Reflections from the first GlificConnect

On 25 September 2026, more than 100 people came together in Bengaluru for the first GlificConnect, around a question we encounter repeatedly in our work with nonprofits: what does it really take to make technology work for programmes and communities?

We wanted different parts of that conversation in the same room: organisations experimenting with technology and those operating at scale; people making technology decisions and those implementing them; NGOs, practitioners, funders and technology partners. There were NGO stories, a panel, four workshops and a fireside conversation with Meta. But some of the most interesting conversations happened away from the stage.

For us, it captured what we hoped GlificConnect could become: a space where organisations doing the work could show it, question it and learn from one another.

That idea had started taking shape the previous day, when organisations from our six-month Accelerator shared their journeys, including their challenges, pivots and next steps. We did not want those conversations to end within the cohort.

So, the next morning, we widened the room.

Start with the problem, not the technology

In her keynote, Rekha Koita, Co-Founder of Koita Foundation, brought the conversation back to first principles: technology needs a clear why and a real use case.

That distinction becomes even more important with AI. The starting question cannot simply be “Where can we use AI?” It needs to be: What problem are we solving? For whom? And where can technology meaningfully contribute?

One thought from the day captured this particularly well:

“It’s not about scaling the tool or scaling the tech. It’s about scaling the impact.” ~Rekha Koita

Our Voices from the Ground session made that distinction tangible. Avantika Jain from Protsahan India shared the experience of a recently piloted programme, while Atharva Joshi from Civis brought the perspective of an implementation further along its journey towards scale.

The panel that followed, “Making Conversational Tech Work at the Last Mile,” brought together perspectives from Udhyam, TAP, Koita Foundation and Glific to examine what happens beyond building the technology. From choosing the right communication approach to navigating adoption, organisational capacity and sustainability, the discussion reinforced that technology alone does not determine whether an intervention succeeds.

Together, these conversations highlighted an important distinction: scaling technology and scaling impact are not necessarily the same thing.

The questions change as technology matures. Early on, it may be Does this work? Later, it becomes: Are people using it? Can the organisation sustain it? Can it become part of the programme?

Ultimately, if impact is the objective, we need to look beyond flows created, messages sent or users reached and ask: What changed for the programme and the people it serves?

Different stages need different conversations

A room of 100+ people was never going to have one common learning need. A nonprofit leader deciding whether and how much to invest in technology is asking a different question from a programme team designing conversations for beneficiaries. An organisation considering its first chatbot needs something different from a team already building with AI.

So rather than designing four variations of a technology workshop, we built the sessions around different decisions and audiences.

For leaders, the conversation was about planning and funding the real costs of technology. For organisations assessing conversational technology, the question was more fundamental: Is a chatbot right for your programme? Programme teams explored behaviour and engagement, while teams already building with AI went deeper into responsible implementation through evaluations and guardrails. 

Together, these conversations reinforced something we increasingly see in our work: Technology adoption is not one decision. Building capacity cannot simply mean teaching organisations how to use a tool. It also means enabling better decisions about whether to build, what to invest, how to design, how to evaluate and when to scale.

The conversation needs to travel both ways

Piyush heard examples of how nonprofits are using WhatsApp, including programmes involving partnerships with state governments. He spoke about the increasing importance of voice, while organisations surfaced the need for broader language support to better serve the communities they work with. 

That is the kind of exchange we want to create more often:

Technology platforms can help nonprofits understand what is becoming possible. Nonprofits can help technology platforms understand what the last mile actually requires.

What we would do differently

The first GlificConnect also gave us a clearer view of what we would change.

We would widen the room further. Technology adoption in the social sector is an ecosystem effort. NGOs bring programme knowledge and proximity to communities. Technology teams bring platforms and implementation capability. Funders and CSR partners influence whether organisations can move beyond experimentation. Governments can unlock reach and integration at scale. We brought several of these perspectives together, but not equally. Future conversations would benefit from stronger participation from funders and CSR leaders, government partners and grassroots organisations, alongside those already building and implementing technology.

We would create more space. In trying to make the first GlificConnect useful for a diverse audience, we packed a lot into one day. Yet some of the most valuable exchanges happened when people had time to explore the showcase, continue a conversation after a session or simply compare notes with another organisation. Next time, we want to protect more of that time.

And we would go deeper into the work itself. The feedback we received pointed towards an appetite for more hands-on demonstrations, NGO implementation stories, deeper AI and product conversations, and opportunities to learn directly from peers.  Rather than only hearing about an implementation, we would like to create more opportunities for organisations to open it up: show the flow, explain the decisions behind it, and talk candidly about what worked, what failed and what they would do differently. Some of that exchange should not have to wait for the next GlificConnect either. We want to explore more regular opportunities for NGOs to share their implementations and learning with one another. Because one organisation’s learning should be able to shorten another organisation’s journey.

The room can be wider still

The first GlificConnect did not leave us with all the answers. It gave us a clearer sense of the questions that matter, the voices that need to be part of them, and how we can make the room more useful next time.

How can organisations move from experimentation to sustained programme value faster? How can grassroots innovation become more visible? How do we bring funders, governments, technology platforms and nonprofits into these conversations earlier? And when we talk about scale, how do we make sure we are measuring impact, not simply technology adoption?

We started by widening the room.

There is still much further to go.