This is the Annual ICT4D Postgraduate Symposium closing plenary briefing. It took place in Egham, September 15th, 2006, evening. Here come the notes I took on the fly:
First of all, I was given the chance to present ICTlogy as my personal reseach portal in the field of ICT4D. Hope it was found useful for people to benefit from my previous (re)searches. I really encouraged people to contribute (are you reading this? ;)
Following, some of the attendants (representing working groups) presented the “solutions” these groups gave to some “frequenly asked questions” by researchers and PhD students, namely:
- Where to get the funding for field work
- How to survive the “downs”
- How to sustain enthusiasm
- How to keep balance among private life (family, social relationships… life, all in all) and research
- What are the “cyber-policies” and distribution of wealth, resources, etc.
- How to chose a country of fieldwork and sample
- How to find references and how to do the referencing
- What should be the student-supervisor relationship like during the “journey”
- What are the (best) tools to manage your bibliography (and which are FLOSS)
Then Tim Unwin presented some “Concluding Thoughts”.
Among the main commitments for the future, here come some:
- Do be part of / use the SPIDER/PID network, as one means to keep in touch
- There’ll be a Moodle-based discussion forum
- A supportive environment for successful PhD research should be created
- Ways to use environments, contributing to the journals and sites (ITID, KM4Dev, ICTlogy)
- Collaborative, shared peer-learning, pro bono activities, publication in relevant outlets, practical interest, outward looking relevant, critical but supportive
- And of course, keeping in mind the latest goal: development!
Next appointments:
- CDE/ICT4D meeting in London on 10th October (Knowledge Lab)
- November 23rd Cisco-ICT4D lecture, 18:00, Royal Holloway
- Next year’s Symposium
- Collective Book Project: ICT4D Series, edited by Tim Unwin
And of course all the presentations will be uploaded to the ICT4D Collective web page. Stay tuned!
Sincerest, heartly thanks to Tim, Marije, Auch, David. Many many thanks!!
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