ICTlogy

For those few reading these lines besides me, I do hate make you lose your time with stuff not strictly related to this blog’s purpose – and your purpose in reading it.

BUT

I wonder if some news lately might not be of “public” interest, even if they’re just to contextualize this and everything. Excuse me too for the catchy title of this entry – read on to see where does it come from.

Since December 1st I left my responsibility leading the Cooperation for Development Programme at the Open University of Catalonia. This is something we had been cooking since… almost February 2005 together with one vice-president and the CEO of the University. The reason of it all was that the Cooperation for Development Programme was leading some projects that should be lead within the framework of an academic strategy, say, from a Faculty. These projects where the direction of two masters in development, three (and a half) knowledge transfer international projects, research and innovation (almost)projects, etc.

After some internal benchmarking we found that the Faculty of Law and Political Science was deeply interested in launching an area of knowledge centered in Public Policies for Development (including ICT4D). The who’s and how’s were debated since April 2005 until October 2005, when the University decided I would become professor at the Faculty of Law and Political Science leading this new “area”, which would include the academic projects that were formerly run by the University’s Cooperation for Development Programme. Just because of bureaucracies it all was officialized last December 1st.

This means that this blog will, presumably, turn into something more academic and be shifting from e-learning and online volunteering to issues more centered in policies and the digital divide. Previous subjects will not be – of course! – forgotten, but my (somehow) new professional interests seem to be joining my late personal interests and thus scope would be a little bit wider and a little bit deeper at the same time. I guess in the following posts that’ll get some clearer.

BTW, (at least) two other ICT4D people are trying to face new challenges this new year. Jayne Cravens and Andy Carvin are leaving their actual projects and are available – the former I know, the second I guess – to share their valuable knowledge. Have good luck in your quests!

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