Welcome! SILverlining is a podcast from BRAC’s Social Innovation Lab on how to do frugal innovation at scale. From financial inclusion to behaviour change, this podcast brings together designers, thinkers and practitioners from the global South.

Welcome to SILverlining!

Bangladesh's economic lockdown following the outbreak of COVID-19 in March 2020 caused millions of households to fall back into extreme poverty. Tackling two-fold crises of health and hunger, the Government and development sector quickly reacted by engaging the growing digital finance ecosystem to serve the needs of the poorest. BRAC's programmes shifted their focus on providing financial assistance to at-risk families, while also adapting existing programmes to the new normal. Recorded in the early stages of the outbreak in March this episode brings thoughts from the Social Innovation Lab and Communications teams who work closely with programmes and clients.

1. How to innovate with digital finance in a pandemic? Lessons from Bangladesh

While digitization and virtual classrooms have been in conversation for some time, BRAC’s one-room classrooms have remained a working model for kids coming from low-tech, relatively low-literacy communities, providing students with enabling environments. With COVID-19 lockdowns, these schools have taken on a mobile learning model for the first time. In June, SIL partnered with BRAC Education programme and BRAC Technology to understand how teachers, students and their parents are faring through this transition, and how the programme should prepare for the future.

In the first of our two-part episode on innovations in education, we speak with BRAC's Education programme head Profulla Barman on how the pandemic pushed us to go fully remote. Recorded in September 2020.

2. #BuildingBackBetter strategies to improve the education of children from low-income communities

In the second of our two-part episode on innovations in education, we speak with SIL members who delved in looking at schools for low-income communities differently during the pandemic. Their goal? Making BRAC's schools more resilient and relevant for an everchanging and unpredictable world. Recorded in September 2020.

3. Why doesn't innovation and technology always work in low-income schools?

SILverlining: Tales of Innovation is a podcast from BRAC’s Social Innovation Lab on how to do frugal innovation at scale. From financial inclusion to behaviour change, this podcast brings together designers, thinkers and practitioners from the global South.

SILverlining: Tales of Innovation

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