ICT4D | TechChange | The Institute for Technology and Social Change

Whether you think of HTML as a familiar friend or a terrifying alien monster, we can all agree that sometimes code just takes too much time. In an attempt to help a friend build her web presence, and my own while I was at it, I worked my way through the abundance of e-Portfolio options. The benefits of using an e-Portfolio as a personal page are that 1. You can create a portfolio specific to your profession and interests, from academe to graphic design, 2. You don’t have to know how to write html, and 3. You can link all of your social networking and personal sites in one place. The below options are far from exhaustive and there are many notable examples left of this list. (more…)

This is the second post in a two part series on this topic. The first installment was written by TJ earlier in the week.

The Exchange 2.0 conference at the U.S. Institute of Peace on 4/27 offered a stimulating discussion that centered on using new technologies to further cross-cultural learning. While it was clearly conveyed that face-to-face study abroad programs are one of the best vehicles for promoting cross-cultural understanding, the reality is that many people (especially more disadvantaged students) may never have these opportunities. In an era when American young people need to know more than ever about our world and the people in it, the best estimate is that less than 2 percent of Americans enrolled in higher education participate in study abroad programs. Even then, the majority go to Europe. (more…)

The issue of Internet censorship has cycled throughout headlines, whether it’s Congress interrogating Microsoft and Yahoo! as to why they are selling products that assist Chinese filtration or Google deciding that they are no longer censoring Google.cn. The largest cause for concern has been the violation of human rights, which has lead to new Internet freedom scales from organizations like Freedom House and Reporters Without Borders. However, research of Internet censorship from an economic perspective has been pretty limited. I performed a mini case study of China and India, two countries that have had similar ICT growth but one is censored and the other is not. Unfortunately, there is not much evidence that shows that censorship is causing much of a negative effect on China’s ICT industry, but its continual growth could still influence policy change as the entire nation gets online. (more…)

For those working in the field of conflict prevention and humanitarian assistance, reliable real-time data plays a critical role in staging a successful intervention. As a recent discussion at the U.S. Institute of Peace with Dr. Steven Livingston made clear, the humanitarian policy world is dealing with an environment where data gathering technology is advancing at an exceptional rate. The conversation then addressed the challenge created by all this technology; the sheer volume of incoming data can overwhelm policy makers and field-based practitioners. (more…)

The current picture of Haiti is complex: millions of people are still displaced, billions of dollars in promised aid have yet to arrive, and there is still an extreme lack of infrastructure. However, there are thousands of NGOs working around the country, and some of the most promising work is being done in communications and connectivity. (more…)

On January 11, 2011 from 11-12am, TechChange co-hosted a tweet chat with Linda Raftree (@meowtree) from Plan International to gauge interest in ICT for Development (ICT4D) distance learning and get a better sense of what would appeal most to potential students. In total, the chat included an impressive 401 tweets, with 59 people participating. Our hashtag, #ict4ddl, was even a top trending topic in Washington DC at around 11:30. Throughout the hour, we covered a lot of ground, ranging from course content to length to delivery. Here’s the archive.

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A couple weeks ago, Nick Kristof published a New York Times article titled DIY Foreign-Aid Revolution and Dave Algoso wrote an excellent critique just a few days later in Foreign Policy. Because this is the internet and two weeks makes it venerable news, I thought about letting it slide by, but it’s been bugging me increasingly since then. This is partly because I have worked both at a small 3 person NGO with a great idea and not much else, as well as a large USAID contractor with hundreds of staff members and millions of dollars in projects, and I still cannot decide which is “better.” But it’s also because I think ICT for development has a unique spot between these worlds, and I think it’s going to change the conversation in years to come.

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Several of us at TechChange had the privilege of attending a great event MobileActive and the World Bank put on last night that focused on those failures that I’m sure most involved try to forget. FAILFaireDC brought together some real pioneers in the ICT4D space to discuss issues they had dealt with and well-intentioned projects that went wrong. While the fails ranged from election monitoring and e-governance to ICT for education and health, some key concepts kept popping up. Most importantly? Hubris kills.

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