaged with Team4Tech’s Community for Practice to support their work, particularly the webinars and workshops that target organizational efficiency and leveraging latest technological innovations to improve outcomes. They have connected with other NGOs in their region to explore collaborations and understand how these similar organizations have addressed challenges facing them and developed innovative solutions. 

Empowering women and girls

Women in Technology Uganda 

The mission of Women in Technology Uganda (WITU) is to support young Ugandan women in building the skills needed for high-quality employment—innovation, technology, leadership, and entrepreneurship. Team4Tech has partnered with WITU since 2019, providing technology grants, training, and pro bono consulting to build their capacity, enabling WITU to inspire over 7,000 young women to take on technology-related careers, become entrepreneurs, and become experts in their fields. 

Team4Tech helped Women in Technology Uganda to establish a makerspace and develop training in digital design and coding as well as entrepreneurship. Women in the program are now starting businesses and getting internships at technology companies such as Cadence Design Systems.

WITU has leveraged Team4Tech’s Community of Practice to connect with other NGOs in their region.

“Thanks to Team4tech’s Community of Practice, WITU has had the opportunity to learn and grow as an organization from like-minded and visionally aligned partners in the Team4Tech network.  We started working on knowledge management and sharing our experiences with some Team4Tech partners this year, including the SOUL Foundation and Girls-with-Tools…These collaborations include peer-to-peer learning, technical assistance, and a mentorship journey to better and more broadly serve our communities by leveraging each other’s strengths and resources.” – Leticia Nakitende, WITU Head of Operations

Gashora Girls Academy of Science and Technology, Rwanda 

Since 2017, Team4Tech has partnered with Gashora Girls Academy of Science and Technology, a STEM-focused secondary school in Rwanda that serves a socioeconomically diverse population of girls. With technology and training from Team4Tech, Gashora has built out a ICT lab and maker space to increase student engagement and skills in STEM. Team4Tech has also provided training to Gashora’s teachers to build their technology skills as well as training teachers across Rwanda in ICT skills to increase regional capacity. Hear Team4Tech and GGAST discuss our partnership on a podcast.

Students smiling in classroom

MAIA, Guatemala

MAIA empowers Indigenous girls and women in Guatemala through a holistic educational model that combines 21st-century skills with culture, identity, socio-emotional learning, and family and community engagement. The MAIA Impact School is Central America’s first secondary school designed for Indigenous young women from rural communities. Team4Tech’s grant funding and skilled volunteering support have helped the MAIA Impact School integrate digital security into all academic curricula, increase STEM/STEAM access at the school, design a virtual hub to centralize resources and communication for school work, and build a new website. Through Team4Tech’s Community of Practice, MAIA has connected with other Latin American organizations in the Regional Hub. Notably, MAIA has built a working collaboration with Team4Tech NGO partner PSYDEH to share monitoring and evaluation templates and fundraising data. Two years in a row, students from the MAIA Impact School won at the CIMAT national competition, an event in Guatemala for students between 8th and 12th grade meant to recognize and provide seed funding for projects in the areas of science, engineering, mathematics, arts, and technology.

Photo by MAIA

Scaling NGO impact with technology

Dost Education, India 

Dost Education enables parents of any literacy level to support their child’s early education with tips for responsive caregiving. Using mobile technology, research-backed curriculum, machine learning, and behavioral science, they solve everyday parenting problems and nudge parents to nurture cognitive and socio-emotional development in their children.

Team4Tech partnered with Dost from 2019-2022, co-designing solutions to improve outreach, content, and digital skills to help Dost scale their early learning programs to families across India.

When our partnership began, Dost served 10,000 families in Delhi. Since then, Dost has scaled significantly—they are now working in 120 districts across nine states in India, reaching 300,000 families directly and 500,000 families through government partnerships. 

After three years with Team4Tech, Dost graduated to become a Team4Tech NGO alumni mentor. Dost is now serving as a lighthouse of learning in the education ecosystem in India—affecting positive change for learners in their region.

The African SOUP, Uganda

The African SOUP (SOUP) works to empower communities in Uganda through national primary education change, informed by community-development programming. Team4Tech has supported SOUP with the installation of a solar electricity system, helping to mitigate power access issues. SOUP has also leveraged Team4Tech funding to set up a computer lab where 470 students can build digital skills. Team4Tech skilled volunteers have trained SOUP teachers in technology training, supported development of an ICT policy, and helped digitize grading systems, weekly reports, lesson plans, attendance sheets, and other administrative supports.  

Building teacher capacity

Flying Kites, Kenya 

Flying Kites is working to transform schools in rural Kenya by building teacher capacity. With Team4Tech’s funding, Flying Kites installed an on-campus internet tower for improved access at the Flying Kites Academy and their Teacher Training Center. Team4Tech volunteers supported the launch of their Technology Inclusion program to enable teachers to engage students with online learning resources and use data to better track students’ learning progress. Teachers in the pilot program have increased their use of technology in the classroom by 150% and plan to reach 18,000 students by 2027.

Cambodian Children’s Fund

Cambodian Children’s Fund provides leadership development and education for students in under-resourced communities in Phnom Penh. Team4Tech partnered with CCF from 2019-2022, supporting them with technology and training to build out their digital design curriculum benefiting more than 2,000 CCF students and training staff and teachers on Adobe Creative Cloud to support certification. During our partnership, two CCF educators became the first two teachers in Cambodia to pass the certification exam. After 4 years of partnership with Team4Tech, CCF graduated to become a Team4Tech NGO alumni mentor. Training and guidance resources produced during our active partnership are now being shared with the Cambodia Ministry of Education and public schools.

Team4Tech’s technology and training have supported CCF in building out a digital design curriculum benefiting more than 2,000 CCF students. These resources are now being shared with the Ministry of Education and public schools.

Kenya Connect

Team4Tech partnered with Raspberry Pi to support Kenya Connect in establishing a maker lab and training 150 teachers from 50 primary schools and three secondary schools in coding education. The trained teachers were able to teach over 3000 students in grade 4-6 on digital literacy and coding with Scratch, and launch after-school coding clubs in three of the schools. Six of these students took these new skills to the 2024 World Robot Olympiad competition and won. 

Empowering youth with skills for economic success

Nairobits Trust, Kenya 

Nairobits supports youth in Kenya with ICT skills training as a pathway to better jobs and economic opportunities. With Team4Tech’s support, Nairobits developed a 5-year strategic plan to build an online training system that will help more than 1,000 learners gain market-relevant digital skills. Team4Tech connected Nairobits with another NGO partner, Kenya Connect, and the two organizations collaborated to bring Nairobits students from the more rural town of Wamunyu to Nairobi to pursue digital skills training. Team4Tech also connected Nairobits with skilled volunteers from Zendesk to collaborate with them on three projects. Volunteers performed a technical audit, supported the creation of a centralized data platform, donated 30 enterprise licenses to set Nairobits up for long-term success with volunteer engagement, and worked to customize the interface to align with Nairobits’ needs.

BUILD, USA 

BUILD is a US-based entrepreneurship program that teaches youth in under-resourced communities how to build their own businesses. Team4Tech helped BUILD develop an online marketplace to create a bigger market for students’ products, enabling youth entrepreneurs to earn more than $8,000 in revenue.

Team4Tech also supported BUILD’s investment in developing an online alumni/mentor platform and implementing a learning management system

Kidspire Vietnam 

Kidspire works to improve opportunities for children in government orphanages in Vietnam through after-school technology and leadership programs. Kidspire partnered with Team4Tech from 2014-2021. Throughout our partnership, Team4Tech helped Kidspire build capacity through technology grants and workshops. Team4Tech volunteers helped Kidspire build their first innovation lab in 2018, and over the years we’ve built on that work with new technology, curricula, and resources. As a result of our partnership, Kidspire students are staying in school longer, attending university, and getting better jobs. In 2021, Team4Tech volunteers mentored teams of girls competing in the global Technovation Challenge, and out of the 5,900 girls and 1,700 mobile application submissions, one of the Kidspire teams was chosen as a finalist. Since graduating from our partnership, Kidspire continues to develop digital skills in their learners, with students engaged in game design, app invention, digital art, and more. 

Explore our strategic nonprofit partners 

[ click on a country to read about our work in that country. ]