Children and young people, International development, finance and environment, Technology

Microsoft YouthSpark Evaluation

YouthSpark is a flagship programme of Microsoft Philanthropies that aims to enable young people around the world to learn digital and computer science skills. Just Economics was commissioned to evaluate the extent to which YouthSpark is achieving its mission and objectives. Using qualitative methods, over 100 stakeholders were engaged and site visits were conducted in the Middle East, Africa, Europe and Asia. The evaluation was commissioned to feed into Microsoft's strategic planning process and to inform its future strategy for YouthSpark.

Microsoft YouthSpark

Related projects

Microsoft’s Technology for Good programme

Technology for Good supports NGOs worldwide to increase their reach by providing subsidised software, funding and technical support. In 2017, Just Economics worked with Microsoft Philanthropies in Asia to assess the impact of the programme. The evaluation included extensive fieldwork in Asia.

Digital Inclusion Evaluation Toolkit

Developed for the Government Digital Service, this toolkit by Just Economics supports NGOs working on digital inclusion to carry out impact evaluations. The toolkit takes novice users through an accessible manual that includes a bank of outcomes, indicators and survey questions.

Technology in health services in Africa

Just Economics supported BT to measure the impact of its investments in health and education projects in Sub-Saharan Africa. As part of this, Just Economics was commissioned by BT to carry out a social impact analysis of the Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems installed in seven medical centres run by the international children’s charity SOS Children’s Villages (and funded by BT) in sub-Saharan Africa.

Living Digitally: an evaluation of CleverCogs

CleverCogs™ is a digital care and support system developed by Blackwood Homes and Care. It was designed to increase digital participation in adults receiving care and support packages and enable increased use of technology enabled care. Just Economics was commissioned by Carnegie UK Trust to carry out a mixed methods study to measure changes in outcomes for customers before and after the introduction of the technology. The linked report sets out the key findings from the evaluation. The full evaluation report is available on request.

Focus areas

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