Getting Started

Registering an account

I already have an account with the MIF

Existing MIF user accounts will work for logging in to NEXSO.

On your first visit you will be redirected to a new profile page and asked to complete some extra personal information and to accept the terms of agreement.

I am new to NEXSO and the MIF

Welcome! To get started, use the Login link in the top right of the page. Once on the login page, click Register, complete your Account Details and Contact Details, accept the terms of agreement, and click Create Profile. You will receive an email with instructions for verifying your account.

I’m not sure if I have an account

Attempt to log in with an email address and password. If this does not work, follow the instructions above to create a new account.

Verifying your account

After registering an account you will receive an email with a verification link. Open the link in the email or copy and paste the URL into your web browser. The NEXSO website should open and display a confirmation message that you have successfully verified your account.

Logging in

Use the Login link at the top right of the page and enter the email address and password created during registration. If you do not already have an account you will need to register before you can log in (see above, Registering). If you have forgotten your password see below, Troubleshooting: Forgot Password.

Switching language

Use the language dropdown selector at the top of the page. NEXSO is currently available in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.


Account Settings

How do I edit my information?

Clicking on your name in the top right of the page will take you to the account page. The Edit button beneath your profile information will place your page in edit mode and enable changes to be saved.

How do I create a new institution?

New institutions cannot be created without first starting a submission. Institution details are collected during the first stage of the submission process, after providing a title for the idea or solution being submitted.

How do I reset my password?

Make sure you are logged out of NEXSO. Visit the Login page and select the link for Forgot Password? A new password will be emailed to you.


Creating a Submission

You must be logged in to make a submission. The process begins by following any of the Submit links on the homepage, and starting the six steps:

  1. Getting started – The title
  2. Provider – Details on who is providing the solution
  3. Basics – A short description of your solution and other basic details
  4. Story – The main part of the submission. The Challenge, Approach, and Results.
  5. Implementation – Finer details such as timeframes and historical costs.
  6. Preview – A peek at how NEXSO presents your solution before you hit Publish.

Getting Started

The Title

A good title is short, crisp, and easily understood. Think like a marketer; do not use a generic or overly vague phrase like Youth Employment or Recycling Program. Make your solution stand out.

Basics

The Tag Line

Elaborate on the title with a catchy pitch using no more than two sentences. This should entice people to find out more by clicking-through from a search listing to your dedicated solution page.

In many cases a single sentence is sufficient to elaborate on the title of a solution. Please note it is unnecessary to reference the title in your tag line, these two attributes are always displayed together.

A good tag line requires the title for further clarification of the solution, and vice versa, neither the tag or title is sufficient by itself.

Examples

Do not repeat the title
Sports Trains Youth is a youth workforce development program wrapped inside a soccer ball. We use the best of sport to help youth develop market driven job skills.
Keep it short
A catalytic tool to support and promote SMEs in tourism destinations.
A rapid assessment tool that benchmarks all small businesses against local counterparts.

Pilot location(s)

Indicate the countries where you have piloted your solution. Select all that apply. If you add an incorrect country use the “X” in the country box to delete it.

Development Themes

Please select the development theme(s) that can best be used to classify your solution. You may select a maximum of three.

  • Agriculture & Food Security
  • Business & Trade
  • Environment & Climate
  • Education & Skills
  • Energy & Clean Tech
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Finance
  • Health
  • Science & Technology
  • Water & Sanitation
  • Gender
  • Youth Development

Delivery Format

Please select the delivery format that best describes how your solution is provided.

  • Consultancy Support Services
  • Financial Product
  • Publication/Guide/Model
  • Hardware/Technology Services
  • Learning Program/E-Learning
  • Process/Methodology
  • Software/Web Products
  • Tangible Good/Product
  • Training Program/Workshop

Beneficiaries

Identify the end consumer, client, or beneficiary of your solution. Beneficiaries can be individuals, organizations, or groups. You may select a maximum of three.

  • Academia & Education
  • Children & Youth
  • Corporation
  • Disabled
  • Displaced People
  • Entrepreneur
  • Farmer
  • Financial Institutions
  • Household
  • Indigenous Population
  • Local Public Sector
  • Microenterprise
  • National Public Sector
  • NGO
  • Rural Population
  • SME
  • Urban Population
  • Women

The Story

The Problem

Describe the particular development problem that your solution seeks to alleviate (NOT a macro global problem such as climate change or poverty). This description should justify the need for your solution. Please address the following questions in your writing:

  • What is the current situation of the end consumer, client or beneficiary?
  • What is the specific problem or obstacle that the intended end consumer, potential client or beneficiary is facing?
  • What are the causes of this challenge or development problem?
  • What is the scale of the problem?
Examples
Identify the specific problem
Social unrest, violence, high rates of teen pregnancy and high crime rates are all linked to youth employment. Too often, at-risk youth in Latin America and the Caribbean have neither the skills nor the access to obtain good employment. Many do not even have access to good employment programs or the support needed to succeed inside those programs. At the same time, existing vocational programs often neither target the most-vulnerable youth, nor engage them effectively and many vocational programs have high drop out rates.
Outline the current situation
Many destination entities find it difficult to support tourism-related small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with opportunities to network and access markets collectively in the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) Region. This market condition has left SMEs, and in particular indigenously owned SMEs, with few options for improving their business without outside assistance because they have insignificant market power.
Explain the scale of the challenge
Emerging and developing business clusters show a wide variance in quality, ambition, and ability to service the international tourist market. Investors, donors and government officials wishing to improve product quality in these destinations often find it hard to know which properties are best equipped to receive the scarce resources they have available.

The Innovation

Demonstrate how your solution is innovative, how it makes a difference, and how it addresses the specific challenge you described.

Directly address the challenge or development problem, and describe how your specific, innovative method addresses the challenge effectively. The Innovation should be actionable, not simply a documented best practice or a concept for reviewing.

Examples

Explain what makes your solution different
Games and lessons from the sports field can help youth learn marketable job and life skills. To win on the sports field, one needs to understand, practice, and promote the core values of respect, teamwork, discipline, communication, a focus on results, and continued self-improvement. These six skills form the foundation of the Sports Trains Youth methodology, not just as “life skills,” but as “employability skills” that are learned on the field and in the classroom. This sport-based training is the first step towards employment in a four-phase curriculum, followed by targeted vocational training and internship placement, with continuous support from mentors.
Detail what your solution delivers
To combat the identified problem we inaugurated a constantly evolving collaborative product, combining the expertise and the design capabilities of a world class mapping organization, and the involvement of local people in tourism destinations to facilitate wise stewardship of cultural, historic, and natural resources. Called a Crowdsource Attraction Web Map, the map (print, online, or both) functions as a catalytic tool to implement community-based tourism.
Directly address the problem you described in the previous section
Local consultants conduct a rapid on-site assessment of small businesses, compiling regional results into an online database that benchmarks all participants against local counterparts, classifying them as Market Ready, Nearly Market Ready or Not Market Ready. A rapid needs analysis is also conducted to produce a short list of prime candidates for technical assistance or investment.

The Benefits

Explain the results and effects a potential solution adopter (a project designer) can expect from implementing your solution. Use the information below to guide your writing:

  • Do not describe the results from a project perspective (i.e. number of people trained, income increase, amount of dollars loaned), or simply state the number of end consumers and clients who have benefited from the solution.
  • Describe the results a solution adopter can expect. Use emotive language.
  • Outline any results that have already been achieved, or any evidence of success.
  • Demonstrate the solution’s quality and potential for replication.
  • What are the benefits seen by the end-consumer and clients of the solution? Provide context over time: How were lives improved by the solution?
Examples
Explain what can be expected
Over 9,000 youth throughout Latin America and the Caribbean have participated. Approximately 80% graduate from the program and of those approximately 60% gain a job, start a business or go back to school to further their education within 9 months of completing the program. Over 70 NGOs have been trained to implement this program and hundreds of business and community groups have collaborated. Participating youth find jobs that enable and motivate them to continue their career development, build a better future, and strengthen their families and communities.
Highlight replicability
20 crowdsourced web maps have been completed, or are underway, in 6 countries. More than 2 million guides have been printed and distributed in hard copy. The accompanying brand name and message helps to convene the local stewardship Council required for each project, and helps to promote the destination and SMEs at a fraction of the standard cost.
Clarify the benefits
1000s of MSMEs from Africa, Asia, North America and South America have been assessed and classified, and nearly market-ready properties have been presented to the interested parties. E-commerce Readiness, Training Needs, Financial Sustainability and Social Sustainability usage are all included in the final report, providing a valuable insight into the quality and level of accommodation in a destination.

Additional Information (optional)

Use this section to provide more information that can convince potential adopters to connect with your solution. This is another opportunity to explain your solution in detail, or elaborate on a particular area. You might use this section to provide a history of your solution (how it was developed or to demonstrate any credentials that might be relevant to the user or potential adopter. Please do not simply summarize information already provided.

Implementation

Implementation Details

Please detail any specific points of interest someone would need to know about implementation in order to evaluate the solution and its replication potential. Highlight any specific characteristics, features, and prerequisites that may not be sufficiently clear from other sections. Use this section to highlight whether any part of your solution is provided in a different format than the main delivery format.

Duration

Please provide an indication of how long it takes to complete an implementation or transfer of your solution. This can be a general reference or historical duration from a previous implementation. The available options are based on typical development projects. Include the time required for preparation, adaptation, implementation, and any evaluation reporting. Further clarification of the time frame can be provided in the Duration Details section.

  • Immediate
  • < 2 weeks
  • < 3 months
  • 3-12 months
  • 1-2 years
  • 2+ years
Duration Details (optional) 

This section is meant to provide any further clarity for the Duration Reference. Include billable days/hours for the life of the project if relevant to the cost unit. For solutions that have long-term support (virtual or face-to-face) indicate the length of support provided. If there is an exact implementation time frame, different from the pre-defined options, this can be inserted here.

Historical Cost

Please indicate the approximate cost to implement your solution based on historical amounts. This is designed to give to the potential adopter a guideline on cost. It is understood that a number of factors come into play when an actual implementation is undertaken. These contingencies can be outlined in Additional Cost Considerations. Select a cost unit and then enter numbers only in the text box. The numbers should represent the US Dollar amount.

  • Lump Sum
  • One-Time purchase
  • Package Price
  • Per Course/Module
  • Per Day • Per Hour
  • Per Month
  • Per Organization
  • Per Person
Additional Cost Considerations (optional)

Please indicate any considerations that will influence the actual cost of implementing your solution. Please indicate the typical number of units if a variable cost is associated with the cost unit, for example:

  • Per Day – minimum of 20 days maximum of 50 days
  • Per Hour – typical implementation is 40 hours
  • Per Month – 4-6 months for a normal implementation
  • Per Person – Each course requires a minimum of 20 people and a maximum of 30 people.

Other important items to consider:

  • Travel costs
  • Licensing and legal
  • Hosting (for web projects)
  • Cost of materials
  • Anything else you feel is important for future adopters

Available Resources

Please select all resources that are readily available for the implementation of your solution or for the transfer of knowledge. This enhances the description and shows the effort undertaken to develop resources for scale and replication.

  • Coursebooks
  • E-Learning Modules
  • Exercises
  • Handouts
  • How-To Guides
  • Lecture Materials
  • Manuals
  • Presentations
  • Templates
  • Videos
  • Websites
  • Apps

Managing Submissions

How do I delete a submission?

To delete a submission please contact the systems administrator.

How do I edit a submission?

Only owners of a solution can make edits. A published submission must be returned to draft status first. Navigate to the solution you wish to edit and select Unpublish. This will return the solution to draft status (accessed through your account page) and enable edits to be made. Once you are finished, re-publish the solution.


Browsing

How do I browse?

On the left-hand side of the Browse page, use the List function to mark the Type of content you want to browse, Topics, Subtopics, and Delivery Format, or Country you are interested in viewing. Access more results by selecting additional items from the List menu.

How do I report a submission as spam?

Please use the Report as Spam button at the top of each solution page to report abuse. NEXSO will be notified and will take action as needed.


Troubleshooting

I forgot my registered email account

You will need to register a new account on NEXSO (see Getting Started).

I forgot my password

You will need to request a new password. On the Login page select the Forgot Password? link. A new password will be sent to your email account.

I’m logged into NEXSO but I did not register or fill out any form

If you are already logged in when you arrive at NEXSO for the first time it means that you are already logged into another MIF website. You will still need to follow the steps outlined above.