IPA contracted with DDD to support global projects researching  financial education household savings,  and women who are potential microfinance clients  The surveys were conducted in three countries in three different languages.
DDD’s survey digitization services were a perfect fit for IPA. Our process starts with the physical handling, logging and scanning of paper forms, and follows through with key-stroke by key-stroke tracking to guarantee data quality. DDD also offers a unique survey management tool, designed to support structured entry processes and operational workflow. With this software, we can provide output to clients like IPA in any format required.

We are delighted that DDD’s services can help IPA evaluate poverty interventions using their evidence-based approach.  It’s just one more way that what we do makes a difference.  In addition to IPA, some of our past survey digitization clients have included CARE International HAGAR, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Mines Advisory Group (MAG), UNICEF and World Vision.

Just to be clear, we don’t expect to go it alone. All of us at DDD are excited that so many social entrepreneurs around the world are embracing variations of impact sourcing to establish a global movement. The Rockefeller Foundation’s PRIDE initiative (Poverty Reduction through Information and Digital Employment) aims to harness the BPO sector’s ability to leverage technology to breakdown barriers in delivering services globally. As part of PRIDE, the Rockefeller Foundation made a grant that enabled DDD to start working in Kenya, employing youth from slum areas in Nairobi. (See our blog for a firsthand account about what it was like to recruit staff there!)

The BPO industry is estimated to have created more than 270,000 jobs in the Philippines between 2005 and 2008, although it has not typically engaged the poor and disadvantaged in its workforce. By one estimate, the global industry is expected to reach $178 billion by 2015. Why couldn’t 10-15% of this business be channeled to create jobs for the poor? All of us at DDD are committed to working with peers around the globe to build this field of Impact Sourcing”. We hope you’ll join us!

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”We see enormous opportunities in Kenya’s strong talent pool—and in bringing DDD’s world-class service to local clients in East Africa,” said DDD CEO Jeremy Hockenstein. Building on nearly a decade of operational experience in Southeast Asia, DDD Kenya will offer a set of high-quality services to help publishers, financial services firms, telecommunications operators, government agencies, libraries and other organizations resolve paperwork backlogs and streamline customer records management.

“I am excited to be back in Kenya,” says Ms Ng’weno, who most recently served as Deputy Director at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “It has a dynamic market, leading companies are finally modernizing their businesses. We believe this is the right time for DDD to bring strong BPO service offerings to clients in East Africa.” The Kenyan government has made the promotion of business process outsourcing a major priority for the economic development of the country.
Digital Divide Data’s model of impact sourcing empowers its staff with the skills and experience they need to improve their lives — while simultaneously providing value to the clients served by its sourcing business. “DDD has become known for our commitment to customers, quality, value and innovation. Because of our social mission, we are a more responsible, responsive partner to our clients.” explained Michael Chertok, Vice President, Global Impact, who led DDD’s planning to expand to Kenya.

Since 2001, DDD has powered the data entry, XML conversion and digital preservation needs of publishers, libraries, content hosts, academic researchers and businesses globally. DDD’s clients include Reader’s Digest, Harvard University and the National Library of the Netherlands. In Asia, DDD serves domestic clients such as the leading mobile telecommunications provider, Mobitel and ANZ Bank.

Digital Divide Data, a US-based non-profit organization, has invested in DDD Kenya to further its mission to create sustainable jobs for disadvantaged youth. DDD Kenya, a for-profit company, plans to train and employ at least 300 talented high school graduates from the slum areas in Nairobi over the next two years. The staff will receive support for their post-secondary education as well as on-the-job training, which will empower them to move on to better paying, high-skilled jobs after four years.

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Read more about DDD Kenya here.

Lori’s deep expertise in content conversion is an exciting asset to our team as we aim to grow more globally in 2011. Her business development experience spans both start-ups and established top-tier companies–including, most recently, SPi Global–making her the ideal leader of our global sales efforts. Read Lori’s bio here.

In Lori’s words, why she decided to join DDD: “I know many clients will be as excited as I was to discover that there is an outsourcing service company they can hire that makes a direct and positive impact on the lives of people in the developing world. This is an easy sell; you don’t have to sacrifice on price, quality or customization AND you can change the world.”

We’re all excited to welcome Lori on board!

“It was the last day of the Water Festival and my wife, Thavry, and I decided to enjoy the last parties. Her brother called around 8:30pm and suggested we join him to go to nearby Koh Pich Island. He said there were free outdoor movies, Japanese wrestlers and other events to enjoy. The new Koh Pich Bridge had just opened and my wife, who is 3 months pregnant, would not have to walk so far. On our way there we ran into my brother-in-law and walked together to the Island. It was a happy night, my wife and I walked hand-in-hand. The new bridge looked beautiful at night with a rainbow of lights strung across its two spires.

When we got about halfway across the bridge a group of 7-8 people came running very fast towards us. This was the first sign of trouble, but we didn’t know it yet. I let go of my wife to let them pass. Then somebody on a Moto sped past before I could regain her hand. I tried to turn around, but couldn’t move. Panic had set in – people were running everywhere. I got separated from my wife. I searched frantically for her. People started screaming about the bridge collapsing, “get off NOW!” But the crowd was now crushing. All I could do was turn around a little bit.

I saw more people being trampled, with my own eyes. I will never forget that image. Then I heard a rumor that the lights on the side of the bridge would electrocute you. At this, all my hope was lost. I kept seeing the faces of those who were trampled and picturing my wife among them. As I sat on the bank of the river I telephoned my mother and brother to let them know what happened. I was so sad, I couldn’t move. My brother arrived an hour later and insisted on going in search of Thavry. He still had hope. I was certain she was dead. In all this time I did not see police or security once. As he was searching my phone rang, it was Thavry! She was safe! We connected and I rushed her to the government hospital, but the wait was too long. I took her to the Sihanouk Hospital of Hope, one of the best hospital in the city where DDD covers our health costs.”

We are thankful that Dilen and Thavry are recovering from their injuries. Our hearts go out to those in Cambodia facing a terrible loss.

Jeremy Hockenstein, Co-Founder & CEO

This planning process relied on two main tactics: (1) scenario planning, and (2) feasibility research. First, we took a hard look at ourselves: as an organization, what are DDD’s core capacities and limitations? How do we think about our impact? What vision of the future is our staff most excited about? Input came from all corners: our management teams in Asia, our board members, and our staff in the US.

Next, we reached out to engage people who knew more than us—individuals with experience in investment, thinking about social impact, scaling social enterprise, individual philanthropy, foundation work, technology in emerging markets, services outsourcing, and international business. We engaged four groups of these people in “Critical Friends Meetings”—roundtable discussions centered on pre-determined growth strategy scenarios. We heard ideas that changed our thinking, and benefited from the expertise and past experience of others. We discussed issues such as how to forge successful partnerships, what criteria needs to be considered when expanding to a new country, and how to mitigate the risks of growth to our existing operation.

As we explored new perspectives on growth, we contextualized it with real research: we conducted feasibility studies on the ground in both Kenya and Vietnam, to identify if and how a DDD-like operation could operate sustainably there. What we found was promising. Both Kenya and Vietnam demonstrate a strong demand for our services in their domestic markets, so an office there could potentially support itself with local work, rather than relying on international sales. In addition, while there are poor populations in both of these countries who could benefit from DDD’s model, the skills available in both of these countries—capacity for management, English fluency and technical sophistication—are higher than the skills we have access to in Cambodia and Laos. This means that a Kenyan or Vietnamese operation could offer new services that we don’t currently have the capacity to deliver.

All of these inputs are shaping a strategy that we’re still honing with the intention of moving ahead with implementation in November. What we’ve come to, through conversations with staff and with external stakeholders, is a strengthened conviction to grow our existing operations in Cambodia and Laos, continuing to expand sales and build our leadership there. In addition, we plan to propose concrete next steps to expand to new countries, which could not just deepen our impact, but also fortify our current business by giving us access to new local markets and more diverse talent.

By next year, our planning will become doing, as we begin to take tangible steps toward implementing the strategy we ultimately choose to embrace as an organization. We’re excited for what’s in store, and look forward to your continued role as part of the growing DDD family, so stay tuned!

A  booming IT outsourcing industry helped spur economic and social growth in India in the 1990s, and it was the idea to bring this model to Cambodia and Laos that originally prompted Jeremy Hockenstein and his co-founders to start DDD. Since then, international clients, such as Harvard Business School, Readers Digest, Daily News, and more, have outsourced their work from the US and Europe to DDD in Southeast Asia.

At the same time, though, we’ve always looked in our own backyard for digitization work. As the markets in Cambodia and Laos develop, we’re excited to see increasing potential for more local clients.

DDD’s services meet a now increasing need for digitization in Southeast Asia. For example, for several years DDD has been digitizing customer registration forms for Mobitel, the largest mobile telecom provider in Cambodia. Before Mobitel engaged DDD, they internally handled the task of entering the handwritten registration forms into a record management system. However, due to a lack of resources and expertise in this area, frequent errors occurred. After outsourcing their digitization work to DDD, Mobitel has been able to archive its records much more accurately while saving costs.

Similarly, we are digitizing records for ANZ Bank, which established offices in Cambodia two years ago and opened in Laos just last year. With regard to this project, Phabphada Dokbouathong, our Senior Project Manager in Vientiane, points out another advantage of engaging with local clients: The business relationships also grows DDD’s network of potential outplacement opportunities for our operators.

According to Eric Wong, our General Manager in Vientiane, DDD could be looking at a lot more local work in Laos: “There’s a huge potential for digitization work in Laos, and it will boom in the next three to five years. Potential work is to be found in the telecommunications sector, the insurance sector, the energy industry and the health sector. Just recently, the biggest hospital in Vientiane advertised for help digitizing patient journals, test results, etc – a job that we are experts at doing.”

As we think about growing our existing offices, and even starting DDD operations in new geographies, one of the factors we study is how much demand there is for our services in the local market. While we still plan to sell work internationally, we’re also excited to continue the trend of increasing the amount of work we deliver closer to our offices.

Please continue your support of DDD’s work in these growing economies — donate now.

Statistics is the discipline of collecting, organizing and interpreting data. For DDD, statistics about the countries we operate in help us decide where to focus our efforts, and statistics about the employees we graduate help us evaluate the effectiveness of our efforts. We greatly appreciate the work of the multilateral agencies that generate these statistics.

On a broader level, statistics are at the base of most policy-making in the world: educational statistics may determine curriculum and school policies, financial statistics may determine healthcare and aid policy, and so on. So even if it sounds a little dry, statistics indeed is a discipline worth acknowledging – most decision-making would be crippled without it.

But not only do we at DDD rely on statistics in a lot of our work, we also contribute to the production of statistics through our survey digitization services—we bridge the step between gathering and analyzing data.

One of the milestone events in the history of statistics was when the first commercial computer in the United States, UNIVAC I, was delivered to the United States Census Bureau on March 31, 1951: suddenly the tabulations of vast amounts of data could be done automatically. The digitization of data greatly improved the speed and accuracy with which statistics could be produced. To this day, the digitization of surveys enables our clients to draw valuable statistical conclusions.

One example of this kind of work is DDD’s involvement in the Oregon Health Study, in which DDD effectively, quickly, and accurately digitized surveys for a study on the effects of health insurance . In 2008 the state of Oregon opened a waiting list for enrollment in public healthcare. More than 85,000 people signed up, many more than the state could afford to insure. In the end, just 35,000 people were enrolled in the healthcare program. However, researchers around the country saw this as a perfect opportunity for a randomized control study. They sent out 70,000 surveys: 35,000 to the people who were enrolled in public healthcare, and 35,000 to the people who weren’t accepted into the program. By measuring the disparity between these groups, researchers are able to isolate the effect of healthcare on people’s lives. DDD was able to effectively digitize the large number of surveys in a timely manner, and in this way contribute to the process of producing valuable statistical data on the effects of having or not having public healthcare.

You can read more about our digitization services in the Services section of our site.

We wish everyone around the globe a Happy World Statistics Day!

Exiting the modest airport in Luang Prabang I looked around for transportation into town. In Southeast Asia I have rarely found myself forced to actually look for someone who would offer transportation services. I spotted a tuk-tuk just pulling up to drop other passengers off outside the building. I walked up to it, thinking I had found my ride, but as I began to engage the driver in the usual miming, intended to mean “can you give me a ride?”, he and his passengers disappeared into the airport building without a look or a word. They were gone for a long time.

Twenty minutes later, during which no other tuk-tuks had arrived, the driver returned to the parking lot and leisurely strolled back to his business that he’d parked in the sunshine. I re-assumed my miming: “You? Drive me? I pay you?” He shrugged, seemed to decide I probably wouldn’t be too much trouble, and pointed to the seating on the truck bed. I jumped in and after fifteen minutes of dirt road I had arrived in town and he had made 20,000 kip.

This is what I have come to call The Lao Way. There seems to be no need to rush in Laos. No need to overextend one self, no need to stress. There’s an immense trust that things will be ok, and even if things go wrong, it’s probably going to be ok anyway.

I see it all the time now: There’s surprisingly little honking on the somewhat chaotic streets of Vientiane, because no one is really in a hurry. In the small Vietnamese restaurant where I often have dinner, it usually takes some adamant ruffling with chairs before any staff emerges. Even dogs will take their afternoon naps in the middle of an intersection.

I asked the General Manager of DDD’s office here in Vientiane, Eric Wong, who is also somewhat new to Laos, if he sees signs of The Lao Way in the office?

“Yes. I must admit that I, and many Malaysian or Singaporean, are jealous of the way things are done here, because the staff in Laos are very friendly and are smiling most of the time in the office. Based on my previous personal experiences that is difficult to do in Malaysia or Singapore. Most of our colleagues in Malaysia will stay late in the office in order to outshine each other and they are putting a lot of peer pressure on each other to perform, but that doesn’t apply in Laos. Here, everyone is happy and relaxed in getting their assigned tasks completed. In Laos, sometimes I have been (unnecessarily) over-worried about certain things in our office, because I didn’t see my colleagues sense of urgency on their faces. I’m saying “(unnecessarily) over-worried” here because they always do get the job done in a very good manner. During dinners or gatherings I always tell my overseas colleagues about how unique The Lao Way is, and how I learn so much from them.”

Even if The Lao Way is sometimes transported into the DDD office, it is still an office that delivers world-class IT services to international clients. It’s just done without any stress. The Lao Way.