For media inquiries, please contact media@surveycto.com.
Company overview
Dobility, Inc. is a social enterprise committed to promoting the effective use of data worldwide. Funded by — and accountable to — its users, Dobility offers affordable, reliable, and professionally-supported technology that anyone can use.
SurveyCTO, Dobility’s flagship software, is a mobile data collection platform that works offline and has been used by thousands of users in over 130 countries for impact evaluations, monitoring and evaluation, mHealth, academic research, household surveys, exit polling, web surveys, and other types of data collection. SurveyCTO is built atop the open-source platform Open Data Kit (ODK).
SurveyCTO grew out of Dr. Robert’s experience as a researcher on several Harvard-based development economics projects based in Tamil Nadu, South India. The same technical challenges seemed to plague every project, and it became apparent that better technology could simplify the lives of research team members, reduce project costs, and improve data quality. Leveraging skills honed as a technology entrepreneur earlier in his career, Dr. Robert quickly developed the prototype for SurveyCTO and founded Dobility in 2013.
Dobility is led by Dr. Christopher Robert, a technology veteran and development economist. The company has US-based offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Washington, DC.
About Dr. Christopher Robert, founder and CEO
Dr. Christopher Robert is a technologist, an entrepreneur, an economist, a researcher, and a lecturer.
As a technologist and entrepreneur, he founded Dobility, Inc., which produces SurveyCTO, an electronic data collection platform used worldwide by leading researchers and evaluation professionals. Earlier in his career, he co-founded and helped grow an Internet technology consultancy and led technology efforts for the top provider of software and hardware for multi-user bulletin board systems (the online systems most prominent before the Internet).
As an economist, researcher, and lecturer, he is involved in a long-term project to evaluate the impacts of microfinance in South India; he develops online curriculum for a program to promote the use of evidence in policy-making (initially in Pakistan and India); and he has lectured in statistics and policy analysis at the Harvard Kennedy School.
He holds an A.B. in public policy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, as well as Masters and Ph.D. degrees, also in public policy, from Harvard University.
Media and public speaking
Dr. Robert is available to provide expertise, analysis, and commentary on public policy, development economics, microfinance, technology, social entrepreneurship, and ICT4D, among other topics. Please contact media@surveycto.com.
Contact
media@surveycto.com