ICTlogy

If “yesterday” I wrote about Wireless Networking in the Developing World, now’s the time for Village Phone’s initiatives.

Famous — and well deserved — due to the work of the Grameen Foundation, the Village Phone programme bases its ICT4D policy in mobile phones instead of desktops with Internet access, and its best asset is the sustainability of the project itself.

The Village Phone Replication Manual

is a guideline for replicating the Village Phone program in a new country. It draws on the experience Grameen has had in both Bangladesh and Uganda and establishes a template for creating sustainable initiatives that simultaneously bring telecommunications to the rural poor, create viable new businesses for micro-entrepreneurs, and expand the customer base of telecommunications companies.

• Home page of the book: Village Phone Replication Manual
• Piece of news
• The Book to download: Village Phone Replication Manual (7.43 Mb) (I would usually put a direct link here, but they ask for some statistical data – and your fair use declaration – so, please, go visit the home page of the book)

A free book (can also pay and purchase traditional format) about wireless solutions for developing countries.

The massive popularity of wireless networking has caused equipment costs to continually plummet, while equipment capabilities continue to increase. By applying this technology in areas that are badly in need of critical communications infrastructure, more people can be brought online than ever before, in less time, for very little cost.

Authored and edited by quite a numerous team lead by Rod Flickenger, it provides information from ground physics and telecommunications (Radio Physics, Networks, Transmissions, etc.) to five detailed case studies. It has the shape of a primer, a handbook and a DIY course.

Last but not least, the way it was written – collaborative, in a networked way – looks like the authors had fun in doing it.

• Home page of the book: Wireless Networking in the Developing World
• The Book to download: Wireless Networking in the Developing World (1.92 Mb) (there’s a heavier “to print” version in their site)
• Wiki about the book
• Post in Beth’s Blog (first seen here)
• Post in Boing Boing

The term last mile is used in telecommunications to mean the last place an infrastructure is set because of being difficult, expensive, not profitable, etc. to implement. It is usually associated with rural communities, where the concept of living in the last mile is even more graphic.

Titus Moetsabi is said to be the father of the term First Mile as a matter to raise awareness on digital inclusion issues for rural communities.

I’ve written before about this subject and even about First Mile Solutions in the framework of a post about the IV Conference on Technology for Human Development.

Now I read a post about USAID’s Last Mile Initiative. The good news is not the project itself — I mean, not the only ones ;) — but that a good bunch of pages have been published about the whole project, including the complete baseline report and all the research instruments.

• Overview of Last Mile Initiative Activities Managed by dot-ORG
• Impact Assessment Baseline Study in Peru Yields Interesting Findings
• Complete Baseline Report (845 Kb)
• Research Instruments (736 Kb)

BTW, The DOT-COM Alliance is a USAID-funded program to promote the use of information and communications technology (ICT) across all development sectors.

An International website featuring up to date 2005 worldwide Internet Usage, the Population Statistics and the Area Data, for over 233 countries and world regions.

• Internet World Stats

[via Development Gateway]

Again through my subscription to one of the lists of The Development Gateway (BTW, that usually means John Daly :)

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has publised the ICT Development Indices for year 2004. First of all, I’m glad they called the report that way, The Digital Divide: ICT Development Indices 2004, instead of something such as “ICT Implantation Indices” or something even colder, as numbers usually are.

The report begins with a comparison amongst year 1995 and year 2002 indices.
It then deals with telephone lines, mobile suscribers, internet hosts, PCs and internet users. Lorenz curves for these items are really impressive – not their drawing, but the message within!

The report goes on with some best practices about the introduction of ICTs and then points exclusively on Africa.

Highly recommendable.

The Digital Divide: ICT Development Indices 2004 (422 Kb)
The Digital Divide: ICT Development Indices 2004 (1,398 Kb)

César tells me about Google Scholar (beta), that enables you to search specifically for scholarly literature.

You might think this is quite simple but here are some cute searches I made. I do invite you to see the results:

• ICT4D

• “information and communication technologies for development”
  

• ngo “e-learning”

• “online volunteers”

• ICTlogy (of course ;)

• “Ismael Peña” (this is getting quite egocentric ;DDD )

If you can suggest interesting queries, please let me know :)