ict for development innovation of rural information systems overview of current practices and...
TRANSCRIPT
ICT for Development
Innovation of Rural Information Systems
Overview of current practices and challenges
Koen Beelen– Co-Capacity
CDI seminar – May 18, 2011
Intro
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Facebook opens an office in Colombo? (1)
What you see on the picture is a tiny
shop in capital of Sri Lanka. The shop
owner has named his shop as
“Facebook”. What made him to do that?
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Facebook opens an office in Colombo? (2)
Sri Lanka is a country with an area of 65,610 km2 and population of 21,283,913 (by 2011). As per International Telecommunication Union (ITU) reports, there were 1,776,200 Internet users as of Jun 2010, a penetration of 8.3%.
Usage of Facebook in Sri Lanka
Currently (April 2011) there are 894,240 Facebook users in Sri Lanka, that means;
- 4.2 % of the Sri Lankan population is on Facebook
- 50.3% of the Sri Lankan internet users are on Facebook
Though the impact is debatable, Facebook has become a term which is good enough to name an IT shop on the corner of the street.
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questions
How many of you have smartphones?
How many of you don’t have a mobile phone?
How many of you already had a mobile phone in the year 2000?
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Stats (1)
"The mobile phone revolution continues," says a UN report charting the
phenomenon that has transformed commerce, healthcare and social
lives across the planet. Mobile subscriptions in Africa rose from 54m to
almost 350m between 2003 and 2008, the quickest growth in the world.
The global total reached 4bn at the end of last year and, although
growth was down on the previous year, it remained close to 20%.
On average there are now 60 mobile subscriptions for every 100 people
in the world. In developing countries, the figure stands at 48 – more
than eight times the level of penetration in 2000.
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Stats (2)
Currently, only one quarter of the world’s nearly 7 billion people have
access to the Internet and all the opportunities it creates
Would you pay over £800 a month for Internet?
That’s what it could cost you to access mobile internet if you are a
health worker in rural Malawi or Zambia.
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Stats (3)
In recent months Facebook - the major social media platform worldwide
and currently the most visited website in most of Africa - has seen
massive growth on the continent. The number of African Facebook
users now stands at over 17 million, up from 10 million in 2009. More
than 15 percent of people online in Africa are currently using the
platform, compared to 11 percent in Asia. Two other social networking
websites, Twitter and YouTube, rank among the most visited websites
in most African countries.
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Overview of ICT4D
Current practices
Challenges
Conditions
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Overview of ICT4D
Current practices
Challenges
Conditions
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Openideo / Oxfam / Nokia
OpenIDEO has partnered with Oxfam and Nokia to explore how mobile
technologies can be used to improve maternal health (particularly in
pregnancy and childbirth) for low income countries.
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The AIMS Portal - Approach
Together
50X15
50x15 is an initiative which aims to bring Internet access and computing
capability to 50% of the world’s population by 2015. Currently, only one
quarter of the world’s nearly 7 billion people have access to the Internet
and all the opportunities it creates.
>>Learning Labs!
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AIM
S–
Inte
gra
ted
Ap
pro
ach
AIM
S–
Inte
gra
ted
Ap
pro
ach
One laptop per child
UK laptop for 10 pounds
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Website/Portal
Management tools
SMS
Picture/photo library
Organisation directory
Audio/Radio
Blog
Moblog
WIKI
Twitter Online/Video conferencing
Specialists Best practices/
Technologies
Needs Assessment Info
Video/TV News/Events E-newsletters Resources
Library
E-publishing Survey, Questionnaire
Specialised databases
Discussion/
Chat
E-mail Facebook Bulletin Board
Search
some ICT building blocks
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What is ICT4D? (1)
Fair tracing: providing enhanced supply chain info to consumers and
produces
Community mapping, participatory GIS
Biomedical and primary health
Budgetary support Systems
ICT in teacher training
Collaborative e-science in spatial decision making in distributed
environments
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What is ICT4D (2)
ICT’s and national development
Interactive databases
Participatory video
Community radio
North Africa revolutions
Social media & Web2.0
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Synthesis Practices
ICT for development?
ICT’s
for
Developments
a seismic shift will happen with services, products and information
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Overview of ICT4D
Current practices
Challenges
Conditions
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Why ICT4D?
UNESCO chair in ICT4D
the sustainable use of ICTs to enable poor people and marginalised
communities to use the potential of ICT to transform their lives
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ICT4D >>MDG
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are 8 international
development goals that all 192 member states of United Nations have
agreed to achieve by the year 2015. They include reducing child
mortality rates, eradicating extreme poverty and fighting disease
epidemics such as AIDS. The aim of the MDGs is to encourage
development by improving social & economic conditions in the poorest
countries of the world.
This infographic shows the Africa Progress and how each country is
doing in meeting the 2015 Millenium Development Goals.
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Just a Linkedin discussion
XXX: “Following a participatory and problem-driven approach is thus key to understand
what ICTs and how they should be implemented, as ICT itself is never a magic wand.
Once set this 'methodological' basis, I could say that the convergence of rural radios,
mobile phones and the Web can now be considered THE tool through which boosting
development in rural areas. This 'trident' can be applied to specific sectoral problem, i.e.
dissemination of agricultural information, provision of medical 'second opinion', support to
early warning for disaster risk reduction, etc.”
YYY • It has been long time, ICT4D practitioners are looking for a comprehensive answer of
this issue. However, from my understanding is there is no specific and universal solution is
available. It should be very much customized depending on the social and economic
perspective of the situation i.e. locality.
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Top 7 reasons why most ICT4D projects FAIL
from ITC4D Poverty Reduction Summit in Ghana, 28 april 2011
UNESCO chair ICT4D
http://dotsub.com/view/1f2752b3-e7ce-4445-801d-5ccd5d7ccd88
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fail 1
Idea/result NOT directly tied to improving economic condition of end
user, ICT should be enabler.
E.g. tomato will rot if to other market
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fail 2
Not relevant to local context/strengths/needs
e.g. mechanism working at situation A do not automatically work at
B.
each context is unique
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fail 3
Not understand infrastructure capability
e.g. electricity cut off
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fail 4
Underestimate maintenance costs & issues
e.g. costs of bandwidth, old computers, school with 40
computers/none work anymore
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fail 5
Projects supported only by short-term grants
E.g. what happens beyond project period?
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fail 6
Not looking at whole system
e.g. not taking into account local governments powers, private
sector, number of mobile phones don’t increase market itself but
redistribute, …
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fail 7
Projects built on condescending assumptions
e.g. third world depth versus Greece bankrupt
e.g. not using indigenous solutions but plug in external solutions
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Synthesis Challenges
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Overview of ICT4D
Current practices
Challenges
Conditions
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Conditions
What are elements of ICT4D that do work??
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do work 1
Will your intervention still have value 10 or 100 years from now?
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do work 2
Are you using technology as the starting point Or the strengths/needs
of people?
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do work 3
Do you really understand the context & the whole system?
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do work 4
Are you involving end users in the entire process from idea to
evaluation?
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do work 5
Do people need what you have enough, that they want to pay for it?
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do work 6
Do you view the end user as “poor person we are helping” or “rich
person we are partnering with & learning from”?
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Synthesis
ICT’s for Developments!
Multiple pitfalls, multi challenges
Multiple conditions
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Q&A
WWW.CO-CAPACITY.ORG
Koen Beelen, Co-Capacity BV.
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