Putting technology to work for everyone

We work with you to make sure change happens. Our Social Impact Program is led by a highly motivated set of experts who combine a passion for social change with real-life experience in technology design, delivery, deployment, and infrastructure in the developing world.

How it works

To make the greatest impact that we can, we offer three engagement options for clients of our Social Impact Program:

• Commercial Engagement – is the primary means by which our Social Impact Program brings ThoughtWorks’ renowned Agile development teams to mission-driven organisations. In a limited number of cases, we are able to offer discounts below our commercial rates.
• Pro Bono – assistance is offered each year to a select number of worthy organisations with promising ideas for the use of technology but who lack the resources to build them. 

• Beach Program – This innovative program is a new pro bono model that we offer to other socially conscious firms to magnify their impact.

We understand your challenges

We know the challenges of bringing about social change – resources are limited, people are overworked, deadlines are tight, and the work needs to evolve with the situation. Our people adapt projects to the constraints and circumstances that our clients deal with on a regular basis. We use lightweight, iterative methods, such as Agile and Lean , to build advanced custom software in an “exactly what is needed, as fast as possible, evolve continuously” fashion, adapting to real-life circumstances and constraints.

Advanced software, and more.

We are experts in creating complex custom software, using the latest technologies and rich experience in the fields of Health Care, Mobile Communications, Renewable Energy and many more.

Not all organizations have existing infrastructure or expertise to install, host and manage their own software. We can host your new application or set it up in a virtual environment, with automated monitoring. We work with you to deliver a total operational solution.

The beach. A new resource model for social benefit

Consultants use the gaps between project schedules to spend time on continued learning, research and other activities. ThoughtWorkers can now use these schedule gaps — known by consultants as “beach time” — to contribute to pro bono social and humanitarian projects. 
 To do this, we dedicate a small number of project staff for oversight, coordination, and consistency.

Volunteers are matched with suitable social impact projects. Specially adapted Agile tools and techniques allow our people to contribute in very short increments, making productive additions to ongoing projects. It’s a unique contribution of ThoughtWorks and allows us to provide world-changing value at little cost or no cost to clients.