Extrending WiMAX coverage for providing Quality of Service in wide rural areas of developing countries Carlos Rey Moreno
EHAS Foundation promotes the use of wireless technologies for e-Health in Latin America.
Health Care Centres are the reference point of many Health Care Posts, but the later are very far from the former. So, how to coordinate action?
Characteristics of the target areas:
Isolated or hard to reach
Low income
Lack of constnat power supply
Trnsmission of voice is paramount
Solutions based on:
Wireless communications, as it is hard to wire the area
License-free frequencies
Low power consumption
Low cost of operation
Cellular technologies (e.g. 3G) can only be applied in urban areas due to coverage. Satellite is expensive. Thus why WiFi or WiMAX.
Though WiFi is quite low cost and easy to apply, the usage of voice does require higher quality technologies, hence the usage of WiMAX: allows for long distance links, grants quality of service, etc. The problem being that there are few experiences with WiMAX in developing countries. On the other hand, WiMAX is more expensive and difficult to implement than WiFi. So, how to improve quality while making the whole system sustainable?
The proposal is to build a hybrid architecture that takes the best of WiFi and WiMAX: 802.11e EDCA in the access tier, and 802.19-2009 in the backhaul tier. Another optino being the usage of WiMAX Relay Mode (IEEE 802.16j), which is compatible with fixed WiMAX devices.
There are parallel projects that focus in transferring not only the technology but in training the end-user in their management and, actually, its improvement. A network management system is also being developed so that the project improves in self-management, autonomy and sustainability. This knowledge transfer — besides technology transfer — is made in partnerships with local institutions like governments and the local health care system.
There’s also an ongoing work with simulations that enable testing before final implementation.
Factors influencing the adoption of mobile phones among the farmer in Bangladesh: theories and practices Sirajul Islam
What is adoption? It is not diffusion, but the decision of a group or individual to make full use of an innovation. It is about the users deciding about how and when they will use a specific technology.
Research objectives: understand relevant theories and models of the technology adoption process, develop hypothetical model and test it, identify the adoption factors relating to other technology and mobiles inparticilar, and explain the factors pertinent to rural Bangladesh.
Relevant theories of technological adoption
Diffusion of Innovation, Rogers (1995)
Theory of Reasoned Action, Schiffman & Kanuk (2004)
Theory of Planned Behaviour
Technology acceptance model, Davis et al. (1989)
Factors of adoption of technology: age, gender, culture, income & household, occupation, education, agroecological…
Own model, specific for mobile phone adoption:
facilitating conditions
awareness, social influences
demographic factors
individual factors
perceived ease of use
tech-service attrributes
perceived usefulness
behavioural intentions
actual use
The use of mobile phones in education: Evidence from two pilot projects in Bangladesh Ahmed T. Rashid & Mizan Rahman
The second millennium development goal as a background: the importance of education in development. ICTs a key solution?
Why mobile phones? m-Learning attractive because mobile phones:
Most ubiquitous
Specially good “leapfrogger”
Not juzt voice but data transfer
Theories of mobile learning:
The role of mobile in improving access to education, the basis of distance education. Rural and remote areas where communication is barrier; mobility/portability breaks barriers of time and space; reduction of substitution cost (e.g. less travel); flexibility.
The role of mobiles in promoting new learning, how mobile phones can transform education. Learner centred, because it is participatory, customizable; learning with understanding, accessing specific information; situated and constant learning that occurs outside classroom.
Investigate how mobile phones alone (no blended learning, though lab controlled) could be used to introduce interactivity, and copare it to face to face and sitance education with SMS enabled questions. Test outcomes similar, though some evidence of enthusiasm among.
Determine whether mobile phone supported distance education could serve as effective modality for teacher training. Findings indicate that there is very little evidence between study and control groups. Lack of English competency and technological problems being the main problems found. interaction between trainers and trainees which possibly facilitated new learning.
Conclusions are not conclusive. Mixed outcomes in terms of both facilitating access and promoting new learning, though there are signs that it could be possible.
ICT4D Research Workshop Chairs: John-Sören Petterson
Issues in ICT4D research
Low acceptance of the field in Computer Science
How to plan?
How to deal with statistical significance? How to be statistically significant? Can one be significant without using stats?
Objectives of ICT4D research?
“4D” is only in developing regions or is it possible to deal with ICT4D in a much broader sense? Can we make research “for” developing regions while based in developed ones? Where has research to be located?
How to replicate research results in other scenarios? What kind of research design allows for replication (e.g. what to do if done research in Ghana and want to replicate it in Afghanistan?
How to cope with the speed of change of ICTs if research has a slower path?
Lack of research to back ICT4D implementation projects. How to do research that helps in practical application?
How do you collect data?
What is science/research and what is not (i.e. falls in the practitioners’ side). How to bridge research and practice? Is ICT4D an applied science? Or could it be performing, as a discipline, basic research?
Discussion
Is ICT4D a science? What’s ICT4D research?
In ICT4D, you want to have some idea of the impact or the implications of your research.
Research has to be generalizable.
If the whole research is threatened by a single change of technology, maybe we should reshape our research goals.
We should have a clear methodology relying on a strong theoretical basis to back the results and the decisions arising from them.
Sometimes we will find that what we did was not research, but knowledge transfer of acknowledged knowledge to places where this knowledge was either unknown or just not applied.
What are the goals of ICT4D research?
ICT4D research necessarily needs a multidisciplinary approach.
Research should be “demonstration” focused. Indeed we could begin with an existing practical issue and do the research it requires.
Funding research is easier if problem-solving aimed.
ICT4D research should provide evidence of what works and what does not work.
We focus too much in the “T” of ICTs, and very few in the Information and Communication part.
Update: Via twiter by @shikohtwit: Goals: Empowermnt thru appropriation existing ICTs and Creation of New ICTs to cater for challenges facing devlpmt.
eGovernment: Understanding the dynamics between adoption, social inequality and empowerment Mishra Gaurav
Most of the eGovernment debate nowadays is, surprisingly, more focused on data than on citizenship, the citizenry or empowerment. Indeed, research has focused in impact assessment, sustainability or the digital divide.
Research gaps? Impact assessment in terms of development, understanding adoption and usage in developing country perspective; coordination and transformation process; quality and efficiency of services; empowerment related issues of disadvantaged groups. In general, eGovernment has been focussing in itself rather than in impact.
Goals
Factors influencing adoption and use of eGovernment services by rural people: how do SES, type of government, etc. determine eGovernment adoption
How eGovernment addresses the issue of social inequality, how does eGovernment affect social inequality
To examine the role of eGovernment in empowering people: what type of eGovernment fosters empowerment
Theoretical framework:
Unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) Venkatesh et al. (2003)
Capabilities framework-motivated from Sen (1999)
More information
V. Venkatesh, M. G. Morris, G. B. Davis, and F. D. Davis, User acceptance of information technology: Toward a unified view MIS Quarterly, vol. 27, pp. 425-478, 2003
eRebellion: The role of ICT on changing government policies and regimes Amara Thiha
The web 2.0 has enabled several new ways for information to circulate and citizens to state their opinions publicly. But it also has enabled amplification of propaganda issued by extremist and minority groups that just seldom represent e.g. the people inside a country (Myanmar case). We don’t have to take for granted that “2.0 agencies” are more neutral than traditional news agencies.
Research questions
What is the boundary between Democratic and Undemocratic with self amplified information and news?
How to control this participation which lead to undemocratic situation in democratic manners
What is this process and what is the common model of this participation in web 2.0
Towards Open Government in Morocco Asmae El Mahdi
There has been a rapid expansion of ICTs in Morocco, but they have still to hugely impact both the Administration and the citizens. Indeed, research has been done about enabling the shift from manual to automated service delivery of public services, dealing with issues like labor intensive and paper-based back offices, the integration of back-office and front-office, the provision of citizen-friendly instant service delivery, etc.
A second kind of research was focussing in the adaptation of the electronic front-office to illiterate end-users.
Open ICT4D is the use of new ICTs to engage in “open ” processes to achieve developement goals, IDRC.
A third research, eFES, focused on the impact of these new technologies applied to the Administration, on assessing ICT influence on development, while shifting towards open government:
Fez Municipality: shift away from telecom operators towards city-wide wireless open spectrum: joining up
Local Public Administration: shift away from mere comsumption to prosumption: user-driven innovation
Civil Servants: shift away from closer practices to encouraging open practices: self-service touch-screen kiosks
ICT4D team: shift away from proprietary software to free software: per-poor model of development
Results: efficiency gains evidenced in several indicators. Indeed the scheme has been replicated so far in 50% of the administration offices.
Challenges: institutional weaknesses, severe deficit in capacities; policy matters: human choices weakening innovation systems.
A New Educational Program in Tanzania. A Rought Road to Success Matti Tedre, Tumaini University, Tanzania
Project held in Tumaini Univeristy, a University in the Iringa region, to build the B.Sc. Program in IT.
A contextualized programme: practical, problem-based, interdisciplinary, context-sensitive, internationally recognized, research-based (the six pillars).
Learning is a strong commitment for the whole community: the community collects money to send one member to the University. This person becomes aware of the importance of learning and of strongly committing with his own learning. Hence, students usually collaborate and learn together.
Main problems: corruption, politics, natural disasters, economics, ecology and recycling, geography and climate, tropial diseases, bureaucracy, tampering and theft, illiteracy, power problems, scarcity of basic hardware, gender roles, lax standards, cultural conflicts, local purchase and manufacturing, manufacturer policies, customs and shipping, transportation, maintenance problems…
Things that you would have liked to know from the start:
Double check: remind people about stuff, double-check, follow-up, attend lectures to check lecturers are there, use a penalty clause in contracts to enforce them
Be flexible: adapt to the environment (my way is not the only way), plan short-term, readiness to change the plans, agile methods, democratic leadership might not work
Make budget locally
Make rules clear: very different “unspoken” rules, decide what you can’t give up, listen to others’ views, make the rules clear, share the pain
Clarify goals: to students (IT as a profession, life-long learning), to all colleagues (goals of their work, goals of education), find out motivations
Recruit early: staff, students, sudden changes, plan to recruit more than you need
Communicate: spoken and face-to-face is preferred, talk face-to-face even when you know it’ll end in a clash (you’d better face it), try to have someone who can smooth out the friction
Create ownership: if you install some infrastructures (e.g. a computer lab), you have to assign ownership of the lab to the community or to specific people, and they will take care of it. If there’s no ownership, it’s noone’s… or everyone’s
Don’t panic: most of the anxiety is needless, take it as it comes
See the big picture: try to distance yourself, try to see how your actions change the dynamics of the place
Summing up, some questions about what’s really important in this kind of work:
Why am I here
What is the most important thing I want to achieve in my work
The increasing interest in the relationship of Development and Information and Communication Technologies, and the need to make things simple — and write quick — have spread a couple of acronyms: ICTD and ICT4D. There are people that find them perfect synonyms. There are others that state that ICTD stands for Information and Communication Technologies and Development, while ICT4D stands for Information and Communication Technologies for Development, and that they have slight connotations that make them different.
In order to accommodate a broader scope many people have turned to the term “ICTD,” or ICT and development, to place the emphasis on the phenomenon of ICT use in developing countries, irrespective of whether there is a “developmental” goal or not [which would be the goal of ICT4D].
I find this difference interesting, but I would like to go one step beyond, in part because I agree with Coward on wondering whether it [is] meaningful to continue to lump countries into developing or developed buckets.
The two main drivers behind ICTD and ICT4D have usually been:
Information and Communication Technologies with a “developmental” goal
Information and Communication Technologies applied in developing or lesser-developed countries
The problem with the second one is that e.g. a network of telecenters in a rich country to foster Internet access in rural communities is, arguably, a perfect match in the field of development. But, although having a clear “developmental” goal, it is not happening in the poorest parts of the World, so it fails on the second part of the definition.
On the other hand, e.g. an e-Commerce or e-Administration project in a developing country does not necessarily has to have a “developmental” goal — provided we don’t understand “development” in the broadest sense possible and think of it as any kind of improvement on how things work.
Indeed, the concept of development has many definitions (based on Economics, on Freedom, on Well-being, etc.) as countries (developing and developed) have many realities and things that do not work (and need being “developed”) and things that do.
In fact, when talking about ICTD and ICT4D we are mixing two similar but completely different things:
Development as progress, as improving one’s or a community’s capability to perform an objective choice, a subjective choice and effective choice; or, in other words, the fostering of socioeconomic development by increasing individual resources, the fostering of value change by enabling emancipating values, and the fostering of democratization by promoting freedom rights. This is a vertical approach to development: we are more or less developed in relationship with our past stages of development.
Development as equality and inclusion, a completely horizontal approach to development: we are more or less developed in relationship with our peers or our neighbours.
With that in mind, my proposal would be the following:
ICT and Development (ICTD): The crossroads between ICTs and development as progress, with 4 main drivers: Health (which includes nutrition — a necessary stage to speak of development), Economics (objective choice), Education (subjective choice) and Freedom (effective choice). In this sense, ICTD would deal about the future by understanding the past, about the impact of ICTs in these four aspects but always in the sense of achieving higher stages of well-being.
ICT for Development (ICT4D): or how ICTs can fight inequality and (social) exclusion. This is neither dealing with the past nor with the future, but just dealing with the present. It’s about levelling the playing ground — wherever this ground is placed: in lesser developed countries or in suburban slums.
The graphic is based on the intersection of two main fields: the traditional disciplines that we call Social Sciences (with a predominant role of Economics) and the new interdisciplinar approach to the impact of ICTs on the society: the Information Society, the Knowledge Based Society, the Network Society and other similar labels.
ICTD would be the broader intersection area of these two main fields, while ICT4D would be the intersection of ICTD and a subset of Social Sciences: Development Studies.
I couldn’t stop myself from also adding NGOs in the picture and see how Cooperation for Development — understood as the discipline that studies aid agencies, NGOs, volunteering and other non-for-profit initiatives — has also its ICT-driven counterpart, nptech (non-profit technology), also a most flourishing field.
Two final caveats about this whole digression:
This is my point of view and it is not based, in any way, in any kind of consensus or majority point of view. Indeed, precisely because there does not seem to be any majority point of view that I tried to put in order my own mind.
It’s not names that matter, it’s concepts. Whether we call it ICTD or ICT4D — or whatever new name that might come along — the important thing (to me) is that e.g. the analysis of the impact ICTs on productivity and competitiveness (and jobs and people) is similar but different to the analysis on how to avoid, by means of ICTs, poor people to starve or to be marginalized.
And this last point is, actually, the point I’m trying to put clear here: the debate on ICTs and poverty should also take place in rich countries, as should the debate on ICTs and productivity and competitiveness in poor countries. There are no developed countries with inequality problems and no poor problems with development problems: it’s a continuum where we all share the same goals and problems, though we’re on different stages. And I believe that to think otherwise will damage the speed at which we reach the “solution(s)”.
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