Meet the Founder
Olivia Morris
Olivia Morris is pursuing a Master’s degree in International Development with a concentration in Rural Economic Development at The Elliott School of International Affairs in Washington, D.C. She focuses her academic pursuits on researching best practices in alleviating poverty amongst farmers in Eastern Africa and Latin America.
Olivia currently works as an intern for farmbetter, a digital platform that gives farmers across the globe advice on how to overcome the impacts of climate change. She supports the Co-CEO of farmbetter in managing current projects in Colombia and Ecuador.
She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish and Latin American Literatures and Languages from The George Washington University, grew up in Houston, Texas, and enjoys spending time with friends in DC when not training for her next Hyrox race.
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Why I Made this Toolkit
Welcome to the ALTA Toolkit!
I hope this platform can serve as a home base for practitioners who want to approach development projects as an iterative process, where learning from failure is encouraged, and delivering project impact for donors and beneficiaries alike is the soul of project management.
This platform is designed to take you through the various stages of project implementation, from kick-off to close-out, and offer tools for project managers to incorporate adaptive learning throughout that process. The tabs at the top of the website are meant to be engaged with in sequential order as they go through the basic stages of project implementation.
You might be asking yourself, “Olivia, that sounds great, but why is adaptive learning and an iterative approach so important that you made a whole toolkit for it?”
To that, I would answer that my studies and practice of development have taught me that no matter how well-intentioned and thorough a project plan might be, the implementation plan will change.
There will be unforeseen circumstances, complex political and social realities in the field, project delays, or budget changes. Project managers need the best available resources to navigate complex working environments and donor relationships while keeping local partners’ experiences at the forefront. The ALTA Toolkit is here to help.
I chose the name Adaptive Learning for Transformation Achievement (ALTA) because of the significance of the word “alta” in Latin, meaning high or elevated. This toolkit is meant to give a high-level overview of the knowledge I have gained on the practice of project implementation.
That said, it depends on the user to take these principles and apply them to their specific local context. By way of example, while both Mt. Kilimanjaro and Mt. Everest share similarities in that they are both mountains difficult to trek, the local contexts and specific details of each mountain are quite different.
I hope that whether you feel your project is like trekking Mt. Everest or a simple day hike through Great Falls in Washington, DC, the ALTA toolkit will serve as a trail guide to help you reach the transformational impact your project intends to achieve.
Contact me.
Interested in learning more about successful development project implementation?
Do you have a tool or piece of knowledge you want to share ?
Looking to grab a coffee and have a longer chat about the complexities of navigating international development projects while achieving a sustainable impact?
Fill out the form here and I will be in touch!