It’s Already Over??? ICT4D Fall 2012 Reflection

Initially I was not thrilled to be enrolled in Information and Communication Technologies for Development. It is a required class, with only one section that cuts right into my nap time. I have never been too technologically savvy and I figured this would just be the kind of class that would spotlight my lack of skill.

The class wound up being extremely interesting, flitting through a wide array of topics in the ICT4D field that before I had not even realized existed. It has made me realize how interconnected our whole society is with technology today and how this is also affecting the development sphere. We briefly covered many many different tools, interfaces, designs, and challenges that face ICT4D around the world. I took away the most from the ideas of leapfrogging technology in the developing world, and how this leads to exponential growth as well as unforeseen consequences. Themes like cyber security and regulation that we worry about here, also need to be put into motion in developing nations, along with sustainable and environmentally solid technology tools. Finally just the wide amount of innovation we are not exposed to that is happening in the developing world. By exploring the twitter and ict4d blogs that exist I enjoyed posting each week about related topics from class.

I found the sector projects to be the most useful to me personally. I really enjoyed getting to choose something I was interested in (egovernance) and do independent research and a group presentation, while also hearing briefly about the rest of the class’s other sectors. The national ICT policies and the implementation of egovernance and egovernment are fascinating to me in that it is not necessarily a drastic change in poverty etc, but something that is setting the stage for greater efficiency, communication, and transparency.

Finally the theme I took away most from class was that technology is not the solution. This was mentioned constantly throughout the semester by our professor, guest speakers, and the readings. It is clear that ICT is a great benefit, but we must really think through its implementation and challenges before just throwing it at communities in need. There is so much potential for this field I am excited to keep up with ICT4D in the coming years.

Ghana National ICT Resources

1. The Ghana ICT For Accelerated Development Policy is the National ICT policy that was passed in 2003. The government states its main goal is “A policy statement for the realization of the vision to transform Ghana into an information-rich knowledge-based society and economy through the development, deployment, and exploitation of ICTs within the economy and society.” The policy is written in English and the Ministry of Communications is the major stakeholder.

2. Ghana Ministry of Communications is in charge of implementing much of the ICT reforms and regulations that are happening in the country. This is the homepage which branches off from the National government website.

3. Global Information Technology Report 2012: Living in a Hyper Connected World by The World Economic Forum provides detailed data on Ghana and the entire world.

An overview of Ghana’s media and technology is a brief explanation and data collection for ICTs in the country and their use. Not produced by the government, but by Audience Scapes

Will Ghana be able to fully utilize ICT is a great article written for a Ghanian news site by Stephen Atta Owusu.

4. Because Ghanians speak English it was relatively easy to find their policies, reforms, and news about ICT. There is a very real movement to improve ICT in the country, so there is a large amount of writing on the subject.

Data Mining: Efficiency on the Over-Crowded Internet

This week we discussed with our guest speaker, Adam Papendieck, some of the new frontiers in ICT and important innovations to improve technology. One topic that I had not heard about before was Data Mining. Data Mining is the process of using technology such as computers to sift through the trillions of data sets to pick out actual important and useful information.

In today’s age there is so much raw data being stored in databases every day that clogs up usable space and makes gathering information a challenge. For businesses, research organizations, and customers it is an extremely useful task to organize and limit what is stored. One frightening example of the amount of online data piling up is “databases are now measured in gigabytes and terabytes. (One terabyte = one trillion bytes. A terabyte is equivalent to about 2 million books!)”(Data Mining, Alexander).

 

Data mining is useful for industries from retail to healthcare, but can also help for ICT4D. It looks for patterns and trends in more data than is humanly possible to study. This can locate root problems, potential areas of famine, disaster relief needs and assistance. Papendieck showed how Ushahidi has used data mining and crowd sourcing to pinpoint disaster results. The long term possibilities for data mining are incredible, and as our world becomes increasingly reliant on digital information and data it will lead to an even greater need for data mining. Obviously privacy concerns will need to be taken into account, but this truly is a great use of technology.

Information from Data Mining by Doug Alexander

and Class presentation by Adam Papendieck

Twitter and Blogging in ICT4D

This week we followed a recent ICT4D debate between several prominent development professionals. Although the theme of the debate was fascinating what I thought was more telling about the field and today in general was how this disagreement was taking place. All of those involved in the debate were on Twitter and followed each other. They actively blogged and commented on each others blogs. This created a virtual community of people with many different backgrounds and specific knowledge, but all investing, creating, and promoting international development. 

The importance of twitter in ICT4D is outstanding. As a social media it is not often thought of as a high brow source of information, but #ICT4D leads to all the most recent news about the field, studies, information, and commentary. Twitter has allowed a global network of people to quickly, effectively, and intelligently discuss, comment, and interact together. ICT4D is the stronger because of it, as these professionals can bounce ideas off one another, develop a better understanding of what is happening around the world, and communicate with the public. Another benefit is that twitter adds a human voice to development. I personally follow a number of development professionals and am always impressed by the breadth of their knowledge, what other things they are interested in, their opinions, and some are very humorous. Obviously twitter in ICT4D suffers the same problems as we previously discussed, like unchecked facts and biased opinions, but regardless it has come to be a dominant factor in the field.

Blogging too is important as it allows for at least a brief introduction into what the development professionals are doing, feeling, and hearing about. It keeps everyone on the same page and is more informative than twitter (many people link their blog to brief tweets for further explanation). I enjoy getting to hear real life opinions that are not diluted in academic wordiness and correctness.

I will certainly begin to follow more of these leaders in development on twitter and on their blogs. I highly recommend everyone check them out. My personal favorite is Chris Blattman, but there are many others out there. Here is an aggregated twitter feed of professionals in ICT4D. Educate and Enjoy!

The US Military Uses Syria to Study Social Media

After reading about social media and the Syrian Conflict in class and on the blog, I was curious as to what was being done with all of this information. I found an article detailing how students at the Naval Postgraduate School are working two projects that deal with categorizing and corralling information from social media.

The first is a software known as the Dynamic Twitter Network Analysis (DTNA) that has the ability to pull data from twitter by topic or hashtag and group it together. This is similar to how marketing has used twitter to follow trends, but could be harnessed to follow the potential uprisings and threats to security (because we have noted that twitter activity proceeds mass protests in this article)

The other program is specific to Syria, because the vulnerability of a number of sites containing weapons of mass destruction. The program similarly take information from not only twitter, but google, youtube, facebook etc. and looks for any indication that these sites could be in jeopardy. It is important to monitor because President Obama “plans to keep from entering the Syrian civil war unless chemical weapon stockpiles are exposed to danger” (Davis,1).

Syria has proved an excellent study for these tools because so much of their information is on social media. ”It was unusual because unlike conventional war, these organizations don’t have funding or resources,” Lucente said. “There are no secure communications radios” making it very easy to access their information. (Davis,2) The rebels have also embraced social media to communicate with supporters, they have 647,000 likes on their facebook page and 78,000 people following their twitter which posts updates on progress and locations. They even update a Google maps detailing day to day strikes, movement, and videos.

These are new tools being used by the military, which are more efficient, but some question the legality of privacy rights and potential storage of information. This project represents some of the first Sentiment Analysis studies for the military and opens up a whole new age for military action. This also reminded me of the Disaster Relief technology that our guest speaker Sara Estes Cohen discussed, and how that is permeating throughout all of the departments in the government, albeit much more slowly in some.

Here is a video that further explores these projects at the Naval School. This article was found on Network World and written by Kerry Davis on November 9th 2012

Electronic Birth Registration in Bangladesh

E-government projects have a success rate of only 15%. Thus far, these development initiatives have been challenging to implement in countries that lack ICT infrastructure and overall stability. One of the rare successes was a project in the Rajshahi City Corporation,the fourth largest city in the country, that allowed for birth records to be added electronically making them much easier to access and more uniform. The birth records then not only served as identification but could also be used by other departments to possibly record immunizations or school enrollment.

The direct cost of implementing this system was 20,000 US dollars, with only a 200 per month fee to maintain the system. There was improvements in both enrollment and vaccinations after the program, as well as a reduction in statistical errors based on registration. The new system is much more organized and efficient and a great example of how just a small project can have last effects.

The factors that allowed for this project to be a success seem to be its small nature, many projects are too ambitious and wind up failing because of this. The project also was simple, but effected many areas, which allowed it to have growing returns. It is easy to maintain and also easy to replicated. It does not require teaching of technologies except to a very few data entry personnel and requires no great shift in organization which makes it easy to understand. More egoverment projects like these will lead to more efficient government.

case study by Moshtaq Ahmed

Further Information on M-Pesa

I read an article about the economic benefits of M-Pesa for Kenya that gave great further detail to what we had learned in class about mobile money banking. I am fascinated by how powerful of a tool this system has quickly become and the prevalence of its use in Kenya.

In the Beginning- “cell phones have been adopted more than five times as fast as fixed line telephone services”(Jack,3) especially in Africa this leap frogging of technology has created thousands of new mobile phone users. Safaricom, Kenya’s largest mobile phone provider, created in 2007 through donor funding the idea of M-Pesa which allows transfers and deposits of money via cellphone. The service quickly took off and is the most successful mobile banking in the developing world.

 

The Banking- M-pesa works by taking the deposits made by costumers and depositing them in Safaricom’s bank accounts. Initially the company only used the central bank of Africa, but they have diversified now to minimize risks.

Issues include that most of the deposits are uninsured against bank failure, the potential use of e-float as currency could lead to increased money supply and inflation, and there are still many regulations regarding withdrawals lacking.

Benefits include that people don’t have to carry as much money around, it decreases travel costs, it is efficient, easy, and quick. It also led to an increase in savings.

Survey- The writers of the paper conducted a representative survey throughout Kenya that showed the promising results of M-Pesa. It showed that 44% of household had at least one member who had used M-Pesa, typically the households that had were wealthier and more educated compared with households that hadn’t used the service

The survey also showed that more than half of the people gave their experience the service a 10/10 and more than 80% agreed it was at least 8 or above. Most issues were resolved within one day if there were problems and users saw increased savings.

This report was written two years ago and we have seen the great continued success of the service. It was announced recently that M-Pesa will be expanding to 35 more countries, a great achievement for the developing world in making banking more affordable and easy. Increased savings and the economic benefits are clear, and this leads to growth and development for nations.

The report used for this data was written by William Jack and Tavneet Suri. 

Profile: Nicholas Negroponte

In this week’s readings there is a focus on case studies relating to the One Laptop Per Child initiative, which promotes giving inexpensive and child friendly laptops to developing schools in order to promote introduction to ICT and increased educational opportunities. The project was founded by Nicholas Negroponte who is involved in many other pioneering technological achievements.

A graduate of MIT, he studied computer aided design and has always been a strong proponent of the importance of user friendly technology in daily life. He sees technology, especially computers, as being increasingly beneficial for humankind with still yet un tapped potential.

His major focus today is on children’s education around the world, believing that it is the key to growth. He is also believes that children can learn through doing, and should be in charge of their education. (Read more here) “Everybody agrees that whatever the solutions are to the big problems, they … can never be without some element of education.” – Nicholas Negroponte

Negroponte co-founded and directed the MIT Media Laboratory which strives to bring together creative and technological researchers and developers to study cutting edge technology and inventions that will impact everyday life.

He was also the first investor and a writer for Wired Magazine, as well as an investor in over thirty tech startups.

He has been described by some as having “techno-utopian” ideas that are not actually feasible, for example there are many critiques in the assigned reading “Can One Laptop Per Child Save the World’s Poor?”

Watch Negroponte TED Talk on OLPC

Unwin Citation: Making ICTs work for Food Security in Africa

In Chapter four Of Unwin’s ICT4D textbook he discusses particular technology interfaces used in development and the challenges and benefits associated with each. One of his sources was an arcticle by Romeo Bertolini titled, “Making Information and Communication Techonolgies work for Food Security in Africa”. Not only does this article touch on more points in Chapter four of Unwin, but it also adds more background to article from last week, “Gender Assessment of ICT Access and Usage in Africa” and a variety of points about overall ICT development in Africa.

Bertolini reitereates the point that ICTs are not the solution to ending poverty and famine, but can make a significant contribution if implemented correctly. He even mentions how this will be of importance in meeting the first Millenim Development Goal, to halve the number of people suffering from malnutrion and hunger by 2015. Issues that deter from this goal,include that most Africans do not have personal access to ICTS and on average 60% of African households are not connected to their nation’s power grid (Bertolini,3).

He describes how in Africa ICTs have to the potential to…

–accelerate agricultural development and knowledge, in particular for food security they can…

-improve marketing and distribution

-enable the exchange of information about innovations, weather, farming news, etc.

- integrate farmers into local, nationanal and even international trading systems

Some useful ICTs mentioned in the article that are being used for food security in Africa..

- Satellites like the GIS (Geographic Information System) to record land registration and surveys that Bertolini says will help increase farmers land management and allow them to “borrow funds against the asset in order to invest”

-Food insecurity and vulnerability information and mapping systems (FIVIMS) which can compile data to understand where people are malnourished, where these is risk of famine, and the underlying causes of these issues.

Bertolini offers policy suggestions so that ICTs can be more effective, including, creating preconditions for pan-African collaboration on trade and monitoring, better incentives for donors and investors to develop infrastructure “such as sound business and tax environments”, private sector development especially of low cost technologies,and finally freeing up more resources to build capacity and involve local organizations. All of these are extremely important because there is much to be done in Africa regarding ICTs and it is clear that ICTs can have a major effect on food security. Famine is not a sudden event but a gradual issue that can be recognized and hopefully averted. ICTs have the ability to make this a real possibility to today, and hopefully Africa uses this capability to the fullest.

Women in ICT- Focus on Ghana

In the National ICT policy for Ghana there was a strong focus on making an extra effort to include women and girls in ICT education, employment, and benefits. We discussed in class the gap between ownership and use of ICTs in men and women from Africa, but beyond that I wanted to know about employment and empowerment. In reading about the Gender Gap in Africa I was curious as to how specifically in Ghana this was being dealt with too.This year, Ghana has shown a commitment to bridging the Gender Gap by creating “Girls in ICT Day”. This government sponsored idea was implemented by the Minister of Communication in Ghana (who is in charge of ICT policy) in order to keep female equality a major part of the ICT development. The day encouraged women to continue to strive for high positions in the ICT world and never think that they were not intellectual or capable enough to do so. Because of the exisiting Gender roles in Ghana, most women spend their time doing chores indoors with the mothers, and boys are encouraged to seek outside employment. Madam Eva Lokko, an ICT Consultant, has many suggestions to increase the amount of women in ICT including more elementary ICT education in schools, subsidizing education fees for women, and creating workshops just for girls about software and technology. These ideas are important because as we saw it is not just that women are less likely than men to use ICTs, it is the compounding social factors that affect women more adversely that have kept women from achieving higher roles in ICT development and use.

This event was meant to bring awareness to the issue of gender in ICT and also inspire young women. A big part of the day was the field trip component, thirty girls were taken from Accra elementary schools to go on field trips to the Ministry of Defense to see air fleets and ICT in the military, The Ghana Telecom University where they got to talk via teleconference to past students in Denmark, and to a radio show. It seems like a great way to early on get girls interested in ICT related fields and provide support for female empowering initiatives. Also, when looking through pictures of the event, the young girls seemed absolutely thrilled by this opportunity!

 

sites used- GirlsinIct.org Makeeverywomancount.org