ICTlogy

[2nd part of 2]
[go to IV Conference on Technology for Human Development: impressions (part I)]

 

Impressions on the IV Conferencia Tecnología para el Desarrollo (IV Conference on Technology for Human Development), organized by Ingeniería Sin Fronteras (Engineers Without Borders).

 

Pilar Vélez and Antonio Cáceres (Diputación de Huelva) presented ADITAL, a project to give ICT based services to “farmers, ranchers and technicians of the agricultural sector throughout the world and especially the partner countries, Spain, Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Denmark and Sweden”. Main services are:

• Virtual community
• e-Learning platform: digital literacy, specific training, etc.
• On-line traceability application for agricultural products
• On-line on-time information platform with: market prices, product characteristics, etc.

Really impressive!

 

Karin Delgadillo (Fundación Chasquinet) and Michel Menou presented a network of telecenters (somos @ telecentros).

I really laughed when Michel Menou, talking about e-government, said “when designing e-government projects, if you do not know what to do, just upload it to the Internet”.

They gave some hints on ICT4D project design:

How to surely fail:

• No participation of beneficiaries in the design
• Projects based in cooperation agencies agendas (instead of target agendas)
• Support isolated unities instead of already established networks
• Short term economic profit
• Contact vs. foster
• Do not keep in mind that technology will evolve
• Publicity vs. results

How to ease success:

• Long run
• Flexibility
• Minimum bureaucracy
• Networked local partners
• Stress in training
• Lower Internet costs

 

Mairiana Morales (ISF) presented the Cuadernos Internacionales de Tecnología para el Desarrollo Humano (Technology for Human Development International Papers). Number 2 has just seen the light and its subject is Information and Communication Technologies.

Very, very interesting… for those who can read Spanish ;)

 

Manuel Acevedo, talking about ICT4D and ICT related to Cooperation for Development reminded me of some great resources:

• ICT Forum 4-5 March 2003
• OCDE’s
  Development Co-operation Directorate (DAC)
• UN ICT Task Force
• United Nations Development Programme
• Millennium Development Goals

 

Elena Vuolo (ISF) talked also about ICT and Cooperation for development and pointed to the following institutions and their projects:

• Bellanet and their assessment to institutions, studies and information
• ELDIS, Gateway to Development Information, with research, guides…
• IICD, the International Institute for Communication and Development, and Building Digital Opportunities: ICT Case Studies
• GKP, Global Knowledge Partnership
• UNITeS, and their OnlineVolunteering

 

During the closing session, Christian Blanquart (ITU), talked about the right of ICT access in quite a pessimistic way (“an optimistic well informed” he defined himself ;) and ended saying:

We’ve got everything. We’ve got convergence in technology, in content and in services. There’s just the lack of a convergence in policy.”

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