Choosing technology is hard. Alidade can help.

Use Alidade to create a plan for finding technology tools that suit your social change project.

Built on in-depth research in Kenya and South Africa.
Designed for activists and social change organisations everywhere.

Start Alidade

Complete this interactive guide and get a planning document to share with colleagues, technical developers or donors.

There are lots of tech options to choose from.

Which options are best for your project?
How do you know if you’re asking the right questions?

Alidade helps you plot a path to the right choice.

Interactive questions to help structure your thinking
Real-life examples and useful resources

1

Understand your needs

2

Understand the tech

3

Plan a trial of the tool with your users

Get a detailed technology strategy plan for your project

Export as a personalised PDF
Ready to share with collegues, technology partners and donors

Read our six-rule summary for choosing tech

Based on our research, six tips and six questions to lead you to a better choice.

gate io app

Result of a 2-year research project with activists in Kenya and South Africa.

We used Alidade to help us decide how to develop an information scorecard for child protection planning. I'd definitely recommend it to other organisations - I'm not sure we would have been able to choose the right tool without it. It means putting in some hard work, but it is well worth it if you want to make a smart decision.

Paul McNally Citizen Justice Network,
University of Witwatersrand (South Africa)

Kate McAlpine Lead Strategist,
Community for Children’s Rights (Tanzania)

Sanne van den Berg Country Engagement Developer (Tanzania and Uganda),
Making All Voices Count

Who made this

In 2015-16, The Engine Room, Pawa254 and the Network Society Lab conducted an 18-month research project into how Kenyan and South African organisations choose digital technology tools for transparency and accountability projects. To make the findings as practical as possible, we created Alidade.
The project was supported by Making All Voices Count.

Tom Walker is a research lead at The Engine Room, an international organisation that helps activists, organisations and other social change agents make the most of technology and data to increase their impact.

Indra de Lanerolle - Network Society Lab

Indra de Lanerolle leads The Network Society Project, which conducts research on the Internet and its effects on society in South Africa and other African countries. It is based at the Journalism and Media programme at the University of Witwatersrand.

Sasha Kinney provides research and support for creative activism, civic tech, citizen journalism, grassroots organizing and social movements in Kenya.

Learn more about the research behind Alidade