I thought it had gone defunct, but there’s a new issue of Information Technologies and International Development out at the MIT Press. And the better news is that they’ve made the journal Open Access, which means that you can download all the articles for free.
Category Archives: Digital Divide
IT and International Development Journal goes open at MIT Press
Posted in Academic, Development, Digital Divide
Bandwidth bandwidth bandwidth
I bet you can’t guess what this post is about.
Bandwidth is the bugbear of all humanitarian ICT types. Whether it’s the unreliable fixed-line infrastructure in many developing countries, or the terrifying costs of satellite-based web connectivity, bandwidth occupies us all. It makes all the nutritional value of the web disappear like fog in the morning sun, all because you’re trying to force it down a drinking straw.
Luckily a group of smart people have gotten together and written a great book on how to maximise your existing bandwidth using open source tools. The book is available on their website – you can order it or download it directly. It’s excellent work, which I look forward to making my way through at leisure.
(I think this was brought to you by the same people behind Wireless Networking for the Developing World, but I wasn’t surprised to see that Aidworld were involved as well.)
Posted in Digital Divide, Emergency Telecommunications, Open Source, Web
Afrigadget – solving everyday problems with African ingenuity
Forget about One Laptop Per Child, Afrigadget is awesome! I particularly like the Wheel Chair / Mobile Phone Booth…
Posted in Development, Digital Divide, Open Source
I want to believe in the $100 laptop…
… but I don’t.
Since seeing it demonstrated at WSIS last year, I’ve tried really hard not to think about it. However I was prompted by a post by Steve Cisler on the incom-l mailing list, a blog post by Jakob P entitled Cheap Stuff from the West, and a discussion on Third World Mobile Computing. I started to get quite irate again, so I’m writing this post to try and disentangle my thoughts from everybody else’s. Bear with me.
Posted in Digital Divide
An aside
The “laptop for every child” initiative – Nicholas Negroponte’s MIT-based $100 laptop project – has obviously received a lot of publicity, mainly because it’s a great tagline.
But really, why? It seems a little quixotic, in light of repeated research showing that, in the developing world, the usual model is for communal access to computing facilities. Negroponte has also been quoted that “the best education may not come from sitting in a traditional classroom, but rather through independent interaction and exploration,” which also seems to fly in the face of findings that traditional teaching methods actually work quite well.
By the way, these laptops don’t actually exist yet. (sarcasm) A small detail, but one I hope they’ll address at some point (/sarcasm).)
Posted in Digital Divide
ICT4ALL (apparently)
So, here we are! It’s the World Summit on the Information Society! I’m so excited! That’s the only possible explanation for all these exclamation marks! 15,000 people, lots of government speakers, a huge expo hall, not much bandwidth!
This afternoon we’ll be presenting the ICT4Peace report, with an all-star line-up on the panel. That’s why I’m here. I missed the first phase of WSIS, which was happening in Geneva while I was happening in Liberia, so it’s also a great chance to see what this whole information society thing is all about.
So far, I’m not entirely sure what it’s all about. Andy Carvin has noted the lightly-clad lovely ladies that seem to be milling about various booths, as if it was a Vegas car show (not that I’m complaining as much as he is). There’s a lot of stuff here that I can’t work out – a strange mix of the hard core technology (online encrypted e-commerce solutions 4 all), the fuzzy feelgood (empowerment through sms 4 all) and the downright deranged (a laptop for every child 4 all).
From the humanitarian point of view, there isn’t much here. I had a good meeting with Rene Francis of the Ericsson Response Team, about extending ERT support to the NGO community – currently they work predominantly with the UN, on standby arrangement, but there’s no reason that couldn’t be applied to NGOs under a similar arrangement. Today I’m on a mission to find out some exciting new technologies, which I will promptly steal. Sadly, I think the most exciting thing here is WiMax – broadband wireless access for remote areas during humanitarian response is a bit of a no-brainer.
I’ll write more later, unless the wireless access here at WSIS goes down, which it seems to do every time anybody enters the building.
Posted in Digital Divide