Tag Archives: ICT4D

March 12, 2010 · 3:54 am

ICTs and Development: workshop at IIT Delhi (Day 2)

Welcome back to the second day of the ICTs and development workshop at IIT Delhi.

We got underway with Jonathan Donner’s (Microsoft Research India) invited lead talk on The changing roles of mobile phones in development: some examples from Africa

  • Emphasised amazing growth of mobile ‘phones – but rightly noted that this is neither universal not homogenous
  • We need to focus on the people rather than the technology – M4D is the tip of an iceberg of uses that people make of mobile ‘phones
  • Uses of mobiles for agriculture: use of mobiles for ‘traditional’ extension; creating platform mobile services including new market systems such as Manobi, or lean market places such as Google Trader
  • Homegrown services: M-PESA and MXIT – low barriers to adoption, affordable and compelling relative to existing alternatives, woven into everyday life, network effects.  They do well because they are so simple.
  • Both of these offer real possibilities for scale – albeit not yet for the poorest of the poor – and do things that traditional voice cannot do
  • Importance of unintended consequences
  • We need more evidence; we need to distinguish between mobility and connectivity; and we need to take the long view
  • We should also resist the use of “M4D” as a research term so as to de-fetishise it – moving the emphasis to the people not the technology; if we keep the term, we need to focus on the “4”

MOBILES AND MICRO-ENTREPRENEURS

Parveen Pannu (University of Delhi, India) Mobiles and socio-economic life of press workers in Delhi

  • Focus on urban growth in India and the rapid adoption of mobiles, especially among informal sector workers
  • Having clothes ironed is a central part of urban middle class India – the ironing business depends a lot on personal contact and good will (but there is also a press workers union)
  • Survey of households who did ironing work: c.65% had a family mobile ‘phone; cost of ‘phones was major factor influencing price (some received them from their customers); users of mobile ‘phones earned more than non-users, but cause/effect not known; usage – 38% social, 29% work related; most calls were received from the lady of the house who arranged collection/delivery of clothes and finding new companies; 50% were not into texting SMS messages (not comfortable because of English language texting)

Ishita Shruti (IIT Delhi) Remittance behaviour and doing business among Indian rural salesmen in Cambodia

  • New ICTs have played an important role in remittances (both economic and social) – focus of this ethnographic research is on rural salesmen mostly from UP
  • Internet based ‘phone calls are the cheapest means of communicating – so people use internet cafés/’booths’
  • ‘Agents’ are used to deliver remittances – informal network enabled through ‘phone calls (social capital plays an important role in delivering remittances)
  • Mobile ‘phones have also facilitated business, enabling salesmen to interact with family but also to make decisions about their businesses

ICTs, CIVIL SOCIETY AND THE STATE

Jean-Yves Hamel (UNDP) Public interests, private costs: civil society and the use of ICTs in Timor Leste

  • Placed emphasis on the notion of freedoms and the capability approach
  • Highlighted role of FDI from Telstra – supported by UN – and subsequent problems associated with its monopoly position. Monopolies are associated with high costs of ICT provision; regulators are unable to challenge these.
  • Noted the early use of ICTs from 1994 to enable communication of civil society ‘opposition’ with the rest of world
  • Key role of deep women’s networks – links to health organisations, scholarships, women’s rights groups
  • ICTs provide an important window on the world

ICTs AND ECONOMY

Nimmi Rangaswamy (Microsoft Research India) The PC aided enterprise and recycling ICT

  • Role of ICTs in expanding small and micro-enterprises in Mumbai slums
  • ICTs can help promote skill building; business are organic and self-sustaining
  • Nice business ecology coming into play – capital, space, skills, hardware
  • Not simply assimilating technology for business, but also creating new systems and processes
  • “There is no ‘for D’ in it, because they are doing it themselves” – not sure I agree with this, surely this is itself a form of development

Jack Linchuan Qiu (Chinese University, Hong Kong) Working-class information society? Open questions about China and ICTs

  • Focused on the “information have-less”
  • Some statistics from China: internet users 2 m in 1998, but 298 m in 2008; 49% of internet users are now not college-educated – so Internet is being used much more widely across different sectors of the population
  • Private sector now accounts for more than half of urban population employment – so people have to find jobs, and this has been associated with a rapid increase in ICTs: does macro-empowermnet lead to (seemingly) micro-empowerment
  • Measuring information needs is complex; fundamental differences between information needs and wants.
  • Bottom of pyramid innovations are firstly social and only secondarily technological
  • Developing a new class analysis based on horizontal networking among workers
  • Chindia as a new path to development – a re-evaluation of labour-centred production

INTERNET AND SOCIAL CHANGE

Otgonjargal Okhidoi (Educational Channel Television, Mongolia) Can technology level the inequality in education delivery? Blended technology based education program in Mongolia

  • Mongolian democritisation and economic liberalisation created freedom for flourishing media companies, mostly for profit commercial broadcasting – mostly focus on imported programmes (soaps, sumo…)
  • Educational Channel TV began only three years ago for public sector broadcasting (4-6 hours airtime a day on academic subjects; not for profit and one of only 2 nationwide broadcasters).  Then Internet service and cellphone messaging added on to make it more interactive and provide feedback (focus of project on English language and IT)
  • 93% of total population of Mongolia names TV as the key source of information
  • Inequality of access to education and quality of content – 66% of children live outside Ulaanbatar, and are poorly served by education
  • Almost all schools have computer labs set up by donor funding, and all are connected to the Internet – but there is not much good content available.  So, they used 20 minute TV programmes and followed up with work in class on Internet. Reported that impact on knowledge acquisition was positive, and it enhanced self-learning

S. Subash (National Academy of Agricultural Research Management) Knowledge empowerment of farmers through interactive web-module on dairy innovations

  • Use of ICTs for technology transfer agricultural extension in the field of dairying focusing particularly on web-module (Haryana and Tamil Nadu case study)
  • Training in ICT centres given to farmers; needs of farmers identified and web-based learning module given to them
  • Reported that farmers in Haryana has a 16% knowledge gain as a result of the intervention, and 28% gain in Tamil Nadu – although some concerns were expressed in questions about the impact of experimental design
  • Benefits also gained by extension workers
  • Users requested more interactivity and provision of real-time information; it is important to ensure that content is regularly updated; mobile alerts for farmers should also be introduced

Murali Shanmugavelan (Panos, London) Telecentres and public spaces

  • Substantial amount of recent support for telecentres in India – but “what information is reaching what communities?”
  • How do telecentres interact with village communities – are they reinforcing or changing social structures? Study of 12 telecentres of different kind.
  • ICTs can constrain or expand public spaces (four layers of public: physical, management, human as public, and services) – communication practices can create a chaos in traditional systems
  • Key factors: location influences accessibility; telecentres specifically designed for particular underprivileged groups such as dalits are exclusionary rather than ‘public’; management layer is very influential (recruiting women increases inclusivity); type of service delivery influences usage (and real needs of excluded users are not necessarily delivered); social and cultural factors constrain usage (discrimination against women and dalits; low participation of elderly and disabled communities)
  • There is a real need to map non-users and understand more about why they do not use ICTs – traditional hierarchies

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March 11, 2010 · 4:50 am

ICTs and Development: workshop at IIT Delhi (Day 1)

It is good to be back in Delhi – and to have an opportunity to reflect on the use of ICTs in development practice with colleagues from across the world.  Thanks to Vigneswara Ilavarasan and Mark Levy for bringing us all together at IIT Delhi.

Following introductions from Prof Amrit Srinivasan (Head of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Delhi), Prof. Balakrishnan (Deputy Director, IIT Delhi) and Phet Sayo (Senior Program Officer, IIT Delhi), we got underway with the real business.  Below are some of my reflections on some of the presentations:

Rohan Samarajiva (Chair and CEI Lirneasia, Sri Lanka) Invited Lead Talk 1

  • Highlighted the key importance of bringing mobile prices down which led to expanded usage
  • Competition played an important part in this – he argues that this will actually lead to greater use by the poor
  • Implications for broadband and internet connectivity – will this follow the same path as with mobiles?
  • Policy implications: role of regulation (must deregulate); need to bring prices down; need for ‘fat pipes’ (international broadband connectivity); problems associated with rent seeking; need to go gentle on quality of service regulation (he commented that “I am a lapdog of the capitalists, but I prefer to work for the bottom of the pyramid”); in the end, customers pay taxes that governments impose on companies, so we need to phase out universal-service levies (companies show they do not need to be persuaded to work in rural areas).
  • Competition will find its level – he is a strong believer that the market will provide the right solutions.  My experience does not confirm this – I do not accept that the market will indeed serve the interests of the poorest and most marginalised.
ICTs AND SMEs
Vigneswara Ilavarasan (IIT Delhi) and Mark Levy (Michigan State University) ICTs and micro-enterprises
  • Used a probability sampling strategy of small/micro enterprises in Mumbai
  • Fundamental conclusion was that there is a mis-match between the rhetoric and reality of ICT-use for business purposes
  • Mobile phones are used for contacting employees and some business contacts, but they are used much more for social purposes with family and friends
  • Fewer enterprises have computers than mobile ‘phones, but those who have computers do use them more extensively for business purposes (using them for stock inventories, employee records, and tracking business processes)
Khalid Rabayah (Arab American University, Palestine) ICT use among Palestinian enterprises
  • Survey of just under 3000 Palestinian enterprises
  • Most business owners do not see much use for computers or Internet for their enterprises
  • Those who do use the Internet primarily use it for e-mail and searching for information; main reason for using Internet is to save time
  • They primarily use the communicating aspect of ICTs, and therefore especially use mobile telephony
  • Internet is not used much for business – mainly for cultural reasons; 50% prefer doing business face-to-face
Godfred Kwasi Frempong (Science and Technology Policy Research institute, Ghana) Mobile ‘phones and micro/small enterprises in Ghana

  • Reported the high usage of mobile ‘phones by businesses in Ghana.  Most used voice and only 21% used SMS as a business tool. Key issue why SMS is not used more is because people have to be literate to read a SMS message
  • Missed calls (flashing) are very important – some 65% of enterprises use them as an important business tool
  • Only 1% of the sample  used mobile ‘phone banking (although 13% knew about this)

ICTs AND WOMEN
Shikoh Gitau (University of Cape Town) Job-seekers in Khayelitsha

  • Highlighted the growing importance of mobile Internet
  • Reported on training scheme for a small group of young women in Khayelitsha – main use was to explore ways of accessing the Internet for gaining jobs
  • Other reasons why people were using mobile Internet included gospel music, news and information, Facebook and MXit
  • Knowledge among other people that they knew how to use the Internet raised their social capital

S. Nandini (Working Women’s Forum, India) ICT and women in the informal sector

  • Survey of usage by group of women in the Working Women’s Forum
  • Emphasised that women had an unfilled real need for communication, and mobile ‘phones can indeed now provide this.  Women in the informal sector has facilitated them in juggling multiple roles (social, business, etc.)

ICTs AND AGRICULTURE
Mokbul Morshed Ahmad (Asian Institute of Technology) Mobiles in Kampong Thom, Cambodia

  • Mobile ‘phones are mainly used for social purposes, but farmers can save some costs in terms of time spent travelling; that having been said, they need to find the means to pay for them
  • Traders generally use ‘phones more than the farmers

Surabhi Mittal (Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations) Mobile ‘phones as a catalyst for agricultural growth in India

  • Mobile ‘phones can help linkage between agricultural extension services and farmers, and this can improve farm profitability
  • Farmers subscribe to customised services – mainly seeking information on weather, market prices, inputs, government services…
  • Knowledge of better input prices and information do indeed enable higher productivity and thus enhanced farm profitability going up between 5 and 25%

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January 21, 2010 · 5:02 pm

Learning Management Systems in Africa

Our research paper on Learning Management Systems in Africa resulting from the DelPHE funded collaboration with colleagues in the University of Education, Winneba (Ghana), Maseno University (Kenya), and Eduardo Mondlane University (Mozambique) has just been published as

  • Tim Unwin, with Beate Kleessen, David Hollow, James B. Williams, Leonard Mware Oloo, John Alwala, Inocente Mutimucuio, Feliciana Eduardo and Xavier Muianga (2009) Digital learning management systems in Africa: myths and realities, Open Learning: the Journal of Open and Distance Learning, 25(1), 5-23.

In summary, the paper  reports on a survey of 358 respondents across 25 African countries into their usage of learning management systems. It concludes that while there are some enthusiastic advocates of such systems, the reality is that most African educators as yet have little knowledge about, or interest in, their usage. There remain very considerable infrastructural constraints to be overcome before they can be widely adopted for open and distance learning across the continent, and there is still reluctance in many institutions to develop systems that can enable learning resources to be made available in this way. This does not mean that the potential of high-quality digital learning management systems should be ignored in Africa, but rather that much more sustained work needs to be done in human capacity development and infrastructural provision if African learners are truly to benefit from the interactive learning experiences that such systems can deliver.

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January 19, 2010 · 1:47 pm

ICTD2010 call for papers and sessions

The calls f0r papers and sessions for the major ICTD2010 international conference being held at Royal Holloway, University of London, between 13th and 16th December 2010 have just been released.

The second and third days of ICTD2010 will primarily be for paper and poster presentations, whereas the first and last days will be  for workshops, panels and alternative events which could include open spaces, performances and exhibitions.

The deadline for all proposals and submissions  is 2nd April 2010.

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November 30, 2009 · 8:23 am

Report on using technology to help at-risk youth and people with disabilities gain employment

Researchers at the Technology and Social Change Group in the University of Washington in Seattle (Joyojeet Pal, Jay Freistadt, Michele Frix, and Phil Neff) have recently released an important report on the impact of technology training on the employment prospects of at-risk youth and people with disabilities in five countries in Latin America.

The report’s findings are “broadly divided by the themes that emerged in the coded transcripts of our conversations on the ground. Under environmental factors, we discuss issues around the prevalent discourse of technology that underlines the ways in which the various stakeholders imagine the role of computers and technology training within the larger social and economic ecosystems. An important environmental factor is the aspirational environment, for the role it plays in peoples’ willingness to participate in such training programs. Finally, structural issues around the labor market form the third set of environmental factors that are extremely important, given that both populations discussed here have histories of geographical and institutional exclusion from formal employment opportunities”.

It is good to see these important issues examined in detail; ICTs can indeed make a significant difference to the lived experiences of people with disabilities and at-risk youth

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September 5, 2009 · 9:06 am

Fake Aid: a critique of DFID’s rights based approach to development funding

The International Policy Network has recently published a damning critique of rights-based approaches to development, particularly as represented in the funding decisions of the UK’s Department for International Development.

Fake Aid concludes that:

  • ‘The value of DfID’s ideological rights-based approach for alleviating poverty is unclear’
  • ‘Even if DfID’s communications programmes succeed in spreading the view that people are entitled to certain services, there is scant evidence that declaring such rights actually improves conditions for the poor’
  • ‘By insisting on ill-defined rights-based practices through its partnerships with other organisations (NGOs, public-private initiatives, and foreign governments), DfID risks stifling innovative methods of aiding development by imposing a uniform, unproven standard across the sector’

There is much that is useful in this report, and certainly several of these conclusions coincide with some of my own recent writing on development aid and human rights.  However, the following observations would also seem appropriate:

  • DFID is not alone in supporting rights based approaches to development – this view of ‘development’ has over the last 15 years gained an increasingly prominent position in global rhetoric.  There is growing evidence that advocating rights actually has had little impact on delivering the needs of the poorest people in the world, and my own view is that we now need a fundamental rethink of human rights rhetoric and practice – not least to reflect the importance of communities and responsibilities.  This is the theme of my forthcoming keynote to the EuroAfrica-ICT meeting in Brussels on 1st October
  • Donors are increasingly encouraged to involve civil society organisations in dialogue and delivery – because they are seen as being more representative of the views of society at large.  Only a relatively small percentage of DFID’s total aid budget is actually spent directly through the privileged NGOs to which Fake Aid refers – although this still accounts for a considerable amount of money (c. £140 million on communications activities by NGOs)
  • It is crucial that DFID spends money on informing the British public about development issues.  Fake Aid strongly criticises the fact that DFID spends £13 million a year on promoting awareness of aid within the UK.  This criticism is misplaced.  If DFID did not spend this money, understanding of development issues by the UK public would fall and as a result support for our contributions to global development would diminish.  More importantly, it can be argued that the most legitimate way in which DFID can spend money is actually in the UK, influencing the views of the UK population – rather than using DFID’s budget to ‘interfere’ in other countries.  If UK consumption patterns, policies towards world trade , economic activities and international military intervention were to change as a result of public opinion, then many of the world’s poorest people would become far better off than they do through our present system of providing funding through the form of budget support mechanisms to foreign governments.
  • It is also dangerous to criticise all DFID’s funding of communications initiatives as though they had the same impact, as does the Fake Aid report.  Much of DFID’s work in supporting the use of information and communications technologies for development (ICT4D) over the last decade has indeed had significant impact on enhancing the lives of poor people, and this should be recognised.  Indeed, it is a real shame that such funding has now diminished significantly, and DFID’s role from being a leader in this field has now fallen to it very much being an also ran – which is a real shame.

Fake Aid is a very valuable report – but its conclusions do need to be tempered by a critical reading.

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August 20, 2009 · 1:48 pm

Freedom on the Net

For those who may not have read it yet, Freedom House’s publication entitled Freedom on the Net: a Global Assessment of Internet and Digital Media and published in April 2009, provides a very valuable assessment of the balance of interests in the spread of the Internet and mobile telephony across the world.

As Freedom House’s blurb says, “As internet and mobile phone use explodes worldwide, governments are adopting new and multiple means for controlling these technologies that go far beyond technical filtering. Freedom on the Net provides a comprehensive look at these emerging tactics, raising concern over trends such as the “outsourcing of censorship” to private companies, the use of surveillance and the manipulation of online conversations by undercover agents. The study covers both repressive countries such as China and Iran and democratic ones such as India and the United Kingdom, finding some degree of internet censorship and control in all 15 nations studied.”

The overview essay by Karin Deutsch Karlekar and Sarah G. Cook argues that there is a growing diversity of threats to internet freedom and that governments have responded to the spread of new media by introducing new measures to control, regulate and censor content.  As they conclude “In a fast-changing digital world, vigilance is required if we are to ensure continued freedom on the net.”

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April 27, 2009 · 9:21 pm

Reflections on ICT4D @ The British Council, Manchester

A visit to the British Council’s offices in Manchester today, and an invitation to give a ‘brown bag’ lunch update on current issues in ICT4D that might be of interest to staff there, provided an opportunity for the following reflections:

  1. There are important differences between ICTD and ICT4D – quite simply the “4”.  Much work in this arena has tended to be top-down and supply-led – be it by the private sector or academics who have great ideas and want to try them out in ‘developing countries’.   But the “4” can be of very different kinds – either in support of economic growth agendas, or to empower poor and marginalised communities.  Yes, these are NOT the same thing.  As I have argued many a time elsewhere, economic growth will not, indeed cannot, reduce poverty – at least when the latter is defined in relative terms.
  2. Much of my own work has tried to explore the needs of poor and marginalised people, and then to identify how ICTs might be used to help them achieve their aspirations. However, I am very conscious that this approach runs up against difficulties, especially when confronted with “rights-based” arguments.  Much development literature has shifted from “needs” to “rights”.  I guess I have problems with this – although my argument is not as yet well articulated.  First, it is all very well talking about human rights, but when people are continuing to be marginalised whilst this discussion is ongoing, I do believe we should also be trying to address the immediate needs of the poorest.  Second, I fear that the human rights agenda is actually part of a wider “individualistic” agenda.  Yes, of course human rights are important – but we must not forget “collective” and “communal” responsibilities in the rush to ensure that individual human rights are upheld.
  3. The technologies – there are some great innovations out there – I am very impressed with work being done by the TIER group in Berkeley: robust low cost wifi for healthcare; small microscopes that can be attached to mobile ‘phones; and long distance wifi (WILDNet).  Yet, for many of the poorest people in the world, more traditional solutions have to be, at least in the short term, the most sensible.  Radio remains hugely important in much of Africa.  I remain unconvinced about the claims made for m-learning – a real issue that needs to be addressed remains the screen size.  But, the explosion of mobile services across rural Africa provides huge opportunities for innovation. One thing is for certain, within a decade we will look back on desktop computers – and, dare I say it, even my beloved Mac laptops – as being very archaic.  The future is small, connected and mobile!
  4. This brings me on to infrastructure.  If Africa is to gain any benefit at all from the potential of ICTs, we must pay more attention to two ‘ simple’ things: electricity and connectivity.  If all the aid that has been poured into Africa in the last half century had simply enabled most Africans to have electricity, just think of the changes that would have been enabled!  One of China’s great successes has been its ability to bring electricity to something like 95% of all the country’s population.  Without electricity modern digital technologies cannot function.  The costs of digital connectivity across Africa are likewise scandalous.  ICTs cannot in any way be seen as having any potential to contribute to poverty reduction until the prices of digital connectivity (be it by ‘phone, cable, or satellite)  are dramatically reduced.  Perhaps the arrival of the submarine cable in east Africa later this year will begin to make a difference, but we have yet to see whether the poor will really benefit
  5. Likewise, we must have rigorous regulatory environments if the poor are to benefit from ICTs.  At the very least, these must ensure universal access.  The challenge is that it is not cheap to provide connectivity in rural areas of Africa, and this is not something that the private sector is readily geared up to deliver.  Across much of Africa, it has been those who are relatively better off who have benefited most from deregulation of the telecommunications sector. We need to find cost effective ways through which dispersed rural populations can gain access to the ‘content’ and ‘interaction’ that modern digital technologies permit.
  6. This in turn makes us confront entirely new kinds of business model.  The extraordinarily rapid expansion of mobile technologies in much of Africa is an indication of the willingness of relatively poor people to pay for services that they see as being valuable.  This has opened up huge possibilities for the provision of new services, especially branchless or mobile banking.  The potential to deliver large-volume low-margin services across mobile platforms is one that we need to encourage.  Traditionally most ICT companies have focused on the top-end of the markets; the potential for bottom-of-the-pyramid models in contrast offers real opportunities for ICTs to be used by poor people to their advantage.
  7. The challenges of content provision – finally, we need to address the pressing question of why there is so little indigenous quality content development in many of the poorer countries of the world.  I have been involved in several collaborative attempts to help develop local content, and have clearly not yet learnt how to do this effectively!  In part, the reasons must be related to the costs of developing such content, and the lack of skills to do so.  But these factors alone cannot explain the relative dearth of quality digital resources developed within most of sub-Saharan Africa (South Africa being an exception).  There is huge potential for the shared development of locally relevant content, but this has yet to be realised.

In conclusion, the above thoughts perhaps reflect an overly pessimistic and sceptical picture of the field of ICT4D, and I am quite sure that many people will be able to point to their favourite success stories.  Of course there are some!  However, I am utterly fed up with the ways in which small-scale pilot projects are continuously claimed as being huge successes, when they have little chance of ever going to scale, because they were only ever designed to be effective as pilots!  We must get real and admit to our failures.  Rather than implementing countless small ‘computers in schools’ projects, for example, let’s just try and roll out a single programme at the national scale in Africa to train teachers in the effective use of a full range of ICTs to enhance the quality of the learning that they help children gain.  Only when we do so, and when we turn our attention to ways in which ICTs can really be used cost effectively and sustainably to support the world’s poorest peoples, notably street children and those with disabilities, will be able to make any claims that ICTs have had an impact on ‘development’ – at least in the ways that I choose to conceptualise it.

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April 25, 2009 · 9:55 am

@Africa Gathering

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A rainy Saturday morning in London – Ed Scotcher has brought us all together to explore the interface between ICTs and African development in the first Africa Gathering.  He kindly asked me to say a few words of introduction – why is this Africa Gathering important?

  1. A joined up approach – it brings together people from many different backgrounds and contrasting experiences – and is therefore a marvellous opportunity for us to identify how we can work better together to help African people implement effective and lasting ICT4D solutions.  There has been so much wasted energy (and finance) in trying to implement ICT4D projects across Africa –  so many of which have failed.  Africa cannot afford such failure.  We must stop reinventing the wheel!  Working together in a joined up approach, we can perhaps begin to make a real difference.
  2. To learn – there are so many exciting initiatives ongoing in the field of ICT4D in Africa – and it is difficult to keep track of them all.  I am so conscious that my recent book on ICT4D is now horribly out of date – and so it is great to be able to learn from the fantastic group of people that Ed has brought together here today!  This, though, raises some huge questions about how we actually synthesise this knowledge.  There are so many ongoing initiatives and even repositories of information (or should this be knowledge?) already ‘out there’ – and yet we continue to make the same mistakes!    If we think we know all the answers, we have already died intellectually!  We must keep learning and sharing what we have learnt.  We must also seek to be more humble, and to listen to the silent voices of Africa.africa-gathering-11
  3. Cool things happen at the edges – one of the most exciting things about ICT4D for me is that it brings people together from a wide range of backgrounds – we need to have computer scientists, philosophers, social scientists, anthropologists, mathematicians, chemists, physicists…. and yes, even geographers involved! We need to keep this diversity. I fear a little about the way in which some people would seem to be trying to define a standard curriculum for ICT4D – to me, this is frightening.  Once we say that “this is what ICT4D should be about” we put up walls that keep some people in and prevent others from entering. We must keep the multidisciplinarity of ICT4D alive – I so hope that those of us here today will keep the energy of difference alive – and that we will continue to hang on to the edges!
  4. African needs and voices – we are largely a white male audience today!  This makes me reflect once more on one of the things I keep on saying – far too many ICT4D projects are top-down and externally led.  Entrepreneurs and innovators in Europe and North America all too often come up with great ideas that are then ‘imposed’ on African people!  Instead, we need to get to know the needs of some of the poorest and most-marginalised people in Africa much better than we do at present.  As many people know, my own personal focus is on how we can use these technologies to help street children and people with disabilities to lead more fulfilled and enjoyable lives – if only more of our work would address the needs of some of these most marginalised peoples.  Others of course have other priorities – but rather than imposing our possibly unwanted solutions for problems that may not exist, let’s simply spend more time listening to what Africa’s poorest people want us to do for them.

Finally, I was going to begin by saying “Welcome Africa Gatherers”!  But that made me think about what gathering small-cheetahis about – bringing together things that already exist.  Perhaps we should instead be “African Hunters” – after all, African peoples have great hunting traditions – along with my friend the cheetah.  My hope for today is that we will indeed become hunters – hunters for ways in which we can use ICTs more effectively to empower the marginalised and poor, hunters for truth and wisdom, hunters for humility…

Thanks Ed for bringing us together!

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January 17, 2009 · 12:49 pm

ICT4D and Slumdog Millionaire

What’s the connection?

Well, according to a report by Shubhajit Roy in  Express India, Vikas Swarap (whose first novel Q and A provided the basis for the film Slumdog Millionaire) says that he was “was inspired by the hole-in-the-wall project, where a computer with an internet connection was put in a Delhi slum. When the slum was revisited after a month, the children of that slum had learnt how to use the worldwide web. … That got me fascinated and I realised that there’s an innate ability in everyone to do something extraordinary, provided they are given an opportunity. How else do you explain children with no education at all being able to learn to use the Internet. This shows knowledge is not just the preserve of the elite,” Swarup said, while talking about the project, in which NIIT chief scientist Dr Sugata Mitra had carved a ‘hole in the wall’ that separated the NIIT premises from the adjoining slum in Kalkaji in 1999. Through this ‘hole’, a freely accessible computer was put out for use and with no prior experience, the children learnt to use the computer on their own”

A similar report, by Vikas Swarup, was also published in the My Week section of the UK’s Sunday Times on 18th January 2009

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