TechChange and Johnson and Johnson launch free AI literacy course for community health workers worldwide
The two-hour open access program, co-designed with frontline practitioners and backed by the Gates Foundation, has already spread organically across WhatsApp groups in East Africa and been embedded into onboarding programs in South Asia.
TechChange and Johnson and Johnson have launched a free AI literacy course for community health workers worldwide
TechChange and Johnson and Johnson have released a free, open access course on AI literacy designed specifically for community health workers. The two-hour program covers what AI is, how it is already appearing in public health contexts, when to trust it and when to override it, data privacy fundamentals, and how to use AI alongside human judgment rather than as a replacement for it.
The course was co-designed with a coalition of organizations including the Community Health Impact Coalition, Living Goods, Dimagi, Medic, Reach Digital Health, PATH, RECAINSA, Project ECHO, ARMMAN, and the Gates Foundation. It is available globally with no paywall or login requirements.
Nick Martin, Founder and CEO of TechChange and Adjunct Professor at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, wrote on LinkedIn that the course has taken on a life of its own since launching. He noted that people have been "sharing it across WhatsApp groups in East Africa," that "training coordinators in South Asia started embedding it into onboarding," and that several organizations have reached out about translating it into French and Portuguese.
Built with frontline workers, not for them
Martin wrote that the co-design process fundamentally shaped the finished product. He noted that community health workers "already had opinions about AI" and "had use cases we hadn't considered," adding: "The co-design process changed the course in ways we didn't expect, and honestly made it better than what we would have built on our own."
The course is structured around six learning objectives. These include defining AI and identifying examples in everyday health work, understanding how AI uses data and how to keep client information secure, recognizing the advantages and limitations of AI tools, and applying critical thinking to evaluate AI responses before acting on them.
TechChange has trained more than one million learners across more than 100 countries through partnerships with organizations including the World Health Organization, the World Bank, and CARE.
Scaling without traditional funding pipelines
Martin wrote that TechChange is already planning what comes next, though the path to scaling remains uncertain. He described the project as representing a shift toward "more creative collaborations with private sector partners, more open access content, more co-design with practitioners on the frontlines, and more focus on AI literacy that strengthens rather than replaces human care."
He added: "I keep thinking about how the default assumption is that AI literacy training should flow from institutions down to communities. But the CHWs we worked with already had opinions about AI. They had concerns. They had use cases we hadn't considered."
The course is available now at TechChange's platform.
