Experiences in Research on ICT4D within the Master Telecommunication Networks for Developing Countries
Voice over IP in Tutupali-UTPL Network (Ecuador) Katty Rohoden and Patricia Ludeña
Installed wireless network to connect Health care centres, which enables them to be connected to the capital and amongst themselves.
Alternative Rural Telecommunication Network in Ecuador Danilo Corral de Witt
Project in Equador, where 60% of people live in rural areas, that are usually have no Internet coverage.
The “Red Alternativa de Telecomunicaciones Rurales de Ecuador” [Ecuador Rural Telecommunication Alternative Network] seeks to find a solution to that, with a new wireless infrastructure and adding GIS technologies to optimize its deployment.
Using GIS allows for a clever management and design of the new infrastructures, and to see what the overall coverage will be.
Design of Clinical History and Tele-ECG Services José García Muñoz y Ferney Beltrán
Wireless services for the comprehensive management of hospitals, including software to for a more efficient management, monitoring and impact assessment.
Problems:
Epidemics monitoring.
Drugs supply.
Emergencies.
Pacient monitoring.
Lack of equipment in health centres.
Limited access to health care services
Cerebrovascular diseases not detected.
Goals: improve management and health care, and designing and implementing a network to send and receive signals.
It was key to the project to have an array of indicators of usage of the tool (management software) to test its strengths and weaknesses.
Connectivity was provided by Bluetooth, as it required low power consumption, allowed for high bandwidth and was a spread standard.
Sustainability of Rural Telecommunication Networks Inés Bebea
The project analyses how ICTs have contributed to the Millennium Development Goals.
Problems:
Projects in developing countries have low rates of success, under 20%
Public institutions play a very important role.
Financial, technological, social and human factors that make sustainability a tricky issue.
How to design and implement a Sustainability Comprehensive Plan?
Three sub-plans:
Operative maintenance plan
Institutional and financial plan
Content and human plan
That provide five kinds of sustainability:
Financial sustainability
Technological sustainability
Social sustainability
Content sustainability
Human sustainability
Inter-institutional Network in Santa Clotilde (Loreto, Peru) Rico Hario Abilowo Hardjono and Elsa Feliz
Goal: improve the administrative and coordination processes between the staff at local public administrations. This was done with a WiFi network of inter-institutional interconnexion that, amongst others, could provide voice over IP services.
The project was a success, but some important areas need much improvement: power supply still and issue, and capacity building and training should be strengthened.
WiMAX solutions for rural areas Nydia Mendiola and Carlos Rey
Context: big zones without coverage, scattered population, low resources.
WiMAX is a standard solution, runs on a free wave spectrum, is designed for long distances, and its parameters are quality-of-service oriented.
It has, though, high costs when users are highly scattered, as it is designed for a unique connectivity leap: how then to maintain the quality of service while reducing costs? Could WiFi and WiMAX be hybridized?
A hybrid and working solution was created. Then a new standard (802.16j) was issued and seems to perfectly fit with into the hybrid solution.
Analysis of National Policies for Information Society in Latin America and the Caribbean. Are integral strategies in reducing the digital divide? Amagoia Salazar
Research on the different digital divides and the different national plans to fight against e-exclusion.
Most countries in Latin America have designed and implemented national plans to foster the Information Society, but it is yet to be found whether their approach was a comprehensive one or just focused in specific parts or conceptions of the digital divide.
Comprehensive approach?
Where is the focus put?
What are the thematic priorities?
What are the regional priorities?
Is there a commitment with free software?
Maintenance Plan for a Rural Telemedicine Network in Mozambique Valentín Villarroel, Camilo Garzón
[connection failed during the event]
Discussion
David: what was the non-technical part and what the main barriers in this area? Elsa Feliz: human interaction and logistic coordination was the toughest, and, on the other hand, all the things you can not foresee and that once on the field are much more difficult to solve. Carlos Rey: teamwork is always a challenge.
[worth knowing array of projects, rich in insights, and difficult to summarize in a single post]
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I International Workshop on Research in ICT for Human Development (2010)
Round Table: What is the role of Latin America on Research on ICT4D?
Andrés Martínez, EHAS Foundation (Spain)
EHAS Foundation does research on what works and what does not work in the field of Health and ICTs in Latin America.
David Chávez Muñoz, Pontificia Universidad Católica (Peru)
Main problems in Latinamerica: poor, polarized, full with injustices, fragmented, multicultural, economically and technologically dependent from North America, Europe and North Asia, emigration, increasing destruction of the environment, etc.
ICTs are not the factor that lead to human development, but a catalyst. Can we nevertheless maximize the effect of ICTs in Latin America so that they contribute in achieving higher levels of development?
The problem is that the resources for R+D+i are not invested in these matters, but in other “strategic” issues.
A case study: the spread of broadband. While in developed countries the deployment of broadband has been successful for 99% of the population, in Latin America it has only succeeded in urban areas, but not in suburbs or in rural areas, where it has been a complete failure. The SDH/ATM + ADSL model is not viable in rural and marginal Latin America. We need R+D+i that produce other viable alternatives such as SDH/ATM + LMDS/MMDS, SDH/ATM + WiMAX, GSM/LTE, etc.
Structural problems to perform such kind of research:
Low articulation of actors, problems and scientific integration.
Education and training.
Methodologies, tools or infrastructures.
Funding.
Low articulation amongst social actors.
Temporal problems:
Duplicity of efforts.
Effectism, short-term planning.
Paradigmatic paralysis.
We have to build R+D+i networks: To reach a critical mass, to stop brain drain, etc.
Iván Hernández, Universidad del Cauca (Colombia)
Key factors for research in ICT4D in Latin America to be successful:
Multidisciplinarity.
Aim at economic development.
Identify opportunities.
Create businesses, build industry around ICTs.
Improve the quality of life.
Pablo Belzarena García, Universidad de la República (Uruguay)
Two main needs:
Policies to exclusively fund research aimed at human development;
Need for governments and other institutions to adopt the outcomes of research in development fields: research + development.
A good example: Plan Ceibal. Besides being a good applied project, the Plan Ceibal has become a good research engine, has it has triggered lots of research projects around it. Now the challenge is how to apply the outcomes of such research.
Knowledge has to be transferred and appropriated by the target population of development research. If 90% (as it happens) of the outcomes remain within university walls, research is a failuer.
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I International Workshop on Research in ICT for Human Development (2010)
Round Table. Research for Development. Where is it heading in the ICT context?
Javier Simó, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (Spain)
Not theories, but practice: research should be aimed at creating an impact, at appliying into reality what has been researched and the outcomes of that research, such as in Health.
ICTs should be a tool to reach higher levels of efficiency and efficacy. And they should not deal with avant-garde and state-of-the-art technology, but on what are the best tools available to make a change in developing countries.
Identify the needs
Invest in R+D
Deployment, management and maintenance strategies
Strategy of sustainability
Thus why wireless technologies are a priority in ICT4D research.
Jordi Aguiló, Scientific Coordinator of the Latinamerican Science & Technology Development Programme
Strategic lines: Free software and applications in general, micro- and nano-technologies…
Topics: food technology, health, industrial development, etc.
Applied case: measuring IOP by a contact lens (with embedded nano-technology) to prevent glaucoma.
We tend to create new technologies and then look for the problem that they can solve. We should proceed inversely: first find the problem, then look for the solution.
Manuel de Oliveira Duarte, Universidade de Aveiro (Portugal)
Besides technologies, competence in their usage is critical: we should not forget to train the people that are to use the technologies that are going to be applied.
The relationship between technological infrastructures and development is not automatic. Things to do:
Beatriz Novales, Spanish Agency for International Cooperation for Development AECID (Spain)
ICTs can be very helpful to development cooperation agencies, especially in the following areas:
Decentralization, creating cooperation networks.
New management of human resources, in more and better training.
Procedures and organizational strategies.
Transparency and accountability.
Harmonization of a complex system.
Discussion
Arturo Velasco (ESF): How should we measure research in ICT4D? Ismael Peña-López: Richad Heeks has been reflecting on ICT4D research in its very worth reading him. We surely have to move from “impact” (as usually measured) towards citations and “usefulness” of that research as assessed by both researchers and practitioners. Javier Simó: We have to change the ways we assess research and certify it, so that “cool topics” are not rated over less trendy topics (i.e. development). Manuel de Oliveira: we should not only assess what is “publishable”, but what is interesting.
Valentín Villarroel: what are the priority projects? how to foster them? Manuel de Oliveira: the role of the scholar has to be reinvented. Business models are a priority in developing countries.
Q: what is the flexibility between doing research to advance a discipline and to advance people? Jordi Aguiló: we should do one thing at a time, we are either researchers or practitioners; we do research in top-research or we do innovation for development. But we cannot play both games [I absolutely disagree with this point of view].
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I International Workshop on Research in ICT for Human Development (2010)
