Opportunity International CoLab
Empowering people living in extreme poverty with co-design and AI
Design + Tech + Impact
Co-designing generative AI-powered experiences enables meaningful and broad impact
The Challenge
Established in 1971, Opportunity International is a non-profit focused on helping families living in extreme poverty build sustainable livelihoods and access quality education for their children. Through their CoLab, they work with innovators across the globe to conceive and create innovative solutions for specific communities of use ranging from teachers to micro-entrepreneurs and small holder farmers. With powerful ideas rooted in deep understanding of their communities of use, they needed a holistic approach to user experience and compelling, cohesive design to translate those ideas into professional apps ready for the real world.
The Outcome
Artefact partnered with Opportunity International to transform innovators’ ideas into viable app concepts. We guided in-country innovators through a pitch process. For those ideas that moved forward we created a systematic user experience, including a branded design system, and supported the implementation of fully functional prototypes powered by AI, resulting in a set of innovative solutions ready for field testing, further investment, and ultimately shipping to communities.
Supporting innovators within communities of use across the globe
Opportunity International works with innovators to introduce human centered design processes and principles, so that those living closest to the communities of use have the skills and tools they need to envision and develop their ideas. Utilizing specific user personas and incorporating the latest AI advancements, this CoLab effort has helped generate over 200 ideas.
As the design partner for Opportunity International’s CoLab, Artefact worked with a select number of these innovators via co-design to help them turn their ideas and knowledge about the specific needs and circumstances of those they intended to support into viable app concepts and experiences that were then used to gauge their impact potential for further investment.
We then supported these innovators in pitching their ideas at a global idea summit, creating hero images of their concepts, as well as efficiently scaling our impact as a partner by utilizing generative AI to create supporting illustrations depicting the usage contexts of each innovator’s concept.
Turning ideas into tangible products
To help each innovator make a compelling case for their concepts, we created a nimble UI design system based on Opportunity International’s brand. The design system contains key elements such as colors and controls that help make the app concepts not just believable and polished, but also helps them stand out.
Farm record keeper
eFarmbook helps collect and manage data on farming activities, which can be used by farmers to monitor progress and offer tailored advice. The tool facilitates communication and knowledge sharing between farmers and agricultural experts, improving productivity and decision-making in farming practices.
Farm scenario planning
A tool designed to help farmers initiate positive changes in their agricultural practices. It provides farmers with practical guidance on setting achievable goals, implementing effective strategies, and tracking progress.
Classroom lesson planner
A digital tool designed to support teachers by streamlining administrative tasks through AI and providing resources that help create a more dynamic and responsive learning environment. By integrating teaching aids and assessment tools, it empowers teachers to focus more on personalized instruction and student development.
School fee loan advisor
A digital platform aimed at connecting skilled workers with job opportunities in various industries. It serves as a bridge between employers and job seekers by providing a database of skilled professionals and facilitates communication between the two. The tool also offers resources for skill development and certification, helping users enhance their employability.
School development assistant
A generative AI-powered tool designed to assist schools in enhancing educational quality and outcomes. It provides a comprehensive platform for monitoring and evaluating school performance, offering data-driven insights and recommendations for improvement.
Financial planning and advice
Designed to aid in personal and professional development, this platform provides micro-entrepreneurs with resources for self-assessment, goal setting, and tracking progress in various areas of life.
Skills training for kayayei
This AI tool was designed to provide entrepreneurial opportunities, information and strategies on feature phones. By analyzing data such as location, target market and environmental conditions, it provides tailored recommendations to enhance efficiency and productivity.
“Working with Artefact was critical to our ability to deliver polished ideas as part of our CoLab innovation process. The team quickly added value, working globally with our innovators on tight timelines in an agile, collaborative way. Their partnership elevated our work, delivering polished ideas on time and on budget. We’re excited to keep collaborating as we bring these ideas to life.”
From engineering prototype to polished, testable MVP apps
After down-selecting from the initial app ideas to a smaller number of concepts to bring forward into prototyping for further refinement and evaluating both technical feasibility as well as value testing with users in Africa and India, we supported the development of the prototypes by honing the user experience architecture, interaction models, and adapting to technical constraints, so that the engineering partner was able to focus on implementing the generative AI and chatbot functionality without having to spend time on a polished UX.
Working closely with Opportunity International, we turned the rough engineering prototypes which were utilizing large language model (LLM) AI platform technologies into apps that not only had coherent interaction models, but also optimized for reusability of user interface components and patterns to ensure efficient implementation of highly usable prototypes for testing and sharing with Opportunity International stakeholders.
Designing for collaboration between humans and AI
Shaping the interaction between the user and the underlying generative AI and chatbot technologies was an important focus. Rather than a conventional AI system where the only user interaction is to formulate text prompts, we created a collaborative and highly contextual interface in which the user first specifies parameters for what they already know, such as the subject for a lesson plan, the different levels and types of learners in the class, and the overall duration of the class. The generative AI then fills in the gaps which the user may not know or have time to create, such as highly personalized activities for each learner. Furthermore, two different types of AI can be used, specialized for either revising the generated lesson plan, or for helping the teacher understand more about the subject or specific learning activities. Thus, these apps create a collaborative workflow between human and AI where the AI augments the human rather than replacing them.
What we delivered
+ Concept envisioning
+ Experience design and strategy
+ Capacity building
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