iCities is a Conference about Blogs, e-Government and Digital Participation.Here come my notes for session I (part II).
Opening Session (part II)
Chairs Carmen Sánchez-Carazo
Intelligent CitiesJosé Gumersindo García
ICTs will improve the image that public administrations have before the citizenry: proximity, transparency, etc.
e-Administration and Modernization go hand in hand and they are co-requisites for the development of both.
The Public Sector does have to bet on digital literacy training for their public servants. But not only their employees, but also firms. With this digital literacy many projects can take place: instant messaging for better communication, datasharing through wireless networks, e-commerce, etc.
Free software is very important for the Public Sector, and again,...
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Participation, Engagement, Use, Activism,
icities,
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alcalde,
candelaria,
david cierco,
jose sindo garcia,
plan avanza
e-STAS is a Symposium about the Technologies for the Social Action, with an international and multi-stakeholder nature, where all the agents implicated in the development and implementation of the ICT (NGO’s, Local authorities, Universities, Companies and Media) are appointed in an aim to promote, foster and adapt the use of the ICT for the social action.
Here come my notes for session VI.
Ángel de la Riva
Cibervoluntarios
CiberMix: Diffusion and advocacy program that shows the benefits of ICTs in institutions, firms and citizens in rural areas through educational, leisure, content and services activities.
Antonio Fumero
periodismociudadano.com: a gate for initiatives, experiences, people, etc. that deal with citizen journalism.
The goals of citizen journalism (and blogging):...
e-STAS is a Symposium about the Technologies for the Social Action, with an international and multi-stakeholder nature, where all the agents implicated in the development and implementation of the ICT (NGO’s, Local authorities, Universities, Companies and Media) are appointed in an aim to promote, foster and adapt the use of the ICT for the social action.
Here come my notes for session III. (notes at random, grouped by speaker, but not necessarily in chronological order)
Left to right: Raoul Weiler, Jérôme Combaz, María del Mar Negreiro, Berta Maure Rubio
Raoul Weiler, Club of Rome
It will be possible for everyone to access the Internet trough/thanks to low cost devices.
But education will make the difference, not devices.
Jérôme Combaz, Charte pour l’Inclusion...
e-STAS is a Symposium about the Technologies for the Social Action, with an international and multi-stakeholder nature, where all the agents implicated in the development and implementation of the ICT (NGO’s, Local authorities, Universities, Companies and Media) are appointed in an aim to promote, foster and adapt the use of the ICT for the social action.
Raul Zambrano, UNDP
ICTs, Digital Divide and Social Inclusion
Four stages of ICT Development
connectivity, get people connected
content and have people have capacities to deal with it
services
participation, Web 2.0
Digital divide
Within countries
Among countries
Within and among countries
The difference between the digital divide in developed countries and developing ones is that in developing ones is but another...
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UNDP,
e-stas2008,
Raul Zambrano,
ICT4D,
Nonprofits,
Digital Divide,
meetings,
Participation, Engagement, Use, Activism
Stuff I should have blogged at the time:
What if? - New York emergency housing competition results: Last September, New York City launched “What if? “, an open competition to find innovative designs for high-density emergency provisional housing for 38,000 households in the aftermath of a hurricane and flood disaster in afictional, one [...]...
There’s been frequent discussion here - and blogs like MobileActive, of course - about how cellphones can be used in humanitarian responses. It’s worth remembering, however, that technology is neutral - both “good guys” and “bad guys” use it (if you can be bothered with that way of looking at the world) - and that, in conflict situations, communications technology is seen as a legitimate target. So for all the talk of how empowering mobile technology is, we haven’t had much discussion about the other side of the coin.
This bring us neatly to an amazingly interesting post by Barnett Rubin on Informed Comment, entitled Taliban and Telecoms — Secret Negotiations Just Got Easier, and at a Price You Can Afford! Rubin is interested mainly in...
Daniela de Carvalho Matielo presents a PhD seminar at the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute, UOC.
Challenging the digital divide: the role of telecenters in e-inclusion practices.
First, Daniela brings a short introduction to the concept of the Digital Divide as lack of access to ICTs.
Digital Inclusion is then the effort to guarantee everyone has access to the Information Society.
The problem is that there is not only one digital divide, but many: geographical, etc.
These efforts have, hence, many designs, from fiscal incentives to direct provision of Internet access from physical places: telecenters, places people can go to use telecommunication services. The main difference with a cyber cafe is profit — in the latter case — or bridging the digital divide — in the fomer case...
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actor network theory,
ethnography,
ICT4D,
Digital Divide,
Digital Literacy,
Participation, Engagement, Use, Activism
The White African faces a quandary:
Global tools that have real time read/write access are extremely powerful. Depending on ones motives, your impact can be good or bad. Even if your motives are good, your tool can be used for bad. How’s that for a quandry?
It’s certainly a quandary, but not a new one. It’s the same question that’s been asked about humanitarian aid since at least the 1970s, and has been one of the motors behind the humanitarian reform process. What’s more interesting is the assumption behind that question, an assumption that he describes quite clearly:
Just decades ago those who were not in close enough proximity to an event were unable to do much, if anything about it. Today, we can successfully effect change through digital tools and be...
Two years ago we here spoke about e-Readiness and the Human Development Index. The chart we then plotted was similar to this one:
[click to enlarge]
This chart now adds two tendency curves: one (exponential) for countries with a Human Development Index (HDI) over 7.00, and another one (linear, though absolutely irrelevant, on the other hand) for countries under 7.00 — though there are lots of countries missing: too poor to appear on the charts…).
Even if the regression is not really accurate (not at all) we can more or less see a relationship between e-Readiness and Development (as measured as HDI).
One of the main criticisms I have against how the digital divide, the Information Society or e-Readiness is measured (see below “More info” for a couple of references)...
The Economist article Of internet cafés and power cuts was passably interesting on the subject of technology in developing countries, although it takes the usual optimistic approach that the Economist favours. The Economist picked up on this issue was the publication of this year’s Global Economic Prospects by the World Bank, with a focus on technology adoption and a barrel full of blindingly obvious conclusions.
More interesting is the research that both of those draw on quite heavily, building a Historical Cross-Country Technology Adoption Database. You can download the database itself from that page, but the overview article Cross-Country Technology Adoption: Making the Theories Face the Facts by Diego Comin and Bart Hobijn is much more manageable. I haven’t dug into the...
In a recent event where I was invited to debate about the need whether to foster the Information Society, I was shocked about some positions from both some of the speakers on the round table I participated in and the audience.
The starting point was: is there a need to foster the Information Society, or the Web 2.0 is a sufficient empowerer so there’s no reason to set up centralized strategies and policies?
One of the first arguments to come to debate can be summed up by “if people find no interest on the Internet, they will not use it, even if the infrastructures are ready and affordability is good enough”.Which I absolutely share: people like Lenhart (2000), Compaine (2001) or Parks Associates (2007) have already given evidence about this fact — this is, of course,...
I’ve been recently interviewed by e-mail by journalist Ignacio Fossati. He put clever questions that made me think, which I really appreciated. Some of my answers were grounded on plain evidence, but other were just my own opinion — arguably all of them. As most of the interview dealt with “cheap technologies for Developing Countries”, such as the OLPC project, and we’ve been having some debate lately here, with Teemu Leinonen or at Peter Ryan’s, I thought I’d share them here, so the debate can go on.
In bold characters, the questions; the answers following.
Cheap laptops, what do you think their acceptance will be like in developing countries? Do you think it will be a success?
Personally I think that they will undoubtedly have some acceptance. In...
Round Table: Enric Senabre (moderator), Ana Moreno, Eduardo Sánchez, Carlos Mataix, Paco Prieto, Martín JerchICTs in the policies and strategies of Development Cooperation, particularly in Spanish Cooperation
Carlos Mataix: some reflections about the design and management of organizational networks in cooperation
Networks are open and can help to reduce transaction costs between nodes, provided there are common standards, confidence, etc. in these transactions
Networks are complex, but a good environment to help ideas grow
From (classic) strategic planning towards a paradigm or leadership based on values, and networks should be lead by such values
Generative networks have distributed power, then again challenging the traditional ways of leadership and organization government: the...
Use of ICTs in development cooperation models
More efficacy, based on knowledge-intensive projects
Usefulness must drive the implementation of ICTs, not hype
ICTs for a better nonprofit performance and for better project results
Learn from ICT adoption in developing countries and apply them in developed ones
ICTs challenge the traditional design of the nonprofit sector
Capacity building a must for nonprofits to benefit from ICTs
Usability, accessibility, content, sustainability
e-Governance to enhance citizen engagement
Networked cooperation
A necessary response to the Network Society
Shift from hierarchy to horizontal interaction
Human networks boosted by technological networks
Knowledge sharing
Project-centered cooperation, enabling inclusion
Multistakeholder partnerships...
Lady Virginia Mugarra VelardeEducation for HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases prevention
The role of ICTs to educate about sexually transmitted diseases prevention, especially to educate educators.
An important aspect of such education is to ease the communication between the physicists and their patients.
Goals
Train educators about these diseases… and how to educate about them
Sensitize youngsters about prevention
Mobilize policy makers
The main successes are, above all, the speed and spread of information and training, with a strong focus on prevention, which is where information can actually make a difference.
Tools: a platform with three axes (1) content (2) spaces for debate (3) online assistance
María Jesús MedinaCybervolunteering at Iníci@te Programme
[note: in...
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ICT Infrastructures,
development,
Telecenter,
Telecentre,
Online Volunteering,
ICT4D,
Nonprofits,
Digital Divide,
meetings,
Digital Literacy
Ismael Peña-López (moderator), Shafika Isaacs, Vikas Nath, Paula UimonenNetworking Cooperation — towards the networked Cooperation
Ismael Peña-López: Introduction
see my position paper here
Paula Uimonen: Is development cooperation prepared?
No. The structure is too bureaucratic.
But the network logic is horizontal, cross-sectorial, transversal, non-hierarchical.
But it seems that the international arena is working for a more networked development cooperation sector.
Shafika Isaacs: Are organizations prepared to network?
It depends: they’re all in an evolutionary process.
There’re more and more organizations working in the field of ICT4D.
And a rising awareness on the issue.
Big leadership behind ICT4D fostering.
Common agenda that enabled collaboration and networking,...
Florencio CeballosIDRC: Learnings, limitations and challenges from the telecentre.org experience
Crisis of performance, effectiveness, results, etc. in development cooperation, despite the increasing amount of resources devoted to it.
Reasons
Industrial way of thinking, not post-industrial. The actual development paradigm is old and not valid. We need a new, up-to-date paradigm.
Focus on pilot projects that are not maintained after the pilot phase, so they die in the medium- or long-run.
Short-sightedness of asymmetric internationalism: there’s more and more knowledge in the South about south issues than in the north, so don’t (you northern developed country) look at your local environment, because it does not mirror the southern reality.
Money is an issue, but not the......
Round table: Manuel Acevedo (moderator), Shafika Isaacs, Vikas Nath, Eiko Kawamura, Paula Uimonen
Opportunities and Challenges of ICT integration in Development Cooperation.
Q: who’s to design ICT4D cooperation strategies?
Paula Uimonen: It makes lesser and lesser sense the North-to-South approach of knowledge and aid transfer. More and more the South is sovereign to define its own needs, and should be able to ask for help, resources and so to the North, but not to have to indiscriminately accept what comes from it.
Q: can I help you if you (country) don’t have a framework, an explicit policy to foster ICTs?
Shafika Isaacs states that in most Africa such policies do exist [focus in education], and the frameworks, even in an emergent state, they are already built and capable of...
Live notes at Cooperación al Desarrollo 2.0: I Encuentro Internacional de las Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación para la Cooperación al Desarrollo [Cooperation for Development 2.0: I International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Cooperation for Development], in Gijón, Spain, 30 and 31 January 2008.
Keynote speech: Manuel Acevedo
The challenges of the integration of ICTs in a networked cooperation
How do we integrate ICTs in Development Cooperation? What does “networked cooperation” exactly means?
Human Development and Network Society
Human Development according to Amartya Sen: not only “physical” development, possibilities, but also capabilities, entitlements.
Network Society according to Manuel Castells: everything...
Cisco have done a lot of good in our sector through their support to NetHope and similar initiatives, no doubt about that. However the promo video on their Telepresence site manages to showcase the least useful way we could possibly use their technology, as well as putting the stereotypical “young white middle class aid worker” in the centre of the frame - instead of the people that we’re supposed to be helping.
UPDATE: Okay, so I got hit by the grumpy stick this morning. On the other hand, the first draft of this post was far more vitriolic…
UPDATE 2: Also, did you catch the obscure Western reference? This blog is in danger of becoming too much like my personal blog…...
Following the collapse of the political process in Kenya, bloggers White African and Kenyan Pundit - both of whom are worth reading, by the way - have developed a Google Maps mash-up which deals with electoral violence in the country. Called Ushaidi (’witness’ in Swahili, I think?), it enables people to report events either online or via SMS. It’s not the first time something like this has been tried, but this an interesting organic attempt to pin down exactly what’s happening in the country. As anybody working in human rights knows, gathering this sort of information is extremely difficult - particularly later on when it might be needed. More explanation from White African in this blog post, coverage at Global Voices (with an interesting article on cyber...
Framework
When framing all the impact of ICTs in society — and not only at the economic level — it is unavoidable to speak of Manuel Castells’s work, maybe the most acknowledged scholar in this field. Summing up and focusing on what is of interest here, Castells presents a society structured in three layers — relationships of production, experience and power — that by acting over matter (i.e. nature) — the former — and establishing relationships amongst them three layers, end up shaping a culture in a specific configuration of time and space. As technology plays and important role in both the relationships amongst layers and in the creation of culture, Castells theorizes on how ICTs are actually shaping nowadays culture in a very broad sense. His thesis is that the...
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Information Society,
Policy,
Strategies,
Strategy,
Spain,
web 2.0,
policies,
pull,
push,
Cyberlaw, governance, rights,
ICT4D,
Digital Divide,
meetings,
e-Readiness
As in a pendulum movement, the reflections about the impact of ICTs in the Economy have swung from enthusiasm to realism and back to optimism, being each of these states really subjective and implying a wide range of shades within.
After a first period of cyberoptimism, people that “wanted to see” and people that thought “waiting to see” was a bad strategy because “it will then be too late”, followed a timespan where scientists — mainly economists — stuck to strict evidence from reality, being their main conclusion that the more you spend/invest in ICTs the more they affect both the share and the growth of the GDP — an obvious conclusion to many, I’d dare say, as it’ll happen with sweets if you spent half your national budget in......
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economy,
ict,
labour,
gdp,
growth,
labor,
market,
network society,
new economy,
Information Society,
development,
ICT4D,
Digital Divide
It is beyond question that development and education are tightly bound one to each other. And if Information and Communication Technologies are quickly becoming an important vector for development too, having the three concepts under the same roof — Development, Education and ICTs — really does make a lot of sense.
This is what the Association for Learning Technology (you can call it ALT) is planning to do on September 2008 at the ALT-C 2008: Rethinking the digital divide International Conference.
The event is having eight dimensions:
global or local;
institutional or individual;
pedagogy or technology;
access or exclusion;
open or proprietary;
private or public;
for the learner or by the learner;
or other aspects of the digital divide.
On the other hand, I have been honored to be...
Third of my three seminars imparted at the he Rich-Media Webcasting Technologies for Science Dissemination Workshop, organized by the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics Science Dissemination Unit.
Main aspects
Seminar fundamentally based on my article The personal research portal: web 2.0 driven individual commitment with open access for development, also presented at the Web2forDev Conference, and split in two parts:
Part I: conceptual presentation of the Personal Research Portal
Part II: practical workshop based on the building and managing of my own research portal, ICTlogy.net
Live recording of the session
Part I: view, download ( 127.01 Mb)
Part II: view, download ( 126.97 Mb)
See, also, the rest of the workshop presentations
Slides
Click here to download,...
Second of my three seminars imparted at the he Rich-Media Webcasting Technologies for Science Dissemination Workshop, organized by the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics Science Dissemination Unit.
Main aspects
Seminar fundamentally based on my notes on the Web2forDev Conference and split in two parts:
Part I: showcase of different Web 2.0 — and related ICT4D — projects in developing countries
Part II: open debate with the attendants based on random thoughts extracted from the said notes
Live recording of the session
Part I (begins at aprox past the 2/3 of total running time): view, download ( 165.78 Mb)
Part II: view, download ( ??? Mb)
See, also, the rest of the workshop presentations
Slides
Click here to download, or watch them on Slideshare:...
First of my three seminars imparted at the he Rich-Media Webcasting Technologies for Science Dissemination Workshop, organized by the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics Science Dissemination Unit.
Main aspects
Introduction to the Web 2.0, stressing the fact that the web is the platform, that putting up content to the web has been made quite easy — caveat: provided you have access to a computer and good bandwidth —, the power of RSS, the challenge of filtering and content quality.
Conferences are one dimensional: content delivered at one time and one place
Conferences should shift from information exchange to knowledge exchange
Before conferences: data and information sharing through websites, blogs, social networks
During conferences: knowledge sharing through...
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abdus salam,
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web 2.0,
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ICT4D,
Digital Divide,
meetings,
Digital Literacy
Next December 3, 4 and 5 I’ll be in Trieste at the Rich-Media Webcasting Technologies for Science Dissemination Workshop, organized by the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics Science Dissemination Unit.
The whole set of names is quite eerie — for a social scientist like me — but once read you realize this is a very interesting workshop on scientific diffusion in developing countries, being ICT4D a deepest commitment of the organizers.
As you can see in the programme, I’ll be teaching two seminars and a workshop, namely:
Conferences 2.0: Scientists and Web 2.0, where I’ll speak about the change of paradigm in scholarly communication, mainly inspired by my Conferences 2.0 article in July
Web 2.0 and the Digital Divide, where I will try to...
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Digital Literacy
Christian Kreutz writes about the first day at the Web4Dev conference taking place in Nairobi. Some subjects he highlights — and I just list:
Connectivity a main issue for development
Broadband the second derivative of the connectivity issue
RSS feeds and e-mail working great with low/poor connectivity
Other Web 2.0 applications worsening the connectivity/broadband problem
ironically, wireless technologies might provide better connectivity to rural areas than urban suburbs have, where wiring or even “wifiing” is way difficult because of lack of formal settlements
The (positive or negative) role of leadership
Need for local content
No charity, but development: solutions must work in the market, so they are sustainable...
The problem of writing in several places and doing it in different languages is that, after all, it is quite difficult to establish or draw a consistent thread of your own thinking. If you, indeed, do need this verbalized/explicitly-written summary of your ideas for other purposes, tracking it down is, more than interesting, a must. Here comes, hence, some things I’ve said somewhere else in the past days, just slightly elaborated:
The myth of the digital natives (source)
When talking about the digital natives, it is common to listen to people talk from radical, opposed approaches: the digital native is an axiom vs. the digital native is an absurd nonsense. Just few try and stay in a middle point.
I believe — I really mean it — that it makes no sense talking about digital natives...