The Adalia team was originally commissioned to create a custom software program for an international development project in 2015.  Based on witnessing many challenges with other similar projects; the team had seen an incredible opportunity to bring about substantial efficiencies by digitalizing processes within international development projects.  

Current practices still include extensive manual paper processing, poor physical data storage and inappropriate use of current software solutions. There has been a strong need for a good stakeholder communication and collaboration platform due to there being many information silos consequently leading to many issues and problems.

The team was also surprised to see the amount of custom software being built for separate development projects every time. The software has been usually built from scratch, for single use, never to be used again. Overall, when viewed from a donor level perspective, it is extremely inefficient.

To solve this, the team decided to invest its own funds in software development to create a software platform designed specifically for the needs of international development funds and projects through digital transformation. From key project, fund management activities to monitoring & evaluation (M&E). A software platform that could be used for multiple different projects without having to be custom built or heavily customized every time.

So as a consequence, SmartME was born: A unique Fund Management and M&E software for International Development projects. 

The team was delighted with the positive, generous and outstanding support from development consulting community.

So, SmartME began in 2015 as a software platform to “create a lean and efficient fund operation from the cloud”. Since then it has developed with concrete, relevant and useable features to manage 8 funds with additional projects in its future pipeline.

Whilst SmartME may have a short and successful history; it has been created by a team with over a decade of experience in delivering specialist IT solutions for their clients' critical operations in different sectors across the globe.

SmartME’s vision is to continue to provide a unique and bespoke software platform for international development projects globally. 

The SmartME team would like to kindly acknowledge key contributors to the previous and ongoing development of SmartME.

SmartME is a software as service (SaaS) that is continually being evolved to meet the needs of the international development community. We are truly grateful for the invaluable input and high-level expertise from the international development field.

WE WOULD LIKE TO THANK:

(in no particular order)

Tor Lundström - Head of Division Niras International Consulting

Emeli Möller - Manager Nordic Climate Facility at Nordic Development Fund

Johanna Zilliacus -Project Officer Nordic Climate Facility at Nordic Development Fund

Hanna Mykkänen Senior Consultant at Niras International Consulting

Mari Helminen - Project Manager at Niras International Consulting

Ilari Lindy - Lead Expert / South African Innovation Support Programme (SAIS)