ICTlogy

e-STAS is a Symposium about the Technologies for the Social Action, with an international and multi-stakeholder nature, where all the agents implicated in the development and implementation of the ICT (NGO’s, Local authorities, Universities, Companies and Media) are appointed in an aim to promote, foster and adapt the use of the ICT for the social action.

Here come my notes for session V.

Subjects

• Free software
• Accessibility and usability
• Linguistic diversity
• Educational programmes
• New content programmes

Debate

(random ideas, slightly sorted/grouped)

Muhammad Yunus proposes a new kind of enterprise where the focus is on stakeholders and not on shareholders, where no profit is seek, but only social benefit.

Low cost computers/devices are converging with mainstream infrastructures. Now the issue is content. There is no content for education, and this should be urgently addressed. And this content should be localized, as long as it’s happening with software (sometimes).

Nonprofits and firms could provide this content.

But can this content can be created in the same ways as free software?

People should bet on free software (not open source software), with a focus on the philosophy of free software: new ethics of work, money and network.

Knowledge should be free and is the Humanity’s patrimony. No one should own knowledge (and this includes software). Content is just the support (and can hence be owned), and each society will generate its own. Technology (= applied knowledge) should be free so it can be appropriated by individuals and communities.

If software is free, usability and accessibility come naturally, as long as linguistic diversity. Let aside costs.

Hardware, software, content, etc. should be measured by their social value, not their price, thus leading to a new ethics of value. The Digital Divide is created by the market, so the market should be taken into the spotlight when trying to bridge the Digital Divide.

The citizenry should be literate enough to be able to distinguish between different software and different content. To be aware of the implications, needs, threats, benefits of the Information Society.

Accessibility is not only being able to access ICTs/the Internet, but willing to and be aware of the costs and benefits of doing it.

Education is a very important issue, but who trains the trainers? Shouldn’t be the digital literacy trainers be more literate in e.g. technology neutrality and teach skills/competences and not specific applications?

Training should be appealing to the end user (e.g. stress in their short run needs), but also a door to further skills achieving. And these skills should include higher levels of thought where the individual can not only use some technologies, but be able to choose among several ones, reflect on their process of choice, etc.

e-STAS is a Symposium about the Technologies for the Social Action, with an international and multi-stakeholder nature, where all the agents implicated in the development and implementation of the ICT (NGO’s, Local authorities, Universities, Companies and Media) are appointed in an aim to promote, foster and adapt the use of the ICT for the social action.

Here come my notes for session IV. (notes at random, grouped by speaker, but not necessarily in chronological order)

Left to right: Francisco Ortiz Chaparro, Belén Perales, Javier Estévez (moderator), Javier de la Nava Trinidad, José Manuel García Prieto

Belén Perales, IBM

Why corporate volunteering? Employees demand it and their satisfaction, engagement, etc. does increase with nonprofit or development projects engagement. And this does benefit the firms beyond profit.

Francisco Ortiz Chaparro, AHCIET

Public-private partnerships are an important key for the development of the Information Society.

Big firms are kidnapped by their highest directors, that apply for themselves retribution policies that generate huge inequalities within the firm. This is a barrier for both the credibility of the firm as socially committed and the engagement of the rest (the basis) of the employees. Shareholders should enforce their rights to achieve more transparency and accountability of the behavior of such boards of directors, for both economic management and social responsibility reasons.

There is a good amount of nonprofits and projects that are created ad hoc as (public) grant raisers. Nonprofits should change their minds and think on project designs that could include firms and even benefit them, so through a mutual benefit, partnerships between the civil society and enterprises could arise. And, at the same time, the project will gain sustainability.

Javier de la Nava Trinidad, BBVA

The five groups of stakeholders: shareholders, providers, customers, employees, the society at large. And it is not only the customers that a firm has to keep content, but the whole panoply of stakeholders.

There is an increasing need for employers to have their employees engaged and identified with the firm, to be satisfied in their workplaces.

José Manuel García Prieto, SUN Microsystems

It’s true that telecoms benefit from more ICT use, hence why fostering its use in their corporate strategy.

There is not a single model of cooperation between nonprofits and firms, but normally the model is that firms give away the know how, their knowledge, their human capital, etc.

e-STAS is a Symposium about the Technologies for the Social Action, with an international and multi-stakeholder nature, where all the agents implicated in the development and implementation of the ICT (NGO’s, Local authorities, Universities, Companies and Media) are appointed in an aim to promote, foster and adapt the use of the ICT for the social action.

Here come my notes for session III. (notes at random, grouped by speaker, but not necessarily in chronological order)

Left to right: Raoul Weiler, Jérôme Combaz, María del Mar Negreiro, Berta Maure Rubio

Raoul Weiler, Club of Rome

It will be possible for everyone to access the Internet trough/thanks to low cost devices.

But education will make the difference, not devices.

Jérôme Combaz, Charte pour l’Inclusion Numérique et Sociale

Technology has to be transparent and should address social problems in a social way.

María del Mar Negreiro, European Union Lisbon Strategy

i2010 focuses on uses, digital literacy and how the Internet can help people connect each other, access better jobs, etc. To do so, focus on skills.

Teachers are using — the ones that do — the Internet to prepare their classes, get some materials, but they are not using ICTs when teaching or into the classroom. There still is a reluctance to do so, even if students seem pleased and more motivated when such a thing happens. Lack of skills, lack of time, lack of technical support are among the main reasons adduced by teachers to justify not being more pro-active fostering the use of ICTs when teaching.

Berta Maure Rubio, Plan Avanza

Accessibility and usability as a goal to achieve more and better access to the Internet. And, thus, that people find Internet useful for their daily life.

e-STAS is a Symposium about the Technologies for the Social Action, with an international and multi-stakeholder nature, where all the agents implicated in the development and implementation of the ICT (NGO’s, Local authorities, Universities, Companies and Media) are appointed in an aim to promote, foster and adapt the use of the ICT for the social action.

Here come my notes for session II. (notes at random, grouped by speaker, but not necessarily in chronological order)

Left to right: Daniel Pimienta, Stéphanie Lucien-Brun, Kafui Amenu Prebbie

Stéphanie Lucien-Brun, Handicap International

ICTs can be very strong barriers towards rights expression if are not properly made accessible for everyone.

We should not talk about access, but about uses, strictly related with capacity. How technologies are appropriated and how people and communities are empowered. And how do you make sense of these technologies for emancipatory purposes, for community building, to engage people in the conversation and in participation.

Daniel Pimienta, Funredes

Participation is the key.

He explains a couple of interesting stories about open access and open science.

We should avoid strengthening the manufacturers (de facto) monopolies by training people not in capacities but in specific applications.

Digital literacy should be given way more importance than actually is.

Intellectual Property Rights need to be reconsidered (definition, application, etc.), as they are, in their actual state, a clear barrier for both the development of the Information Society and development in general.

The role of the Third Sector should not be connectivity, but appropriation.

Kafui Amenu Prebbie, OneWillageFoundation

How can the Digital Divide can be closed by using low cost technologies? The limiting factor of access is cost.

Then comes the right use of technology, and how to teach the best use of it.

Open Hardware Initiative, Merakis.

e-STAS is a Symposium about the Technologies for the Social Action, with an international and multi-stakeholder nature, where all the agents implicated in the development and implementation of the ICT (NGO’s, Local authorities, Universities, Companies and Media) are appointed in an aim to promote, foster and adapt the use of the ICT for the social action.

Here come my notes for session I.

Raul Zambrano, UNDP
ICTs, Digital Divide and Social Inclusion

Four stages of ICT Development

• connectivity, get people connected
• content and have people have capacities to deal with it
• services
• participation, Web 2.0

Digital divide

• Within countries
• Among countries
• Within and among countries

The difference between the digital divide in developed countries and developing ones is that in developing ones is but another manifestation of other divides — this is not necessarily this way in developed countries.

How can technology bride social divides, not technological divides?

Divides: differences attributed to knowledge, and differences dues to more physical and human capital.

Both the speed of adoption and the speed of diffusion of technologies are have very different paths in developed and developing countries [So, it’s not just that leapfrogging can be made possible (adoption), but it has to be actually fostered (diffusion). But, part of fostering diffusion to achieve quicker and broader adoption is about giving the population what they need and/or are asking for].

Thus, in the policy cycle (social gaps, awareness raising, citizen participation, agenda setting, policy design, development focused, implementation, evaluation/assessment, reduction of social gaps, new emerging issues), these population needs must be taken into account when designing public policies.

In this policy cycle, networking is crucial to gather all sensibilities and ensure that participation does take place. If there is not citizen participation, public policies are likely to be government’s or lobbies’ interests biased.

All in all, it’s about empowerment.

Comments, questions

I ask whether it’s better push (public led) or pull (private sector led) strategies.

Raul Zambrano answers in the framework of developing countries. In these developing countries, the Estate is to foster and create aggregated demand, it is the main purchaser, investor and installer of ICTs (infrastructures, services, etc.).

On the other hand, it is true that there is a latent demand from the citizenry, and there already is a manifested need for ICTs.

About the private sector, the problem in developing countries is that the private sector might not have resources enough to set up pull strategies. Or maybe they could, but it still makes poor sense for them when looking at the Return of Investment. This is especially true with developed countries firms trying to get established in developing countries, though local enterprises might not think (and behave) alike, and find it’s huge benefits what elsewhere might not even make it worth it trying.

So, put short, in developing countries what seems to be working is a centralized model but progressively decentralized [as the subsidiarity principle in the European Union, I’d dare add].

Do we need to keep on working on access (if everyone already has a cellular)?

Yes, definitely, but not as an independent variable but as a dependent one [this is one of the cleverest statements I’ve heard in months about the digital divide].

Paco Ortiz (AHCIET) intervenes in this issue: incumbent telecomms normally pay a ratio of their profits to governments so the latter can help solve the last mile issue. The problem being that once these governments have cash to do so, the sometimes shift the funds to other priorities — no critique intended: these priorities can be Education or Health. Thus, legitimate or not, the result is that universal access is never achieved, but not at the private sector’s fault.

One person from the audience harshly attacks governments for their corruption, which invalidates them to foster any kind of policy or to get any kind of funding from whom ever.

Raul Zambrano states that it is precisely transparency and accountability one of the main goals of ICTs in the sphere of the government.

e-STAS is a Symposium about the Technologies for the Social Action, with an international and multi-stakeholder nature, where all the agents implicated in the development and implementation of the ICT (NGO’s, Local authorities, Universities, Companies and Media) are appointed in an aim to promote, foster and adapt the use of the ICT for the social action.

Here come my notes for part III.

Cases of Citizens’ initiatives (I)
Pedro Cluster, President of the “Desde la Calle” Society

Moving experience on how a homeless got media attention through his blog. Having had success in businesses, he ended being a homeless. After years in the street he somehow manages to get a living and then creates the “Desde la Calle” association to get homlesses out of the street. ICTs have boosted the reach of his speech beyond expectations.

Cases of Citizens’ initiatives (II)
Jenaro Garcia, Red Sin Fronteras Foundation

Created Red Sin Fronteras, an NGO to provide with connectivity remote rural areas. To do so, they made up “4×4 WiFi” [4WD WiFi] which, as the name itself states, is installing WiFi devices on 4WD cars so they can access [phisically] rural areas and bring them people connectivity.

Actually, the ultimate goal is not connectivity supply, but advocacy: by visiting little towns with the “connected” 4WD, they raise awareness on the existing content, services and opportunities for rural areas of being connected, so inhabitants ask (the administrations, the telcos) to set up internet access to their villages.

Cases of Citizens’ initiatives (III)
Red E-RUS. Network of Country Areas for the Rural Technological Development (Red E-RUS)

Goals: research in ICT4D, advocacy, fighting the digital divide, fostering human development.

Standards, Accessibility, Access and Sustainable Innovation in the field of ICT (I)
Free knowledge accessible for all
Jonathan Chacón, ONCE Foundation

We’d better focus on the users’ needs instead of creating new ones

Internet is a new gate to knowledge, but it’s a closed gate to some people: technological disabled, cultural disabled, temporal disabled.

Technological solutions [free as in freedom]:

• Free software
• Free hardware: we’re buying more power than needed/used. Grid computing, etc. take this extra power and use it for several purposes.
• Free connectivity: same situation as hardware, where you sometimes cannot chose the quality of band you’re buying (i.e. sometimes too much for just e-mail)

Digital literacy should focus not only on technology, but on all kinds of disabilities. And standards ease access… but they are standards set for standard people, so we should be careful with those so-called standards: design for all, solutions for all. Accessibility is useful for absolutely anyone, not just disabled people.

If we now go back and see the Internet as a knowledge gate, access to Internet is access to knowledge, access to free knowledge.

Standards, Accessibility, Access and Sustainable Innovation in the field of ICT (II)
Innovation and NGO Technology
Allen Gunn, Aspiration Tech

Lessons learned in NGO Tech Innovation

• NGOs should retain control of their own technological future
• Too few NGO stakeholders understand technology: simple is needed, cool is installed
• NGOs feel pressure to use technology
• Innovation should be discussed in the language of the NGO mission
• Innovation driven by “users stories”
• Unsustainable innovation is no innovation

NGO Innovation Checklist

• can you articulate the benefit of an innovation in simple language?
• does the NGO feel in control of the process?
• are we considering the full innovation life cycle?
• will this allow us to focus more time on mission?
• have all stakeholders been engaged?

3 drivers of NGO Tech Innovation

• Free and open source software
• Free and open content
• Open interfaces for accessing data

Project: Social Source Commons: what software is out there for nonprofits and who’s using it, how, why, what other tools are useful in conjunction with a tool, etc.

Standards, Accessibility, Access and Sustainable Innovation in the field of ICT (III)
Access to knowledge and sustainable development
Eddan Katz, Yale University and Director of the Information Society Project

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Chinese proverb
Sell a man a fish, and he can eat for a day, teach a man to fish, and you lose a great business opportunity. Karl Marx

Intellectual property is most times about the second quote. And there is an increasing push to more and more intellectual property rights of the ones that came before the Information Society

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.
Give a man a fishing rod, and he feeds himself and his family for as long as the rod lasts.
Help a man develop the knowledge and means to improve the fishing rod and to design and
produce new ones, and he may feed himself and his society for years to come. WIPO Magazine

There is a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot. Steven Wright

Teach a man to create an artificial fish shortage, and people will eat steak. Anonymous economist

Knowledge Management through the New Technologies for the Social Action
Managing Health Information in Low Resource Settings
William Lester, EngenderHealth

www.healthtoolkit.org

Access without training makes no sense. ICT training, thus, is an important issue and, paradoxically, training by ICT means (i.e. e-learning) is a very useful tool for training in the developing world.

A big problem with e-Health is how to adapt existing tools for developing countries. Those tools are based on some western/developed assumptions that do not take place in developing countries: a fixed address, national ID card/number, (known) birth date, unique medical record, etc.

Adaptation not only means technological adaption, but also cultural adaptation: of the so many web resources, one should be able to decide which to trust/choose.

www.healthnet.org

Lester really believes — he repeats it along his speech — that mobile phones are the ones that are making and will be making the difference in developing countries.

Congress Conclusions

• In a networked society, access is a right, specially to achieve higher rights
• Internet gives voice to the ones that never had it
• ICTs give more democracy, more participation
• The importance of the hinge role of NGOs to make all agents and users/beneficiaries meet
• Social innovation enhanced by ICTs
• Let new technologies be designed to satisfy users and needs, not vice versa
• We should work together in the Net and as a network

See also:

• Slideshows for the whole symposium
• cibervoluntarios’ Flickr set of the session