Measuring social impact? That is not for us to do.

As my team nears the Hult Global Case Challenge Finals, one of the biggest challenges that we have constantly faced is whether One Laptop Per Child is actually making any impact on the education in the countries it sells its laptops. Recently, an article published in the Economist titled "Error message: A disappointing return from an investment in computing" discussed how, despite enormous spending in Peru, children with OLPC laptops did not show any improvement in maths or reading. Nor did it find evidence that access to a laptop increased motivation, or time devoted to homework or reading.

OLPC's model of handing out laptops to children, through the government or the education ministries, has always been a very top-down approach. Once the laptops are distributed, and a small amount of additional infrastructure has been set, OLPC believes that it is the school and its stakeholders' responsibility to take charge of building a curriculum around the laptops and of measuring the obvious positive impact these laptops have had on existing educational practices. However, as the article mentioned, this approach has received some criticism.

So then what should OLPC do - change their model to make sure it has a positive impact or build programs for assessment and evaluation of some basic metrics to deduce whether the laptops even make an impact? Or not change anything and continue with their current strategy because they believe that in the long-term it will produce an impact? An article by Prof. Alnoor Ebrahim discusses the idea that non-profits needs to prioritize their accountability demands, and not aim to comply to the demands of all the stakeholders, but focus on accountabilities that matter most.

An interesting solution that we came across was the idea of empowering teachers with training and certifications, and then allow them to champion for the OLPC cause. Teachers would then build the curriculum in order to get certified with OLPC credentials, and connect with other teachers in the community and the region for support. This idea is actually making the kind of impact that OLPC sought to achieve with their original model. All it needed was a little tweaking.

So then, what is the key take-away for me? Social impact is important, and measuring it doubly so. But if you are not making the kind of impact you had set forth to achieve, it does not mean that your idea is not working, it may just be that you need to change your implementation process or tweak your model just a little, and maybe, that will do the job. This lesson, especially with the kind of social impact my "Promise2 Protect" package is supposed to achieve, will be extremely valuable if the going gets tough.