Following Digital@DAI’s recent blog on the sustainability of the successful coding and business plan program, Technovation Girls, we are zooming out to look at the larger project that enabled successful digital ecosystem growth in Cambodia. At DAI, our focus is on delivering projects that achieve lasting results beyond donor funding. When we do our job right, we leave behind a stronger set of individuals, partners, and institutions that make up an ecosystem. In Cambodia, we succeeded. Enter the experiment that was Development Innovations back in 2013.

Photo: USAID Cambodia Development Innovations.

What was Development Innovations?

Development Innovations (DI), funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was originally envisioned to support Cambodia’s digital and innovation ecosystem, one of the first-of-its-kind programs in USAID’s history, inspired in part by the digital and innovation ecosystem growth in Nairobi and Silicon Valley. After piloting several approaches, we adopted a service-oriented and demand-driven model to build the capacity of civil society actors, social enterprises, and micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) to design and use digital technologies and innovative approaches to address Cambodia’s development challenges.

As we wrote in this 2019 blog post at the end of the project, DI’s key lessons learned were: adapt, serve your users, and tell your story. As we approached the five-year anniversary of the end of the project, Sotheavy and I talked to a few of our partners and reflected on some of the other success factors that enabled the project’s enduring results:

Many of our Cambodian partners, some of whom had never partnered with donors before working with DI, are now delivering enduring results for stakeholders nationwide. These include Sisters of Code, Agile Development Group, Technovation Cambodia, and many more:

• Trust. By implementing a communication strategy that combined social media outreach with in-person events and networks, and by maintaining a strong focus on customer satisfaction for all users of DI’s services, we built a trusted brand within Cambodia’s digital and innovation ecosystem. Stakeholders quickly recognized that DI’s training courses and services were of high quality and tailored to users’ needs, creating real value for those involved in the DI network. DI partner Kawsang’s co-founder Channé Suy Lan said, “Donors should work with local partners side by side, like DI. Both donors and local partners should be transparent about the results they achieve and the challenges they face and then use that information to make things work better. DI’s model doesn’t just help the local partners improve and deliver for communities, but this model helps the donors get better, long-lasting outcomes.”
• User-focus. Through needs-focused surveys, focus groups, gap analyses, and reflection sessions, we learned what our target groups—civil society, social enterprises, and MSMEs—wanted from DI. Using data-informed analyses, we designed our services to meet those needs and checked in regularly with them to ensure the services were high quality. We always wanted to know: Would you recommend DI’s services to others? DI partner Impact Hub’s CEO Melanie Mossard said, “I would recommend [donors] invest in multi-year (three to five years) programs with incubation centers, as it truly helps secure a very skillful and talented team who build up their skills throughout the project and refine the project activities [for entrepreneurs] based on the feedback gathered during the 1st year.”
• Neutrality. Since our services were sponsored by USAID, the project wasn’t linked to a particular product or business that needed to sell something. DI provided a neutral and trusted offering—especially through advisory services or technology coaching sessions—and filled a service gap as Cambodia’s digital ecosystem grew. We also provided open funding opportunities to strengthen the ecosystem as a whole, rather than only working with one or two ecosystem players.
• Partnerships. DI developed partnerships with the private sector to help leverage USAID’s financial support and ensure the sustainability of the projects after DI ended. These partnerships leveraged more than $300,000 and were developed based on shared value propositions: improving digital skills for all Cambodians. This approach contributed to the sustainability of DI’s interventions and was recognized by USAID’s Private Sector Engagement Hub’s Enduring Results 4.0 Study.
• Storytelling. Through videos and social media campaigns, as well as online Facebook communities (Cambodia’s leading social media platform) we celebrated our partners’ successes and championed digital changemakers across Cambodia’s ecosystem, even if we hadn’t directly funded or supported them.
• Diversity. We hired a team with broad skills from the media, civil society, and creative sectors, rather than focusing on people with many years of experience in the development sector alone. This diversity helped us foster a culture of innovation, lifelong learning, and trust, and we were able to model that kind of culture for the larger digital ecosystem. Our coaches had extremely practical skills in their target areas (design thinking, video production, social media management, etc), and were incentivized to build trust with their constituencies and help solve problems, rather than build or sell new products.
• Adaptability. We frequently conducted focus groups, sector-wide surveys, and pause-and-reflect sessions with partners to understand the rapidly evolving needs of key stakeholders in Cambodia’s dynamic digital and innovation ecosystem. Using this feedback, we swiftly addressed key challenges and gaps in our services. When budget or timeline constraints limited our ability to make changes, we leveraged user feedback to advocate with other development partners to fill those gaps.
• Confidence. The DI team and our donors had the confidence to recognize new opportunities when something wasn’t working. That confidence enabled the project to make the necessary changes and pivots quickly. This confidence is crucial for the success of demand-driven, ecosystem-focused projects.

In short: The ecosystem’s success was also our success.

What else proves the DI model delivered? Our Cambodian partners, some of whom had never partnered with donors before working with DI, are now delivering enduring results for stakeholders across the country.

Photo: USAID Cambodia Development Innovations.

Here are a few stories of success:

• Kawsang (formerly InSTEDD iLab Southeast Asia). InSTEDD was a regional arm of a U.S.-based nongovernmental group focused on social innovation and impact and they partnered with DI in 2017 to get funding and technical support to expand their design thinking workshops for civil society organizations and scale up one of their digital tools, Trey Visay, a career counseling application for young people. Now managed by the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sport, the mobile application connects secondary students across Cambodia to information and opportunities about educational services and career opportunities. In 2022, InSTEDD localized and transferred its activities to a Cambodian business named after the Khmer word Kawsang, which means create, build, develop. Today, as a local business, Kawsang continues to provide design thinking and digital design services to public and private partners across Cambodia today.
• Impact Hub Phnom Penh (IHPP). IHPP, a local franchise and one of more than 110 Impact Hubs around the world working to accelerate inclusive and sustainable innovation at scale, partnered with DI to pilot one of Cambodia’s (and IHPP’s) first accelerators for social businesses in 2016. IHPP says partnering with DI for funding and technical support was key in helping IHPP refine its accelerators and services for entrepreneurs. Here’s a snapshot of their growth: In 2016, DI was IHPP’s first institutional partner, supporting just five staff and seven entrepreneurs in one province. Fast forward to 2024, and Impact Hub now boasts a team of 25 and has collaborated with 35 institutional partners, and empowered more than 1,650 entrepreneurs across 24 provinces. The DI partnership built a foundation that solidified Impact Hub as a leading support organization for Cambodian entrepreneurs.
• SHE Powered by iDE (formerly SHE Investments). SHE Investments, which started as a three-person social enterprise to support Cambodian women entrepreneurs in 2017, first worked with DI to pilot an information service on business registration and received funding and technical assistance to develop one of the country’s first gender-tailored business incubators. Today, six years after the initial partnership, SHE is one of the country’s leading business incubator services for women and has served thousands of women-led businesses across Cambodia. In 2024, they integrated into iDE, now known as SHE Powered by iDE, to expand their model to new countries and communities as part of iDE’s global goal of serving 1 million female entrepreneurs by 2035.

Photo: USAID Cambodia Development Innovations.

Today, Cambodia’s digital economy is booming. Since the DI project began in 2013, internet penetration in Cambodia has skyrocketed from just 6.8 percent to 56.7 percent in 2024. Civil society, MSMEs, and the Royal Government of Cambodia are leveraging tools like Trey Visay to expand services and use social media and videos to tap into new markets and increase incomes. When designed with digital principles in mind, these tools have the power to transform lives and communities across the country.

Like USAID’s new Digital Policy emphasizes, ecosystem-focused strategies do more than just improve the effectiveness of development projects. They also help create sustainable, long-term outcomes that benefit citizens, organizations, and entire countries.

Kate Heuisler was the former Chief of Party of DI and Sotheavy At is a Strategic Communications consultant, trainer, and coach and worked on the DI project.