Tech Matters: Using tech for positive social change

Elaina Todd, an environmental planner who develops social marketing campaigns with the nonprofit conservation group Rare, is profiled in our most recent case study for Benetech’s Miradi software. Miradi, is used by nature conservation practitioners around the world to design, manage, monitor and learn from their projects. The free and open source software, which is a joint venture between Benetech and the Conservation Measures Partnership (CMP) , guides users through a series of step-by-step interview wizards, based on the Open Standards for the Practice of Conservation. Elaina is using Miradi to develop and monitor her “Pride” campaign which addresses the social and economic factors that create environmental threats to Guam’s coral reefs. Rare’s Pride campaigns are two-year marketing initiatives that shift the attitudes and behaviors of people living near endangered areas to engage them in conservation efforts. Rare has embedded core Miradi functions into their standardized marketin...

I was just able to attend an exciting conference in Vancouver, ConEx, the Conservation Learning Exchange . It was organized by The Nature Conservancy, but had folks from many of the other leading groups. For me, it was a chance to meet practitioners using our Miradi conservation project management software. Right before I went to the conference I received a copy of the Proceedings of the Appalachian Salamander Conservation Workshop, held this past May. And sprinkled throughout the report were graphics clearly from our Miradi software! While at ConEx, I had the chance to talk about our approach to agile, user-centered development. Jim Patell of Stanford's Business School (and the d.school there) gave his pitch for similar principles in his extreme design for affordability class: it was cool to see an academic approach so grounded in reality and making a difference! At the end of the day, I was part of a meeting of leading conservation techies talking about how to share infor...

There's so many cool things going on at Benetech. One of the coolest has been the reaction to our brand new environmental project management software, Miradi . Miradi is a great example of how technology can be used to more fully benefit humanity: now in the field of improving the environment! Miradi just launched and we're busy signing up users! I'm excited because it's another example of top-quality software created by our technical team in partnership with the conservation movement. We developed it in what's called an agile way, where we do frequent releases and actively engage users in shaping the software. So, spread the news to folks you know who need project management tools for environmental projects! Here's more information: Benetech and the Conservation Measures Partnership (CMP) have released Miradi, a user-friendly software program that allows nature conservation practitioners to design, manage, monitor, and learn from their projects to more ef...

Our new environmental project management software, Miradi , just went into its beta testing. Our core beta testers are drawn from the Conservation Measures Partnership , coalition of the leading biodiversity groups (such as The Nature Conservancy, WWF and WCS). I thought that meant a small beta test, but it turns out that we already have testers registered from 16 different countries on 6 different continents! Since we're designing this software for field people, and these groups have projects all over the world, it's just to be expected. Miradi is an exciting project: I'm looking forward to making steady upgrades to the software this year. We're using an agile development mechanism, which means that we are responding quickly to user feedback and releasing new versions of the software several times a month. Later this year we should have a publicly available version 1 of the product!