Masuno App

I'm a versatile international consultant, working at the crossroads of strategic communication, design and tech for social impact. I'm passionate about projects involving knowledge sharing, storytelling, and design. I believe in the transformative power technology for good when it's combined with human-centered design and a good dose of reality. Since 2012, I've been an entrepreneur, and in 2016 I started a design studio, based in Bogotá. I'm mom to a 3-year old, wife and aspiring cook. 

MA in Communications at Johns Hopkins University, Washington DC. I started masuno from my dining room in March 2020. 

Masuno is an open digital platform providing an opportunity to all those out there in search of a way to help their communities. It leverages 'agency' and the solidarity inspired by the pandemic, to address some of the key challenges we face today. Among them: How to facilitate equitable access to quality information so we all can protect ourselves and our families, observe healthy social norms, make better decisions, and more effectively support our communities? How to give a hand to those facing the severity of quarantines and unemployment with free mental health and emotional support delivered by professional volunteers? How to create a market place to connect people with solutions and with those offering help in many forms?  We believed it was possible, and through Masuno, we're making it possible, with a little help from our friends. 

In the midst of the pandemic, Masuno addresses several problems:

1. The risk of fake news. People all ages are exposed to the dangers of fake news, and particularly the elderly and the most vulnerable are receiving a great deal of information through social media and Whatsapp, which is hard to evaluate and process. They need a reliable, yet easy way, to navigate all this information on their mobile phones.  

2. The need for accessible and affordable mental health services for people in prolonged quarantines. The effects of the pandemic are making the mental health pandemic even worse, domestic violence, anxiety, depression, fear of death, and similar are affecting widely people all ages. 

3. The need to provide effective platforms so that the public can donate time, expertise, effort, and ideas to craft together the solutions we need to overcome the devastating effects of the pandemic. With social distancing restrictions in place, people need a wider array of virtual ways to connect with causes and join efforts to effectively contribute to the solution from their very unique position in their communities. 

Masuno is a virtual help desk, that utilizes Zendesk (Client Experience Software, donated license) to create an accessible and extensive knowledgebase (500+ verified articles) about coronavirus, help offerings, and how to help. We're not a non-profit. We're a citizen platform 100% operated by professional volunteers and have been working since March 23, 2020, with no funds at all, only in-kind donations. 

Beyond providing this growing free curated knowledge base, we use the robust technology of Zendesk Support Software to capture requests from the public and to connect the people that reach out to us with solutions, leveraging the generosity of our network of volunteers. We capture these requests from many channels, including online forms, Whatsapp, Twitter, email, and more, thanks to the omnichannel CRM software we're using. 

We're most proud of the results of one of our pilot programs. We have put together a team of volunteer mental health professionals, who are providing free mental health consultations to any person that may need it. We also use the platform to pivot other ideas and have designed a service offering that is available to all. 

We serve anyone in need of our curated information service. But mostly, we serve:

1. Young and elderly people from low-income families, or with no support network, who are struggling with health problems during the pandemic. 

2. Elderly people with less access to quality information.

3. Those less able to use technology who reach out to us, so we can help them locate services and apply for different relief programs. 

The pandemic has made visible the cracks in our society. We believe information is widely accessible to anyone. But that is not the case. Safe, high-quality information is often found in the form of hidden gems, and deep down in a sea of information that is very hard to navigate. Governments have made great efforts to speed up their digital transformation leaving millions behind. 

There are millions of professionals stuck at home, depressed, and wishing for way to help. We offer a platform to enhance the agency we need to cope with all this uncertainty. 

On March 20th, 2020 I listened to a BBC podcast where a frontline doctor in Manchester was sharing how was it like inside an intensive care unit. I was depressed and paralyzed by fear. A couple of days after, I decided that my experience and knowledge should be somehow put to work, and I shoot an email to Zendesk. My thought was: What if we could use the most robust customer experience software in the world to create a hotline or help desk for people in need? I used their client support email. I didn't expect a call back. A few days after, they responded, saying they sent my request to their 'Tech For Good' area. I couldn't believe my eyes. I didn't know that division existed. Later, I pitched the idea to them from my dining room. Just like today. Days later, I had another interview, and they offered some donated licenses and a great deal of encouragement. I started recruiting volunteers on LinkedIn and almost four months after, here we are. More that 50 volunteers in 8 countries have donated time and ideas to make Masuno possible. Telling this story makes me emotional. 

My country Colombia is a wonderful, beautiful country full of contrasts. Corruption, poverty, and other deep social issues are pervasive, while on the other hand, the country thrives with a growing economy, a hyper-connected youth, a vibrant creative and entrepreneurial community that stands-out internationally. 

We are hopeful, happy people. But the divide is so deep, that it's almost impossible to live your life to the fullest when so many social challenges are getting worse around you. That is my drive. I'm passionate about design, tech, and knowledge sharing, but most of all I'm passionate about innovation for social impact. This moment is our moment to be our best selves for our communities—so together, we can create not a 'new normal' but a 'better normal' where there is space for all to thrive. 

My background is in Government and International Relations but I've made a career in strategic communications and international development. I'm a creative person, who enjoys connecting with people and bouncing ideas, and I am also a go-getter, stubborn, and driven. I'm not a designer but I am a self-thought designer that enjoys a good challenge and thinking differently.

I feel grateful to have the chance to live in an era where creativity and social impact are converging. The labor market is slowly starting to change in favor of people who can contribute new approaches to old problems. 

Having the courage to dream that things can be done differently must be matched with great persistence. I believe that creating socially responsible solutions must be a thorough process, where empathy, a deep understanding of human behavior, humility, and teamwork are essential to success. 

Masuno (plus one in Spanish) is called Masuno app because, in the beginning, we dreamt of an app that could provide all the functionalities described above. I expected to connect the Zendesk software to that app though an API. I tried hard to reach out to countless potential donors in the private and government sector to make it possible, but nobody responded. Decision-makers were whether too busy trying to make sense of the upcoming changes within their own teams, or just launching their own response programs. I persisted. My aha moment came when I realized that an app could only increase the very barriers we were trying to put down. So we decided to step up the efforts to gather more volunteers and do this on our own. I'm confident that with our results, we'll be able to prove how powerful our idea is. 

I'm a woman entrepreneur but could have easily gone for a more traditional career in the private sector. I have been able to gather around Masuno a group of more than 50 volunteers, most of them I've met during the pandemic. Keeping the team motivated without any financial incentive is not easy, but we do it with respect for other's perspectives, by energizing the team, encouraging them to think big, bringing along big team players like Zendesk, and using humor and good vibes to our benefit. My mother, and (secretly) my husband, think I'm a bit nuts to push so hard for this. But my drive is getting things done, and I'm proud of leading the Masuno team. I believe this has been one of the most elevating experiences of my life, with great lessons on leadership that will remain with me forever. 

We're repurposing one of the leading technologies in client experience software (Zendesk) to create a virtual help desk for the people without support networks. In doing so, we're pushing the boundaries of this great tech into something that is accessible, inclusive and extremely powerful for social change, particularly in this moment in time. 

Check out our Instagram to see our brand in action, we think that's pretty innovative too for a project like this @masunoapp

We haven't developed a theory of change, yet. We are testing and piloting a service offering and getting great response from both the public and our volunteers. We may need to mature our practice some more before we can articulate a proper theory of change. We'd love some coaching on this front. 

We are currently reaching 2.4K people with our knowledge database, monthly. Most of them find us through organic Google Search.

We advertise our free mental health service on social media, and are currently supporting 1 to 3 people daily. 

We have great potential for scalability, but we need to invest in strengthening our capacity and develop a stronger marketing strategy. 

By the end of the year we expect to have doubled the monthly visits to our knowledgebase. We expect to grow our number of volunteers to at least 100, and also expect to have a team of 14 to 20 psychologists delivering the free mental health service from the platform.  

Keeping the team together without any financial incentive is very challenging. In addition, a virtual help desk requires a dedicated team that is available in a consistent way. We know that for Masuno to achieve its full potential, we need to put together a core program team, plus a pool of 20 paid service agents working from home as problem solvers. Information curators should also be compensated for their effort in some way. 

We are actively applying to grants and challenges to gather the funds we need to scale up our pilots. This includes: putting together a formal core team, trademarking our name and brand, establishing a legal entity, hiring a team of service agents, and investing in marketing efforts to reach out to our potential users. 

Wehave the potential to create jobs too. Our solution can offer safe work opportunities for hundreds of professionals willing to work as problem solvers at Masuno in the region. 

Zendesk - Donors of our software license

Centribal - Donors of our Whatsapp channel and coding support

We don't monetize any of our services in any way. We don't plan to do it in the future either, unless the model for growth requires that we change our mind in this regard. We are open to thoughtful feedback. 

We provide value in the form of service and intrinsic reward to our volunteers only—but we're realistic about the fact that we need to better fund this solution in order to scale it up. We only have a few months left of our software license and we need a larger team to take Masuno to the next lever.

Our path to financial sustainability would require some sort of impact investment to allow the improvements we need to make to become a fully-fledged online service. 

We haven't made any revenue or received any funding so far. 

We are seeking to raise funds that could allow Masuno to continue operating in our communities, even beyond the pandemic. Our knowledge base can evolve and we have the potential to create remote jobs. That's our dream. 

We don't have a formal estimate yet, but we anticipate that the value we have put into Masuno as a a team, including the value of the technology adapted and coded for the project, the time of volunteer staff, and marketing plan, is currently around 100K - 120K. 

We have proven the power of a rather simple, elegant, tech-based adaptation that is making real impact only 3 months after launch, with no financial funding whatsoever. We believe that the Elevate Prize will:

- Increase substantially our capacity to operate, market our platform and expand our service offering.

- Provide the technical support we may need to hone our narrative, our potential business model, and our outreach.

- Give validation and visibility to our innovation.

- Allow us to expand our reach to millions of people in the region. 

- Make Masuno a great place to work from home for hundreds of people who want to work as problem-solvers in support of their own communities. 

Being such a recent initiative, we need support in most of the areas above. We have a pool of exceptional talent, and through partnerships, we expect to continue providing them with opportunities for advancing their career goals, while giving a platform for making the change they want to see in the world.