Empowering Youth with Digital Technology Programs

13/12/2017

Impact Spotlight: Digital Opportunity Trust

It’s no secret that we are passionate about organizations and individuals that leverage the incredible potential of technology to create social innovation. Bridging the gap between the human and the technical, the present and the future, these organizations walk the walk when it comes to making a better future for us all.

One organization we are happy to support embodies this approach to the fullest: Digital Opportunity Trust (DOT). DOT is a Canadian charitable organization that enables youth to create meaningful change and sustainable opportunities in their local communities through digital technology.

Putting digital tools in the hands of the next generation of thought leaders, innovators, and entrepreneurs ensures communities around the world are equipped to solve existing challenges and handle the next wave of technological transformation.

Rather than prescribing the best solution or a universal path forward, DOT invites people between the ages of 18 and 29 to explore, experiment, and develop their own sustainable solutions to implement right at home. DOT provides the knowledge, network, and support to turn the youth-led ideas into a reality.

“Start from where you are with what you have,” says Paul Tinkaman, a DOT Uganda program graduate. DOT initiatives have been launched around the globe and have driven progressive, socially-motivated results in robotics, agriculture, art, and entrepreneurship.

We draw inspiration from their unique approach that accounts for context, centres participants, and focusses on empowerment through every project and at every stage. Learn more about the keys they use to unlock success for their program participants and consider how you can apply their model to your organization's learning, development, and give back initiatives.

3 Ways DOT’s Participant Focus Makes a Bigger Impact

DOT’s youth leadership program emphasizes nurturing the development of three key characteristics: community leaders, digital champions, and social innovators. We love their participant-centred approach that provides meaningful experience, skills development, and collaboration opportunities.

Here’s how their program model goes further:

Experience-based Learning: Completing a program with inspiration is great. Walking away with the experience and tools to enact and materialize that inspiration into lasting change - that's better. When participants build transferable skills, they become actors and teachers in their own right. With new ideas and knowledge rooted in first-hand experience, they can make a lasting difference and empower others.
Community Impact: Only you have the power to fix your problems. The same goes for larger teams and communities. Culture, geography, history, and a multitude of other factors make each community unique. Identifying the most pressing challenges and designing realistic, impactful solutions needs to be grounded in this particular understanding and come from and for the people who are affected.
Networks: Sometimes the skills and tools are not enough to create change without the resources and network support to help put them in action. DOT provides access to a global network of mentors, partner organizations from different sectors, and approachable peers. That means that participants can leave the program with confidence in their own abilities and access to an ecosystem of multi-talented, impact-driven people.

Creating a supportive and tailored experience for each program ensures that youth and their local communities leave the program better off. Equipped with the skills to self-identify and solve their most pressing local needs, participants can use a proven framework to chart their own path forward.

Read research reports put together by program participants and find out how you can empower youth around the world with DOT.

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Lauren Rabindranath

Lauren Rabindranath is a community builder and digital communications professional based in Toronto, Ontario. She is an expert at creating tailored digital content for diverse clients and developing human-centred engagement strategies for communities in-person and online.

With Imperative Impact, she develops strategy and executes on communications that align with brand voice and client goals while integrating with the broader ecosystem.