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.”

[1st part of 2]
[go to IV Conference on Technology for Human Development: impressions (part II)]

Last Thursday and Friday I assisted (and spoke at) at the IV Conferencia Tecnología para el Desarrollo (IV Conference on Technology for Human Development), organized by Ingeniería Sin Fronteras (Engineers Without Borders). Next follow some of my impressions. Notice that this is no summary of what was talked there, but just some concrete ideas that specially caught my attention, because I found them interesting or, simply, new.

At the opening session, Alfons Martinell (AECI) talked about Jeremy Rifkin’s concept of access he describes in the Age of Access (a short reading here: Age of Access):

In the new era, markets are making way for networks, and ownership is steadily being replaced by access.

This means we should focus on access instead on ownership also when dealing about ICTs in developing countries, which is, in my opinion, specially relevant when talking about services and content.

He recovered the idea from Zygmunt Bauman that “globalization is characterized by mobilizations” to say that, actually, development is also our problem.

Elena Acín (Fundación Chandra) mentioned two books I should, at least, have a quick look at them or at their authors’s ideas:

• Steven Johnson: “Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software”
• Fritjof Capra: “Hidden Connections”

all of them about networks and so ;)

Valentín Villarroel (ISF) stated 5 conclusions to keep in mind in the design of ICT for development projects:

• have to be integral
• “old” ICTs (TV, radio…) might useful and cheap in some cases, so don’t disdain them just because they’re “old”
• give access to development agents (NGO’s, volunteers, local partners, etc.): they’ve got important multiplicator effects
• give priority to access to public networks, say, already established local public networks: networking is a must, if there’s already a network, why wouldn’t you use it?
• priority one: voice (private radio or phone) and data (e-mail, then web).Then think of enhancing and “complicating” your project

Javier Simó (EHAS) said that “sometimes population doesn’t need/ask for connectivity… but developing agents do”. This is similar to what Valentín Villarroel said when talking about multiplicator effects but one step beyond: sometimes your target is not direct beneficiaries but intermediaries, who, through efficiency, will act positively on local population. What a truth!

An then presented some experiences in developing countries that I’ll just note down here, all of them about WiFi applications to development:

• BorgouNET, about connectivity for developing agents in Benin
• DakNet, the “digital West Point”, similar to this, but in India
• Jhai Foundation’s ultralow power consuming computers (thanks also to the WiFi connexion) in Laos
• EHAS, on e-health