Successfully Scaled DPGs
One of the primary benefits for startups to produce DPGs is the potential to scale and impact a larger number of beneficiaries. In this section, you can find examples of successfully scaled DPGs, including details of their DPG nomination, what they've implemented, where they've scaled, and the impact of the DPG.
DPG Example #1, Global Digital Library
On 2 March, 2021, a DPG pathfinding pilot was announced. It was coordinated jointly by Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) and the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA). It focuses on how to enable governments to translate openly licensed early grade reading books from an open content collection DPG, into national languages.
Rwanda has paved the way for this pilot by translating and providing government approval through the Ministry of Education for 50 books from English to Kinyarwanda. The launch of these books was used to announce the pathfinding pilot, and the results of Rwanda’s pilot will be used to help onboard additional pathfinders from up to nine African countries looking to improve access to quality learning resources for enhancing reading skills in their local languages. Global Digital Library contains 6000+ books in 90 languages. To learn more about this pathfinding pilot, please see this briefing note.
DPG Example #2, DHIS2 for Education
District Health Information Software 2 (DHIS2) is an open source, web-based platform that aggregates and layers sector-specific health data. Doing so allows health professionals and governments alike to make data-informed decisions. Today, approximately 2.4 billion people (30% of the world’s population) live in countries where DHIS2 is used.
DHIS2 for Education extends the DHIS2 platform from the health sector to the education sector which facilitates tracking valuable information such as school attendance, grades, distances traveled and human resources information. Building off of these successes, DHIS2 will begin piloting additional programming in countries that have already adopted DHIS2 for Education such as The Gambia, Uganda, Eswatini, and Sri Lanka. Click here for more on the DHIS2 pilots
DHIS2 for COVID-19: During the COVID-19 pandemic, Sri Lanka created a new DHIS2 Tracker (within 2 days after the first suspected case of the novel coronavirus) to aggregate data for purposes of national-level reporting, while still protecting the privacy and security of individuals who data is stored in the system. In collaboration with the DHIS2 core developers and Sri Lanka’s DHIS2 team (HISP Sri Lanka), this has ended up being implemented and released for global adoption.
DPG Example #3, Project AEDES - Philippine's first Pathfinding pilot
In January 2021, UNICEF Philippines, in cooperation with the UNICEF Office of Global Innovation and the DPGA began a DPG Pathfinding Pilot. Using Project AEDES (Advanced Early Dengue Prediction and Exploration Service), a DPG used to monitor dengue cases, the two are working together to implement it in select pilot cities in the Philippines and other countries with high incidence of dengue and similar data challenges.
The goal of UNICEF Philippine’s pathfinding pilot is two-fold. First, to find ways that DPGs can benefit from and leverage existing technical country capacity to better existing Technology for Development (T4D) efforts that are both relevant to UNICEF programming and supported by UNICEF Philippines and the Government. Second, to establish a mechanism to transfer that capacity and knowledge to other sectors including education and climate change, including a wider range of government line agencies. As part of this pilot, a local DPG landscape analysis will be done to find out which DPGs are currently in use or being developed, and what additional sectors they can serve. Read more here. Read more here.