MANKA
MANKA is ADHA’s flagship social technology platform, initially focused on child nutrition while expanding toward broader community development challenges through accessible and community-driven innovation.
Transforming community development through accessible social technology
The challenge
Rural communities face multiple structural barriers that cannot be addressed through isolated interventions alone and affect long-term wellbeing, access to opportunities, and sustainable development.
Geographic isolation
Limited access to practical and culturally relevant information
Educational inequities
Gaps in community support systems
Digital gaps
Limited local coordination
MANKA was designed to respond to these realities through an adaptable, community-centered social technology model that strengthens informed decision-making, local capacity, and long-term resilience.
By combining accessible technology, participatory learning, and local implementation strategies, MANKA equips communities with practical, culturally relevant tools adapted to real territorial contexts.
The solution
Built with communities from design to implementation
THE MANKA IMPLEMENTATION MODEL
WhatsApp-Based Digital Access
Community-Centered Digital Adoption
Expert-Validated AI Guidance
Community-Based Learning
Local Implementation Frameworks
Long-Term Empowerment
MANKA is co-designed, validated, and continuously adapted alongside communities through participatory collaboration, territorial understanding, and local implementation partnerships.
Current Implementation Pathways
A growing platform for community transformation
MANKA currently operates through modular implementation pathways designed to address interconnected development challenges in rural communities.
MANKA NUTRITION
MANKA Nutrition is the platform’s first implementation pathway, combining AI-powered guidance, community workshops, and local implementation strategies to strengthen child nutrition and caregiver decision-making.
96%
93%
121+
Rural mothers actively validating MANKA
Report the information is useful
Report applying MANKA guidance in daily life
Currently under development, MANKA Women expands the platform toward digital inclusion, self-care information, and community participation for rural women.
20
5
Communities in the co-creation process
Rural women developing AI skills
100
Rural women validating the module
MANKA WOMEN
Meet Narcisa from the indigenous community Salasaka in Pelileo, Ecuador.
VOICES FROM THE COMMUNITY SHAPING MANKA
Global Partnerships
MANKA’s implementation and long-term vision have been strengthened through collaboration and recognition from global institutions, development partners, donors, research partners, and innovation ecosystems.
Manka Nutrition
Manka Women
Through an Applied Research Partnership with the Geneva Graduate Institute, Fundación ADHA collaborated in the development of field-based research exploring how MANKA’s community-centered social technology model can address chronic child malnutrition and broader development challenges in rural Ecuador.
The research integrated participation from local educators, community authorities, implementation partners, and community actors, highlighting MANKA’s combination of accessible AI tools, participatory innovation, and locally grounded implementation strategies as an emerging model for scalable community development.
Nominee 2025
Future Innovation Modules
Help us scale the future of community development
MANKA is being designed as an adaptable social technology ecosystem capable of expanding into broader areas: community health, education, leadership, economic resilience, digital inclusion, community data generation