When old-timers like myself first began applying information and communication technology to development there was no such thing as ICT4D, no world wide web, no broadband, and no SMS.

Working in the Nicaraguan parliament after the Sandinista revolution, my first assignment was training staff to use WordPerfect for MS-DOS on a pre-hard-disk IBM PC.

When I first registered a public email account in 1985 you could use just your first name as an ID in-front of the ‘at’ sign; even if it was a name as common as my own: tony@greennet.org

Back in the ‘olden days’ of the 198Os the main limitation of email was that almost nobody had an email address, and the few that did would only use their dial-up modems to check their inbox once a week.

Email was initially a tool used only by über-geeks who were fluent in Klingon and owned the full Star Wars VHS box-set – but within a decade a corporate email password was a task for job induction day one.

Yet as 2009 draws to a close are we witnessing the demise of email?

Now that every Tom, Dick & 491-scammer has an email account, we have become oppressed by mountains of unsolicited correspondence and besieged daily by spam, out-of-office and meeting scheduling message.

It is not  just the marketing spam and pre-payment scams alone that are the cause of this nuisance. It is also the excessive volume of email that professionals receive on a daily basis that has become a problem. That sheer weight of correspondence is why email has ceased being the productivity boon, that it undoubtedly was, to being a net burden within ten short years.

Sending an email is so easy that we spend precious hours every weeks emailing about anything and everything. It is used routinely, incessently, and indiscriminately; everyone is copied in. We even email people who work in the same office as us, for goodness sake!

People are spending more and more of their working week endlessly processing email to the point where some have now begun to actively question its efficacy. People have started asking to not be included in new email discussion groups as they simply can’t cope with the email volume they have already. Sometimes emails are mysteriously ‘never received’ because in reality, there is insufficient time to respond to them. eNewsletters increasingly go unread, not due to disinterest, but due to being overburdened by the volume of the incessant ‘incoming’.

If we are all obliged to dedicate more and more hours per week to processing mail then the number of hours available for creative, strategic work is necessarily reduced in direct proportion.

Perhaps it would be more productive for me to close down my email account altogether and dedicate the time saved to actually talking with colleagues again, to work on research & development, brainstorming and strategising?

I have felt for some time that I have reached this particular tipping point.

Yet in many countries on the other side of the digital divide the percentage of the population using email in their everyday routine remains modest. As it becomes widely available will more efficient ways of managing email volumes be innovated or will the majority world simply leap-frog to web 2.0 comms tools to avoid being deluged in the spam and scam?

Is email reaching the tipping point when it ceases being a boon to productivity and becomes a burden that holds us back?

What would it take for you to quit email entirely?

I have had enough email already.

While global concerns rise over the impacts that human activities have on the environment, an increasing number of ICT practitioners, researchers and technology advocates are exploring the potential of these tools in the response to climate change.

In the midst of the imminent, yet uncertain climatic conditions, interest in mitigation and monitoring strategies is now combined with the urgency of learning to cope and adapt to climate changes, particularly in vulnerable developing environments.

It is in this context that research on the role of ICTs in climate change is starting to flourish through a number of projects and initiatives, supported mainly by international organizations and NGOs around the world. Some of these can be found in a report commissioned by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) titled ‘ICTs for e-Environment’.

The concept of ‘e-Environment’ was used in the 2003 World Summit of the Information Society (WSIS) Plan of Action to make reference to the benefits of ICT applications in three main areas:

• ICT use for environmental protection and the sustainable use of natural resources;

• ICT use in actions and programs for sustainable production and consumption, and the environmentally safe disposal and recycling of discarded hardware and components used in ICTs; and

• ICT use to forecast and monitor the impact of natural and man-made disasters, particularly in developing countries, LDCs and small economies.

Building on this definition, the 2008 ITU report provides a comprehensive account of ICT activities and applications that indicate the impact of ICTs in the environment, as well as their role in mitigation and adaptation efforts. It also provides a set of recommendations aimed at strengthening the capacity of developing countries to benefit from the potential of these tools in the context of climate change.

The document is an important contribution to a flourishing field of enquiry, and constitutes a great starting point for further in-depth research and discussion.

The findings of the report include the following key points:

• ICTs & Carbon Footprint: ICTs can help to significantly reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) missions while increasing energy efficiency and reducing the use of natural resources (through travel replacement, dematerialization and reduced energy consumption).

• ICTs & Human Activities: While ICTs are essential to our understanding of the environment, further research is needed to understand the long-term impacts of ICTs on human activities.

• ICTs & Decision-Making: New technologies such as geographic information system (GIS) and a new generation of web-based services are having a profound effect facilitating decision-making.

• ICTs & Connectivity: Broadband Internet connection is a key tool to support environmental research, learning and decision-making.

• ICTs & Developing Capacity: Developing countries face important challenges in taking advantage of ICT tools in their response to climate change. It is necessary to strengthen their mitigation and adaptation capacity, while helping them to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

• ICTs & a Holistic Approach: Its necessary a comprehensive and integrated approach to global environmental action through access to ICTs and new management practices to avoid duplication of efforts.

• ICTs, e-Government & the Environment: It is necessary to raise the profile of environmental issues within ICT strategic planning initiatives at the national level, particularly in e-Government initiatives.

In view of the growing international attention to developing country needs and perspectives, the report provides a good opportunity to reflect about how to effectively engage developing stakeholders in the analysis and implementation of climate change actions and strategies.

Beyond the provision of guidelines or recommendations, how can the international community work hand in hand towards joint action in the e-environment field?  This question includes stakeholders from the Government, civil society and private sectors, as well as the international donor community.

Six years and many international forums have passed since the 2003 WSIS, and although important progress has been made, and we are still facing the challenge of firmly positioning the ‘e’ as part of the environment discussion.

Minister of Trade, Marketing Development, Cooperatives and Consumer Affairs, Bandula Gunawardena, is addressing gathering at the launch on 22nd December 2009.

Dialog tradenet is a project initiated by the Dialog’s ICT4D team to go beyond the conventional entertainment focused Value Added Services and make a meaningful relevance of ICT to the all the segments of the society, especially to the Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP). So everyone will be able to reap the dividends of ICT for their own socio-economic development.

Initially this will provide agri-produce price information from three Dedicated Economic Centres in Sri Lanka (Dambulla, Meegoda and Narahenpita). The scope of tradenet will be gradually expanded to industrial and service sectors also. GGS, as an organisation with the expertise on agriculture markets has joined with a technology expert, Dialog to make this initiative a success, by making it a win-win-win solution for all including the poor farmers.

Among many other unique features, the usage of multiple channels/technologies to reach the end-users has made the system Affordable, Available and Accessible to the all the levels of the society including the BoP.

Mobile phone: Call Centre, SMS
Web: www.tradenet.dialog.lk
WAP: tradenetwap.dialog.lk
USSD: #977#

Moving farmers from subsistence agriculture to some level of agri-business will help them to come out of poverty. But for those poor farmers to actively participate in agri-business we have to create efficient agricultural markets with minimum information asymmetry.

-Sameera.
http://ict4d-in-srilanka.blogspot.com/

“Gold farming” and “real-money trading” (RMT) are – respectively – the production and sale of online game virtual goods or services for real money.  They consist mainly of making and selling the virtual currencies used in games such as World of Warcraft; or of creating and selling powerful characters in those games (“power-levelling”).

Such actions are against the rules of the game.  Nevertheless, they provide paid employment for perhaps hundreds of thousands of young men, mainly based in urban areas in China.  A feature article in Scientific American summarises research from the University of Manchester on this emerging linkage between ICTs and development.  (See also our working paper on the topic.)

The research charts three eras of gold farming and RMT:

• Pre-History: first sales of virtual game items occurred during the 1980s and 1990s, building to a largely US-based cottage industry in which individuals made the equivalent of pocket money.
• Golden Age: from the late 1990s to mid-2000s, gold farming was a sector of super-profits as the number of online game players expanded rapidly, as eBay emerged to facilitate trading, and as production shifted to low-cost locations in Asia.  The result was creation of tens and then probably hundreds of thousands of new jobs, with the virtual currency and power-levelling services being sold to game players in the US, Europe and within Asia itself.
• Backlash and Beyond: from the mid-2000s, game companies began clamping down on what they saw as illegal activity, yet simultaneously new gold farmers and traders began flooding in.  As a result, gold farming profits were cut and it became a difficult and risky activity, though one that still appears to be growing despite the global economic crisis.

Non-purchasing players, game companies, and many Western commentators have built a chorus of disapproval against gold farming.  They try to brand it as illegal, exploitative, and linked to organised crime.

Although the evidence base on gold farming is much too limited, work at the Centre for Development Informatics seeks to show there is an alternative, developmental perspective.  Gold farming and RMT show novel ways in which ICTs can create new income streams for developing countries, new jobs (some for unemployed rural migrants), and new skills.  They may also be the early sign of a new business model for developing countries – “cybersourcing” – the outsourcing of activities that take place entirely within the virtuality of cyberspace.  Other examples would be welcome . . .

Batuwangala Maha vidyalaya is going to have a “Pirith” chanting in side the school premises on 27th of October 2009.Chanting of Pirith is a Buddhist Religious ritual. It deals with the chanting of selected “Sutras”  loudly and ceremoniously. Sutras are a religious precept which are composed in to hymns with a story behind them. They can be sung in rhythm and can be kept in mind easily. The selected Sutras contain precepts that relate to needs and day-to-day affairs of both lay men and priests.

This is to bless the students who are going to sit for the GCE O/L this December.We would like to invite to the whole world to be joined with us with this event.The Wining team of Mother Sri lanka debate series and the students who brought the BMV to the cyber space are from grade 11 who are going to sit for the Examination this time.

This event will be Lively Web cast from the beginning of the Pirith And until the mid night local time.We invite all the people from whole world to join with us.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

$2 MILLION COMPETITION OPENS FOR IDEAS TO TRANSFORM LEARNING

Durham, NC and Irvine, CA – December 16, 2009.

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, incollaboration with the University of California, Irvine, Duke University and the virtual network HASTAC, today launched the third annual open-call competition that will provide $2 million in awards to innovators shaping thefield of digital media and learning. President Obama named the Digital Media and Learning Competition as part of his initiative to improve education in math and science in a speech on November 23rd. The competition is supportedthrough a grant to the University of California, Irvine and administered by HASTAC.

The competition seeks designers, inventors, entrepreneurs, researchers, and others to build digital experiences—the learning labs of the 21st century—that help young people interact, share, build, tinker, and explore in new and innovative ways. In a new component for 2010, Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) and Electronic Arts (EA), in cooperation with Entertainment Software Association and Information Technology Industry Council, will team with the competition to support the development of new science and math-related levels or adventures in popular existing games.

There are two types of awards. Detailed information about these awards can be found online at www.dmlcompetition.net:

• Learning Lab Designer awards, which will range from $30,000-$200,000, are for learning environments and digital media-based experiences that allow young people to grapple with social challenges through activities based on the social nature, contexts, and ideas of science, technology, engineering

• Game Changers awards, which range from $5,000-$50,000, are for creative levels designed with either LittleBigPlanet™ or Spore™ Galactic Adventures that offer young people engaging game play experiences and that incorporate and leverage principles of science, technology, engineering and math for learning.

Each category will include several Best in Class awards selected by expert judges, as well as a People’s Choice Award selected by the general public. The online application system will open on January 7 and will include three rounds of submissions, with public comment at each stage. In February 2010, a special competition will be opened up to youth from ages 12-17.

“Digital media provides an important opportunity to re-imagine learning in the 21st century,” said Connie Yowell, Director of MacArthur’s education grantmaking. “Through the competition, we may find that games such as LittleBigPlanet™ and Spore™, which offer opportunities for collaborative and complex problem solving, can be powerful tools to engage the next generation in science, technology, engineering and math – in and out of the classroom. By working with Sony Computer Entertainment America and Electronic Arts, the Digital Media and Learning Competition will be able to tap into the innovation and scale of private industry to advance teaching and learning.”

Information about applying for the competition can be found online at www.dmlcompetition.net. The website includes details about timeline, application requirements, project descriptions from the first two Digital Media and Learning Competitions, and opportunities for asking questions, following blogs and news feeds, and learning more about the competition.

###

Media contacts:

Mandy Dailey, HASTAC, mandy.dailey@duke.edu, tel. (919) 681-8897.

Jen Humke, MacArthur Foundation, jhumke@macfound.org, tel. (312) 726-8000.

As we move beyond the hype, the hope or the frustration that events such as COP15 inspire, its fair to recognize the intrinsic value of the process that has brought us here. There is value on the renewed global awareness of the fact that our environment is rapidly and irreversibly changing, as well as on the realization of the close links that exist between climate change and the vulnerability of the poor.

There is also value in the recognition of new issues that play a role in fostering development amidst the shifting climate, and that can make a difference in the type of response that we are able provide to its challenges. Amongst them, the role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) is particularly relevant.

ICTs and Climate Change was the focus of a side event organized by ITU and OECD, in partnership with GeSI, during the UNFCCC climate change talk in Barcelona, last month. All the presentations are available in YouTube.

Graham Vickery (OECD) was one of the speakers invited (starts in minute 8:24).

He pointed out the fact that, despite the pervasiveness of ICTs in our daily life, and perhaps because of it, we have failed to make the link between their potential and our response to climate change.

He also suggested 3 main levels of ICT impact in the environment: (a) ICT equipment (electricity and energy use, raw         materials and disposal), (b) ICT ‘Smart’ applications, and (c) ICTs and the need for systemic change. According to Vickery, part of the challenge is making these three levels more clearly linked with major areas that are under consideration right now, namely mitigation, adaptation, and technology transfer.

His presentation raises some interesting issues for discussion:

• How would the climate scenario look like if –at least part of- the 4 billion mobile telephone subscribers play a role in monitoring and documenting the effects of climate change, and in managing the carbon footprint?

• What type of ‘Green changes’ could ICTs help us foster in our daily lives? What could we do different or more efficiently with the help of these tools?

• How could we contribute as consumers –and producers- to the three main levels that Vickery points out?

In considering these questions its useful to look at Richard Heeks’ overview model on ‘ICTs, Climate Change and Development’, as it provides further details on the ways in which ICTs can play a role in mitigation, monitoring and adaptation strategies.

All these issues will need to be carefully considered as the global community moves forward from COP15 to COP16 in Mexico 2010. And although new hype, hope and skepticism will continue to surround the process, we need to be better prepared to effectively insert ICTs and its contribution to development into the climate change agenda.

The model shown below indicates the various domains of relation between information and communication technologies (ICTs), climate change and development. These are:
- Mitigation: how ICTs can reduce carbon emissions (but also how they contribute)
- Monitoring: how ICTs can help measure and analyse climate change and its impacts
- Strategy: how ICTs can enable strategic actions on climate change
- Adaptation: how ICTs can help developing countries adapt to climate change in the short- and longer-term

This is still a model under development, so comments and suggestions for improvement are welcome.

I’ve entered the ITU data on broadband penetration for all countries from 1998-2008 into a Google Docs spreadsheet, and then added the Motion Chart visualiser.

To access the spreadsheet data and Google Motion chart, go to: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tuY4rmkYVhRxKCXiltg_obg&output=html

The screenshot below gives an example. Also given below are two screenshot summary graphs derived from overview data about diffusion rates for broadband, which can be found at: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tCyqBGWg0E8qg6qG77ltZ2g&output=html.

The most useful statistics are absolute growth rates (weighted by population), which show growth having peaked in 2005 for the richest fifth of nations, but generally still rising for the others. The percentage growth rates have been steadily declining, but mainly because those growth figures are insanely high in the first few years of broadband diffusion given the very low base they start from.

You can find similar visualisations that you can cross-match with a host of other data categories (demographics, economic/social development, and ICT diffusion) using World Bank data (http://devdata.worldbank.org/DataVisualizer/) or a graph I’ve created at Gapminder: http://bit.ly/78IWkN. But these don’t go up to 2008, and you can’t see or access the underlying data.

Note the dynamic visualisation charts will not show up on slower PCs or Internet connections.

For similar data visualisation of mobile phone penetration, see my earlier blog entry at: http://ict4dblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/30/mobile-phone-penetration-google-motion-chart-data-visualisation/

I’ve entered the ITU data on mobile phone penetration for all countries from 1998-2008 into a Google Docs spreadsheet, and then added the Motion Chart visualiser (the same engine made famous by Hans Rosling and TED, though they use the Gapminder Trendalyzer version).

Unfortunately, WordPress scripting rules mean I can’t post the active chart here. To access the spreadsheet data and Google Motion chart, you need to go to:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tUzZsw5SoG_jXRDl6p8tRCg&single=true&gid=0&output=html

Screenshots below give an indicator of how you can visualise the data. The chart offers three main means to visualise (bubble, bar chart, and line graph) via tabs at the top right. You can change the axes and element colouring/size, and highlight individual countries. For bubble and bar, the main point of the chart is that you can click play (bottom left) and show how things change over time. (Note playback speed variation control, and also the ability to drag over and zoom in on parts of the chart.)

Not sure it adds a lot of analytic value but it’s engaging, helps give a sense of some overall trends, and identifies some interesting outliers. (Some older PCs and low-bandwidth connections will struggle to display.) I’ll repeat for other ITU data in later posts. You can find similar visualisation for mobile, Internet and a host of other development data at: http://devdata.worldbank.org/DataVisualizer (though currently up to 2007 only, no obvious access to underlying data, and the mobile data display doesn’t seem to work properly).

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

自分の友人が先日、「ここ最近、IT系の専門情報サイトなどでも、ICTと開発についての話題が扱われるようになってきた。」と言っておりました。そしたら、その友人のブログ「流離ヒ見聞録」で、そういったサイトの紹介があったのでご紹介。

自分も見てみたら、知っている事例もあれば知らない事例もあり、とても面白かった。Kiva説明会でもIT系の人材がICT4Dに進出して来ていると感じたけど、そうなんだろうな。

To learn about the diversity of leaves students have to pluck the leaves thus damaging the plants. A more interesting approach is where students collectively took photographs of leaves while observing them.

Currently mobile phones are banned in Sri Lankan schools. But recently a research study on effectiveness of mobile phone for teaching and learning science was carried out in central province of Sri Lanka by a PhD student together with Department of Education of the University of Peradeniya in collaboration with the University of Bristol, UK. Dialog Telekom (a telecommunication company in Sri Lanka) supported this initiative by means of providing technical expertise and other resources.

How will students use mobile phones if it is already banned in Sri Lankan Schools?

In this study it was emphasized that a mobile phone can be just used as another science laboratory equipment such as a test-tube or a microscope. That would minimize the disciplinary and other related problems which caused to ban the mobile phones in Sri Lankan schools.

Mobile phones are getting equipped with more advanced tools such as video cameras, audio/video players, etc. Also the handset prices are coming down day-by-day. So it is up to the users to use those for more productive purposes than destructive uses. I think teachers can educate pupils on how best they can use mobile technology even fulfilling basic human needs such as education rather than saying “no” to the new technology or trying to keep children away from the new technology.

Courtesy: Sakunthala Ekanayake

You can read more about the research study here.

-Sameera.
http://ict4d-in-srilanka.blogspot.com/

Esta publicación fue creada con dos objetivos. El primero es mostrar los esfuerzos de los individuos y grupos que están inspirando a una transformación de las actitudes y las acciones para renovar las comunidades de todo el mundo. El segundo es para rendir homenaje a los millones de jóvenes que sirven como agentes de cambio para sus sociedades mediante la aplicación de las ideas de las Naciones Unidas, Objetivos de Desarrollo del Milenio a través de las TIC. El puñado de proyectos descritos en esta publicación son sólo un ejemplo de la labor que se realiza a nivel mundial.

Merece la pena darle un vistazo a este documento, Jovenes TIC y Cooperacion al Desarrollo.

Wayan Vota at ICTWorks convened a lively chat today on information & communication technologies for development – or ICT4D. Expect to see another chat in December.

The hour flew by! After introductions we highlighted projects we admire, projects that have failed, and the problems with cloud computing in developing nations. (On that last point, I note that you can’t even get reliable access to the cloud in the US, depending on which smartphone you’re carrying or which highly-attended tech event you’re at.)

From the chatlog archive, here are some favorites:

The barrier is the carrier. (@jongos)

…we think lots of sun with intermittent rain then! offline needs to work seamlessly with infrequent on-line? (@meowtree)

My thoughts on cloud4d lately have steered toward a highly local, in-country cloud. Reliance on undersea cables too risky. (@downeym)

Donor agencies sobering up after being drunk on internet. (@travis_a)

…second hand, inexpensive, locally sourced equipment > new and shiney equipment that fails in dust and heat (@theresac)

Seems people still thinking, develop in West and take it to Africa who lags. Need to develop in Africa within resource & context (@africastrategy)

Technology is easy. Issues around geography, language, culture, true empowerment and paths to adoption are challenges. (@kiwanja)

Other discussion:

If you have a project that does originate in a developed country, how do you bridge the gap to the developing country? Several people pointed to stories of close on-site collaboration, even co-design, with local experts and users. Remote mentoring, say in the style of MicroMentor, is an additional tool.

How are people attracted to a new service, and what keeps them there? Agriculture, health, and education applications get the press – but it’s music, social media, sports, entertainment, and (yes) porn that have driven adoption in developing and developed nations. In terms of infrastructure, there was also criticism of mobile ICT buses (in India and Rwanda) as less effective, compared to stable ICT centers that become a predictable fixture in a community.

There are two more leads I’ll be watching. First, Cyclos, which provides free and open source banking and mobile payment tools. Second, Question Box, a project creating local information kiosks via mobile networks, has also gone open source.

Update: Take a look at Movirtu, a very smart mobile phone-sharing infrastructure for people earning less than $2 USD a day.  Users have a card plus PIN, and log into their mobile account using any phone on the same network as their account. The people who lend out the phones are rewarded with credits. And users can designate someone who is online more frequently to receive notifications, so they don’t miss important messages or money transfers.

En el marco de la 64ava Sesión de la Asamblea General de Naciones Unidas, se presentó  a fines de octubre el informe preparado por  UNCTAD llamado “Progresos sobre la implementación y seguimiento de los resultados  la Cumbre Mundial sobre la Sociedad de la Información (CMSI-WSIS) a nivel regional e internacional”.  Este informe recalca que la brecha digital sigue disminuyendo, la conectividad a la telefonía móvil se ha duplicado desde el año 2000, la brecha en el acceso a Internet entre países desarrollados  y en desarrollo ha disminuido (aunque a paso lento), África y Medio Oriente han experimentado un rápido crecimiento de la telefonía móvil y de Internet.

No obstante, no todo es positivo y aun existen muchos desafíos por abordar.  Las disparidades entre los países y regiones aun persisten.  Solo un 12% de la población de países en desarrollo usa Internet.   Por otra parte,  más allá de los datos de servicios básicos de conectividad el informe pone atención  especial a los aspectos cualitativos asociados al acceso, tales como la banda ancha y la disponibilidad de contenidos locales y la privacidad de datos.

Respecto a la banda ancha, esta ha sido considerada como un factor crítico en el desarrollo de infraestructura y un pre-requisito fundamental para el éxito de las líneas de acción de la CMSI, tales como gobierno electrónico, metas en el ámbito de la educación, salud y agricultura.  Países en desarrollo  representan solo  un 35% de los subscriptores a la banda ancha en todo el mundo.  En África este corresponde a menos de  1% al año 2007. Por lo tanto, la brecha digital es traducida como una “brecha de banda ancha”.

El desarrollo de contenidos locales es un elemento clave para la concreción  de las líneas de acción de la CMSI.  Sin lugar a dudas, el aumento de la penetración de Internet no  necesariamente ayuda a un incremento de contenidos locales.  En países en desarrollo muchas veces no existen los recursos técnicos y financieros para crear contenidos de acorde a las necesidades locales.

Otra área de creciente preocupación es la privacidad de datos.  El informe del UNCTAD recalca que las instancias de crímenes cibernéticos pueden causar significantes daños a nivel global y la sociedad de la información se ha vuelto más vulnerable a este tipo de prácticas ilícitas e ilegales.  Asimismo, recalcan los posibles daños a la integridad personal debido al mal uso de información personal por parte de grandes compañías.   El informe concluye que los países en desarrollo carecen de leyes de privacidad que alcancen los estándares requeridos por socios comerciales de países desarrollados, lo que impide beneficiarse en el contexto de comercio internacional de las oportunidades que otorga el comercio electrónico.

A la luz de lo anterior, existe una mayor necesidad por políticas públicas más efectivas y regulaciones a nivel internacional, regional, nacional y local.  Han emergido diferentes modos de abordar estas políticas pero la necesidad de una respuesta global real a estos problemas es inmediata, y que atiendan a la vez las diferencias culturales, sociales y económicas en la garantía de los derechos y privacidad de los usuarios de Internet de países en desarrollo.

No matter that I had to drag myself out of a cosy house, drive through pelting rain, the perpetually  maddening Colombo traffic ,  to get to the Cinnamon Grand.  It was worth the effort to see the E-Swabhimani awards  by the Information Communication Agency  (ICTA).    As the name Swabhimani  means it was   certainly a night of “Our Pride,” a night to be a proud Sri Lankan,  a night to remember.  ICTA lived up to its tag line of Smart People, Smart Island to spring on an unsuspecting audience the creative and innovative talent of Sri Lanka’s digital content developers/producers from its e-Society program.  This was even more satisfying for those of us who had listened to much criticism being leveled at ICTA.  But that’s another story  –this was a night of the winners.

 Minister Tissa Vitarana was pleased as Punch. He was unstinting giving credit to the creative talent of the ICTA staff.

 There were eight e-categories and 27 winners.  They came from near — Colombo University Department of Computing as well as from far away interior places with exotic names — Galenbindunuweva, Sooriyaweva, Tantrimalai.

Here’s some that caught my eye. Please note that this is only a selection and is not a comprehensive list of the winners.

For me the most interesting was the e-inclusion and Participation category where the winners were:

Techkatha (Technical Chats) is really cool and uses cross media and a friendly chatty environment for learning from peers the techi stuff.  It is in the Sinhala local language, community driven, podcasted discussion about solutions to technical problems one encounters daily,tech news, new inventions etc.  Every Thursday at Sri Lanka time 9:00 pm you can join techkatha.com/chat via real time web chat.  Google Group, Skype, SMS, email or phone.  So far they have had 40 program chats.

ICT for teaching the hearing impaired ( www.lankasign.lk):  A multi media based interactive DVD and e-learning website to teach sign language in Sinhala and Tamil.

Ganidu Nanayakkara. Photo reproduced with permission ICTA agency

“Watch” the invention of young Secondary school student Ganidu Nanayakkara which features  a specialized hardware and software to enable people with disabilities  to use a computer with a key pad of only four keys.  So a finger, a toe, a head the hand or even the tongue can be used and the software and hardware system can be customized to cater for  specific needs of a disabled user.

E-entertainment & Games section had two interesting winners. One was the Ranasara Internet radio  from the Balangoda Nenasela ( IT/Knowledge Centre)  which partnered with an IT company microimage to set up   a commercial quality broadcasting studio in the Nenesela.  Using commercial quality broadcasting software and drawing and training  announcers from the community they provide an interesting service enabling many working abroad to stay connected with their communities. Other  district telecentres too get one hour time slots per week to produce news and programs from their districts.

The other winner in this category, the Toppigala/Jamis Banda, Sri Lanka’s equivalent no doubt of James Bond is  a locally developed PC Game by Games Core.

The e-Learning & Education sector had three very useful contributions reaching out to educate through ICT , primary, and tertiary learners and farmers in the agriculture sector.

e-Curriculum Master: Mastering the Primary–an easy to use interactive educationla software for children sitting the Grade 5 Scholarship examination.

Vidupiyasa — the virtual campus for ICT education from the University of Colombo’s School of computing.

Wikigoviya – The Agriculture Wikipedia, an interactive web tool for agriculture development.

Then there were the winners e-commerce for SME’s; project e-Diary; Farmernet in the e-business and Commerce category.

Nenasakmana Mobile Library of Sooriyaweva Nenasela. Photo reproduced with permission from ICTA

Having been a librarian in my previous incarnations I loved  the Nenasakmana Mobile ( can be loosley tranlated as “strolling knowledge”) Library of the Sooriyaweva Nenasela from the Hambantota district. It serves remote villages who can not afford internet facilities in a converted “buddy” lorry with four laptop computers powered by a solar panel and with connectivity through a dongle.

Inside the Nenasakmana Mobile Library. Photo reproduced with permission ICTA

“It’s not easy providing this service on rainy days when there is no sun,” says Deepika who runs the service.  Then it is only a reading library and we carry newspapers and magazines in addition to books. But on good days in addition to Internet,  users can access educational CDs, games. etc.”

The Juror’s special mention  is another worthy project.  The Centre for Women and Development, Jaffna’s “Violence against Women” website, documenting violence against women. The aggregate anonymous information collected from this website has been shared with other civil society and government organizations to help them better understand the extent of the issue.

La verdad que vamos con cierto retraso en la preparación del  III Encuentro Internacional TIC para la Cooperación al Desarrollo. Las dos ediciones anteriores, no voy a decir que han sido un éxito (porque les corresponde la valoracion a otros), pero sí que han sido un verdadero reto y una satisfacción trabajar con el foco puesto en la generación de un espacio de debate, divulgación y punto de encuentro en un ámbito tan atractivo como necesario, uniendo dos ingredientes que se tienen que entender: La Cooperación al Desarrollo y las Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación.

Llevábamos un tiempo atascados. Todo hay que decirlo. Y quizás, porque el esfuerzo estaba hasta esta fecha en otro foco. Y porque este año está costando encontrar los recursos económicos para mantener el nivel académico y organizativo de las etapas anteriores. Pero hoy tras una reunión con el equipo – muy satisfactoria -, creo que ya estamos a punto de “salir a la calle”.

Así que aquellos interesados en esta temática, ong´s, profesionales de las tic, empresas (por favor, cada vez hace falta más empresas que se acerquen al ámbito de la cooperación al desarrollo), administraciones, etc.. que apunten en su agenda el 01 y 02 de marzo como fechas para celebrar la III edición de esta cita. Y el lugar Gijón. Y si todo sale bien en un entorno único: Laboral Centro de Arte (*). Los recursos se han dividido al 50%, pero intentaremos dar (o al menos que parezca), ese 110% de las dos ediciones anteriores.

La edición anterior, nos recordó con insistencia, que había mucho “norte” en las ponencias, en las mesas, y en general en el enfoque. Pero nos hicieron ver, que la innovación está presente en el Sur, en lo que a uso de las Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación se refiere. Así, que lo tendremos muy en cuenta. Y también nos dijeron que es necesario innovar en los modelos de cooperación. Con todo ello, el eje (con toda probabilidad, y encantados de recibir sugerencias), será algo así como Nuevos modelos de Cooperación en el ámbito de las TIC en el Desarrollo Humano. Innovando desde el sur.

Insisto: estamos en la fase de “servilleta”, definiendo y diseñando el III Encuentro. Así que cualquier comentario, sugerencia, duda, etc.. es muy bienvenida.

Apuntar la fecha: 01 y 02 de marzo 2010.

(*) La II edición, también se celebró en un entorno maravilloso.

Readers of my Blog will be well aware of my previous criticisms of the company’s ambitions to gather all of the world’s knowledge on its servers, and my concerns over its infringement of traditional ideas about privacy.

It is therefore of considerable interest that Google has just launched Dashboard.  This is intended to provide users of Google services with a summary of all the information that Google currently lets users know that it stores about them.  This is what Google Dashboard shows when you visit the site:

Always having refused to have a Gmail account, and limiting my use of Google, because I do not want the company to benefit too much from the information that they have about me (yes, of course, I use Google as a search engine  – albeit as little as possible – check out Cuil), I am delighted to see this limited opening up of their secrecy.  But just imagine, they will now be checking up on those who use Dashboard, and how they use it!

Google themselves claim under a heading Transparency and Choice that “At Google, we are keenly aware of the trust you place in us and our responsibility to protect your privacy. As part of this responsibility, we let you know what information we collect when you use our products and services, why we collect it and how we use it to improve your experience. The Privacy Center was created to provide you with easy-to-understand information about our products and policies to help you make more informed choices about which products you use, how to use them, and what information you provide to us”.

Brian Heater on PCMag comments as follows: “That whole ‘don’t be evil’ thing is all well and good, but when a company’s whole goal is cataloging the world’s information, it would–at the very least–be nice to know what Google knows about you. The company has just launched Dashboard, which aggregates the different information its gathered from 20 different Google products, including Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Web History, Orkut, YouTube, Picasa, Talk, Reader, Alerts, and Latitude. You’ll need to sign in to view your own personal information. Users can also edit account information from the page, such as privacy settings. Of course transparency doesn’t mean that you can’t still pat yourself on the back. The scale and level of detail of the Dashboard is unprecedented, and we’re delighted to be the first Internet company to offer this–and we hope it will become the standard,” Google said in a statement”.

So, will this actually make users realise exactly how much information and power they are giving Google, or will they consider that the benefits that they get from using Google’s services are worth it?  Google’s financial success has been based on persuading people to give them information for free from which they can then generate huge revenue. This has undoubtedly been one of the biggest business success stories – or cons, depending on how one looks at it – in recent years.  I watch with interest to see whether Google Dashboard will indeed persuade users that the company is as ‘innocent’ as it would like to appear to be.

Que un teléfono es un “aparato” que nos sirve para muchísimas cosas mas que para hablar, es algo que tenemos claro. Los anuncios en la TV nos lo recuerdan todos los días y el amigo que siempre está a la última en móviles nos lo “muestra” cuando quedamos para tomar una caña.

Pero quizás, las necesidades y utilidades del móvil no son homogéneas en la diferentes partes del mundo.

Terminales Nokia países emergentes.

Por ejemplo en África o Asia, las necesidades y el hueco de mercado que ofrecen operadoras y fabricantes son totalmente distintos a los que nos podemos encontrar en Europa. Así Nokia, ha sacado una gama baja de teléfonos para países emergentes, resistentes al polvo, con radio, acceso a correo electrónicoy baterías de muy larga duración entre otras características. Más info aquí

Y aquí viene quizás la principal diferencia: ¿Qué tipo de servicios pueden ser de interés para una región como África/Asia vs. Europa? ¿Qué contenido se puede servir a través de la terminal como complemento o alternativa a otros canales?. El análisis de mercado y de necesidades es radicalmente distinto.

Así Nokia, ha lanzado para mercados emergentes el Nokia Life Tools, donde además de servicios y contenidos de entretenimiento y ocio (el interés por el horoscopo parece que ser que forma parte de la globalización ), tienen cabida servicios relaciones con la meteorología, agricultura (mercados, precios, informaciones y recomendaciones), educación (inglés, conocimiento general, pruebas y test,..) y con personalizacion y apoyo en diferentes idiomas: Hindi, Marathi, Malayalam, Punjabi, etc.

Más información Nokia_Life_Tools_datasheet

En el desarrollo de estos servicios y estrategia de Nokia, quizás tenga mucho que ver el Nokia Research Centre de Bangalore.

What makes for good ICTs-for-development research?

The following represents a subjective answer – feel free to add your own ideas – based on reading and reviewing ICT4D research.  I draw out three good practices and three good ideas, which can be epitomised by Rob Jensen’s paper on mobile phone use by Keralan fishermen.

The Good Practices

a) Audience Focus and Dissemination: good ICT4D research identifies, focuses on and targets its particular audience.  Jensen is an academic economist.  He did this research and he wrote up this research for other academic economists.  He chose an appropriate channel – a leading economics journal – to reach that audience.  (And then reached much further through having the work summarised in The Economist.)

b) Conceptual Foundation: good ICT4D research is founded on and structured around some conceptual framework or model.  Without that, research struggles for coherence and consistency.  With that, it is more likely to make a longer-term contribution.  Jensen’s work is rooted in welfare economics theory, to which it also makes a contribution.

c) Rigorous Methods: good ICT4D research has a methodology, and rigorously applies appropriate research methods.  It also explains the methodology, methods and their application to its readers.  Good narratives about ICT4D wins hearts.  Good quantitative statistics win minds.  But too much ICT4D “research” falls down in between: methodology-less, wishy-washy qualitative data that wins nothing.  Jensen’s research avoids this: it has a rigorous quantitative foundation built on shed-loads of longitudinal field data.

The Good Ideas

d) Speaking to Development: one of the seductions of the ICT4D field’s growth is to publish in ICT4D journals for an ICT4D audience.  But one’s impact (and career trajectory!) can be greater if ICT4D’s parent disciplines are targetted.  Most who do this have chosen one of the fractions of informatics (information systems, human-computer interaction, computer science).  But longer-term impact of both research and ICT may be better-served by targetting development studies; the reference discipline for many of those working in development agencies.  Jensen speaks to development: by drawing in particular on the ideas of Joe Stiglitz, his research can be seen as part of development economics; and as work that can make a connection with economists in international agencies.  That’s why Jensen’s research is one of very, very few ICT4D studies that colleagues in development studies have heard of.

e) Researching Technology-In-Use: in his book, The Shock of the Old, David Edgerton argues we should not be so obsessed by novelty and by inventing new technology; instead we should look at the actual technologies already in use.  Much ICT4D research fails this test, reporting some new prototype or pilot; oftentimes in which the authors have themselves had a hand.  Jensen eschews this route.  He did not try to create any new technology.  He did not invent.  He did not seek to innovate.  Instead, he researched technology-in-use: the application of mobiles within a poor community to meet their particular needs (arguably an example of grassroots innnovation).

f) Researching Income-Generating Uses of ICTs: a fair chunk of ICT4D research looks at social development: health, education, governance, community empowerment, gender equality.  But the number one need of the world’s poor (there’s a clue in the name) is money.  Jensen focuses on this, studying the use of ICTs in productive micro-enterprise; investigating how mobiles increase income generation in poor communities.  It therefore tells us how ICTs can directly contribute to economic growth and poverty alleviation.