Being a ‘Technology for Development’ social enterprise, ZMQ’s approach to solve social problems using technology is based on a System-changing approach rather than mere technology enablement approach. Various national and state processes related to critical issues like health, education and livelihood were designed some 50+ years back (from 1960s to 1990s). These processes were based on ‘Top-down Manual Model’ with a strong observation/supervision approach. Today, with the ubiquity of mobile networks and the reach of cell-phones in the hands of communities, there is a need to change the processes (system changing approach) by making them more inclusive by integrating communities as part of the solution. This approach of ‘Fully-technology linked community model’ (also a ‘Bottom-up Technology Model’) empowers communities and give them more control of information and services, which they never had.
ZMQ is using the technology-linked system changing process to impact more and more people by reaching out to them with timely health information and connecting them with public health delivery systems. With increasing mobile networks globally and low-cost handsets, millions of people that never had regular access to computers or fixed-line telephones now use mobile devices as daily tools for communication. This explosion of mobile phone usage has the potential to service delivery on a massive scale. It has also been evidenced that technology can bring in transformative changes by substantially improving accessibility, affordability and effectiveness of any health program. ZMQ’s theory of change is to provide “information & services” to isolated, marginalized and rural communities in a timely and accessible way, which often makes difference between life and death.
Using Technology for Development approach, our objective is to reach to more and more people (in millions); provide them with new communication and information tools; connect them with more public health services; enable services in various critical health domains; create more community health workers to reach more people; partners with more government networks in various states in India; partners with International Agencies for its scale in LIC and other developing countries; see more and more models being adopted by other organizations world-wide; and see improved health indicators in the areas of intervention.