Adaptation of Civil Society in Turkey to Technology and Digital Transformation 

Changes and transformations in the technology and digital world affect civil society just like it would affect any other sector. We begin our case with "Kodluyoruz Association" interview, where we discuss the capacity of civil society to adapt to technology and digital transformation.

In our Technology and Digital Transformation file, we aim to gain an impression concerning civil society’s adaptation to technology and digital transformation by taking opinions from 6 NGOs of different magnitudes that work in a variety of fields in Turkey as well as two specialists. At the same time, we intend to learn about the approaches of NGOs on the subject and them being aware of each other’s work in this field.

We asked many questions to the officials of the institutions whose opinions we’ve received about their view of technology and digital transformation, their use of these tools, and about the existence of digital communication strategies. NGO officials agreed that civil society should keep up with technology and digital transformation. However, resource constraints came to the fore as one of the biggest obstacles before civil society’s adaptation to digital and technologic transformation.

This file showed us that civil society’s adaptation to technology and digital capacity can be increased by enhancing the free or low cost supports provided to NGOs through organizations such as Techsoup Turkey, Facebook, Google and Microsoft. Besides, as Digital Affairs Coordinator of Civil Society Development Center Özgür Mehmet Kütküt has emphasized, it is very important for NGOs to digitize all their business processes in order to talk about civil society’s adaptation to technological and digital transformation. This reminds us how long the civil society has to cover.

The NGOs whose opinions were received on the subject in this file include AÇEV (Mother Child Education Foundation), Equal Future Association, Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH), Kodluyoruz Association, Supporting Women Candidates Association (KA-DER) and UNICEF Turkey National Committee. Apart from these, there are many examples that use technology and digital communication channels well, such as Minecraft application of Tohum Autism Foundation, Istanbul BlockChain School of Habitat Association and Skillsbuild platform of ReinBiz Association. This limited framework of our file can be seen as the first step of a comprehensive study on the subject.

Kodluyoruz Association: “It is Unrealistic to Increase Social Impact Without Using Technology”

First of all, we take a look at Kodluyoruz Association’s opinions on technology and digital transformation, which has the mission of preparing youth for technological developments, As emphasized by the officials of the association including Emre Küçük, “As civil society actors of Turkey, our goal is to increase the social impact and it is not realistic to do this anymore without using technology.” Kodluyoruz had prepared “Technology Industry Situation Analysis Research Report” in 2019.

Do you have any concerns about adapting to the speed of technological developments? If yes, what are you doing for this?

Keeping ourselves up to date with technological developments is one of our top priorities as we have concerns on preparing youth for them. For this, we follow the e-bulletins of organizations that publish quality publications especially on social entrepreneurship, technology and education globally. These include MIT Technology Review, deeplearning.ai, Starting Point, Exponential View, AI Now Institute, EDUCAUSE Review and The EvoLLLution.
Apart from that, the fact that some of our team and most of our Artificial Intelligence Advisory Board situating in the US have great positive effects on us. Thanks to these people, we can follow what has been talked about on a daily basis. Finally, following the podcasts and attending important meetings also allow us to catch up with the developments. For example, we are participating in Solutions for Youth Employment seminars under the World Bank, to whom we provide consultancy services as Kodluyoruz Association. Also by constantly establishing close contact with international entrepreneurships that have got out of Turkey and managed to accomplish great stuff such as Insider, Innova, Picus Security and Evreka, we’re updating ourselves about what the technology sector is up to.

“Civil Society Should Keep Up With Transformation”

What do you deduce from NGOs’ adaptation to technology and digital transformation? What do you think about the positive and negative effects of technology on civil society work?

We see the effects of technology and digital transformation in every aspect of our lives. At this point, it is not possible for civil society not to get affected by this change. It is very important for NGOs to keep up with this transformation. Initially, they need to train their employees and beneficiaries on technology literacy. Because every individual who no longer understands the logic of algorithms faces the risk of being manipulated in a world where algorithms affect our decisions. Secondly, technology offers many opportunities for NGOs to scale their social impact. Here we can talk about many ways ranging from online training to digital communities or to technological tools that can be used to mobilize local rights defenders. Thirdly, we see the effects of technology in the field of civil society in areas of communication and governance. While it is possible to announce messages to the masses and develop capacity in terms of communication, we see the positive effects of technology in order to better manage impact measurement in terms of governance and organizational processes. Lastly, data is now very valuable and it is much easier for it to reach large audiences. Accessing data and raising awareness of the communities by putting data in a meaningful form or mobilizing it for a specific purpose puts some risks forward as well as some opportunities for NGOs. For example, NetBlocks is a very successful example that uses data independently.
The risk is that this data is open for use of many people and institutions except for good intentions. At this point, NGOs must educate themselves and communities well and must be careful.

To what extent does Kodluyoruz use technology and digital communication tools in its activities? What kind of activities do you manage and you plan to do?

As Kodluyoruz, we use technology specifically for impact measurement, scaling, digital communication and capacity building. In impact measurement, thanks to technological tools, we can easily track the changes in the lives of the young people we train and receive feedback from them.
When it comes to scaling, we mean using technological tools to deliver our training to every young person who has dreams on working in software areas. Lastly, we use digital communication tools extensively, especially in internal communication and capacity building processes.
We use Slack for team coordination and Telegram for the Kodluyoruz Academy Graduates Club. During the selection process of Bootcamp participants, we also make use of digital channels on software testing and on one-to-one interviews.
Tools such as Graph Commons and Coggle are very useful to follow the ecosystem in which we work to improve our capacity. We also follow digital communication tools other than these, and we carry out continuous catch-up work within the team on the integration of new communication tools.

Do you use technology to increase the donations or your income?

Digital communication also contributes significantly to NGOs’ resource development. As Kodluyoruz, we operate our occasional or donation processes on our website.

Are you aware of the services of institutions that provide free support or donations to civil society such as Turkey Techsoup or Google, Microsoft or Facebook? To what extent do you benefit from these?

First of all, we find these services very valuable. In this sense, we especially benefit from the products of our partner Microsoft. We also received support from Techsoup and we use it in the most efficient way.

“We Pay Attention To Posting Content Every Day”

Do you have a staff responsible for your digital communication strategy and direct communication? Do you actively use your social media accounts? How often do you prepare content?

Although we know we need to strengthen, we have a digital communication strategy. We implement this strategy with the direction of our founding partner Aykut İbrişim and our communication intern. Apart from that, we do not have a person responsible for digital communication. Though, we pay attention to post content every day for every channel (Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter).
We also attach importance to producing content for LinkedIn where we have a target audience in the sector, for Twitter, which is frequently used by those working in the field of informatics, and for Instagram, which is used extensively by young people.
It is a part of our digital communication strategy to sort our target audience according to channels. Additionally, it is very important for the alumni to share information with other young people in order to inspire a revival of a community of developers in Turkey. Therefore, under the structure we call KodluyoruzLab, one of our graduates shares a blog post on Medium platform every week. We also share these Medium articles on other social media channels every week.

“Listening is an Important Notion for Digital Communication”

Have you made a measurement or impact analysis of concerning your digital communication channels?

Yes. We’ve been measuring the impact of our digital channels for almost a year. Listening is a very important notion for digital communication. At this point, we attach great importance to following the reflections of the things we’ve done on our target audiences. We’ve developed a system where we track important metrics monthly and report them within the team. We regularly monitor data in every medium such as our website traffic, other analytical data and the reading rates of Medium content, and measure our digital performance accordingly. We also closely follow the content posted in the field of informatics. We follow the opinions and questions of our stakeholders and followers, and respond to requests as soon as possible.

Do you have information about data analysis and data visualization methods? Do you perform data analysis and data visualization to evaluate your work?

We use data analysis and data visualization both in preparing our periodic and ongoing reports. The “Technology Sector Situation Analysis Research Report” we prepared in 2019 was an important output in terms of data visualization. We also make data visualization both in order to understand and explain our social impact and within digital communication performance reports.

“Technology Requires Capacity Development”

What is your evaluation on the capacity of your institution and about the civil society in Turkey to adapt to technological transformations? Do you think there are NGOs that use technology well as well as being effective and successful on digital communication tools in Turkey?

In this context, capacity should be constantly improved. Technological advancements are progressing so rapidly that it is impossible to say “We are very good at it now”. Therefore, it is necessary to constantly learn and develop capacity. In Turkey, we see that the private sector is naturally much stronger than the civil society in using digital communication tools. In civil society, resource constraints leave a large area to be developed on digital communication.

Do you think that the trainings to be given on the effects of new developments such as artificial intelligence, coding and blockchain on civil society are necessary for the use of technology and digital communication tools for civil society actors? Do you believe that such trainings will contribute to civil society activities?

Such trainings are necessary for the whole society, and of course civil society actors are also included in this requirement. Our goal is to increase social impact and doing it without using technology is not realistic anymore. Techchange.org is a good international platform on this matter that provides training to civil society.