Techfugees is a Social enterprise coordinating the international tech comunity in response of the needs of the refugees (challenges), they wanted to create a portal designed to act as a bridge between NGOs, charities, investors, development teams, tech companies and refugees on the ground.

This project has no precedent therefore the need to research all the parts and their possible involvement in this was very important, also the scope of the project was to big for a two week sprint, so we focus on the connectivity between two of the main parts the NGOs and Tech companies.

The Scope

For the two weeks sprint we focus on creating a bridge between NGOs and tech companies, some of the main features are:

Double diamond process - Discovery Phase

Our approach

During the Research process, we contacted NGOs to find out their process behind the observation of the challenges, and how do they tackle those challenges. Also their criteria when selecting a company partner and how do they communicate with them. This information was really important for us because wewanted to determine the procedure behind the selection of a partner and how they keep the relationship after that.

On the company side we wanted to understand why would a company be interested in working for a challenge, their criteria when submiting a proposal and also their previous experience when doing charity work.

"Some NGOs don't have a technical team, so they rely on a network of technical skilled volunteers to create technical solutions".

"We value time as much as we value others, thats why we would like to have a way to filter proposals".

"You need a skilled project manager to deal with groups that work (most of the tie pro bono) from different countries".

Solution

Creating a platform for NGOs, Companies and Individuals, that is easy to use, engaging and effective

Double diamond process - Develop phase

Design Studio

To start the develop phase we conducted a design studio with the client, in this sesion we focus on how the NGO post a challenge, and how the company will reply to this. The outcome of this session was the initial draft of the platform, it was interesting to see the perspective of the client vs the team.

Paper prototype

From the design studio we drafted a paper prototype to start testing the ideas, this paper prototype is based on the flow of the NGO posting a challenge, we iterated on this many times.

Userflows

William flow posting a challenge

Wireframes

Next Steps

We created a platform that allows William and John to connect and actively collaborate on solving technological issues for refugees. To improve the platform we did some recommendations:

Incorporate investors, individuals, solutions and the companies database to the platform

Continue the design of the mobile version of the platform

Add more interactivity on the map for tablets and mobile