Some days ago I got back my (diploma) thesis with a good grade – so I am confident to share it with the public now.

Its title is “Information And Communication Technologies For Development (ICT4D) With Special Focus On Web 2.0 And Mashups Of Existing Services” and as I started working on it already more than a year ago not everything is perfect, things are outdated or not correct anymore.

One of the first things I would change if I wrote it again is the terminology of developed vs. developing vs. less developed countries. As I learned in several discussions, these terms are simply not applicably and express a quite patronizing view of the world. So sorry for that.

However, in my thesis I tried to give an overview of some aspects of the research area of ICT4D, present innovative projects (ok – Global Voices Online, Ushahidi and Tradenet may not be the most surprising choices) and I hope it might provide interesting views and insights. Especially the combination of ICT4D with Web 2.0 services and Mashups deserves a closer look and generally more research I think.

From the abstract:

Since the early 1990s, access to worldwide-created information and possibilities for world-wide communication have become easier and easier – at least in the Western world.

In this “age of information”, the gaps between developed and less-developed countries do not only consist of the large differences in infrastructure and society, but also of the difficulties for developing countries to access these means of information and communication, which in fact are freely available.

But why in the first place would people living in areas where there is not even enough food or water require internet access, let alone the possibility to make long-distance calls?

Some years ago the research area “Information and Communication Technologies for Development” (ICT4D) emerged. This area of research is based on the claim that contemporary technologies enable economic and social change in such countries which are provided with access to these technologies. Hence, that could help less developed countries to catch up with the Western world.

…

Since not every technology has the quality to deliver benefits in less developed countries, the next two chapters will deal with two technologies which, as is claimed here, have certain advantages in the context of ICT4D.

The first technology is web 2.0, whose participatory services are substantial tools for fostering development in the information sector, and, therefore in the economy as a whole, since a key element in sustainable development of services is the involvement of local stakeholders in projects and content creation.

The second technology is mashups, which – in essence – are combined and connected services provided to users in the internet. These mashups do not require much knowledge about programming, which is a substantial benefit as there are few people with programming skills in less developed countries.

Under the following link you can download the thesis “ICT4D with Special Focus on Web 2.0 and Mashups of Existing Services“. I make it available under a creative commons (attribution, share alike) license.

On this way I would like to thank my supervisors Thorsten Hampel (Universität Paderborn) and Renate Motschnig (Universität Wien).

Evan ‘Rabble’ Henshaw-Plath is currently working at Yahoo! Brickhouse. In the past he worked on odeo.com and Fire Eagle. His business card says he is a hacker & builder of things. We met this really interesting technologist and activist at the MobileActive08 conference in Johannesburg, where he shared his thoughts on emerging technologies with us.

One of the things he points out in the interview below is that mobile innovation in developing countries is currently restricted by costs. Text messages are a very powerful medium, but projects that rely on text messages are too expensive for actual deployment. In the interview he explains why many amazing projects around the world thus remain pilot projects.

Evan ‘Rabble’ Henshaw-Plath is also the co-author of the upcoming O’Reilly book Testing and Debugging Ruby on Rails. He blogs about technology and politics at anarchogeek.com.

This is the 14th interview from our MobileActive08 video podcast series, shot at the conference in Johannesburg (organized by MobileActive and sangonet).

Here comes our contribution to e-STAS – Symposium on Technologies for Social Action – next month in Malaga, Spain. I will attend the symposium and will meet great people and make new friends, all of them ruling ICT4D. Adrien Mangin which is co-organizing the event invited us to attend, so we just said yes and we spontaneously made up this article. It is only the first draft but kind of stable. Enjoy:

How do Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) influence society in Lesser Developed Countries (LDCs)? In our opinion, ICTs are the most promising tools that can shift the power balance between the rich, the poor, the institutions and the people to be offered in decades. In areas such as democracy, journalism or the business/financial sector, new and innovative movements are emerging, empowering the poorest of the poor. The first part of this article attempts to express our views on how this is being accomplished and provide examples demonstrating the enormous power of Information and Communication Technologies for Development, known as ICT4D. The second part of this article suggests a research approach and methodology that we use to evaluate how people in LDCs interact with ICTs using a User Centered Design approach, which what we also call UCD4D.

Full text: Article: ICTs for the empowerment of citizens

An article today in the online edition of a major Swedish newspaper, DN.se, tells about young Rwandan’s internet behaviours (in Swedish only). Rwanda has so far delivered 5.000 OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) units to kids, and plan to ship no less than 50.000 more units this year alone. The government has set up an ambitious IT plan for the country, which is to provide internet connection to all schools for older children, in most schools for younger children and all state offices by the year 2020.

The article goes on to say that Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, is one of the best cities in Africa to get internet access with decent speed everywhere around, especially in cafés. Apparently the airport in Kigali has the best, free wi-fi connection available, and the article features four kids sitting outside the airport, googling on their OLPC’s for hours after pictures of their action heroes Jean-Claude van Damme and Bruce Lee.

(Photo by Anna Koblanck)

After Samsung launched their glamorous solar-powered mobile phone Blue Earth last week, which is targeted at the environmentally-aware costumer, Chinese manufacturer ZTE is the first company to introduce a low-cost solar phone for the emerging markets. The Coral-200-Solar phone uses an integrated solar charger and promises to give people living in areas without electricity access to mobile phones. Digicel will be rolling out the Coral-200-Solar in selected markets from June. It will be interesting to see the impact of this new amazing piece of technology on those markets and also on the product developments of other manufacturers.

(Image from engadget mobile)

Now that Cooperation 2.0 in Gijon is over for already a week, we would like to share some thoughts and impressions from the event.

The overall guiding theme of Coop 2.0 was “Innovation on ICT for Development Cooperation” and this theme was present in almost every talk and round table. Already in the entry speech of Nadjat Rochdi from UNDP, the need for innovation was accentuated. And adverse to invention (having new ideas) she defindes innovation as “appyling ideas in a new way“. Furthermore she called for collective action of all stakeholders – governments, NGOs, private sector.

The projects and organizations presented in the following days mostly conformed to these ideas, showing interessting concepts on how to use existing technology for social and economic improvement, or how to reshape development cooperation to let everybody contribute.

On the technology side there were for example

• Juliana Rotich presenting Ushahidi – a concept to use mobile phones to crowsource crisis information
• Kentaro Toyama (Microsoft) presenting their research methods on ICT4D
• Stéphane Boyera on the potentials on mobile phones

What these three presentations showed was that the right technology in the right situation has huge potential. But, as Kentaro Toayama pointed out Рnot for every problem, there is a technological solution which makes sense. St̩phane Boyera presented mobile phones as the most powerful device in ICT4D currently Рchanging lifestyles of people all around the world and empowering the poor to act as contibutors instead only as consumers. But he also mentioned the shortcomings of mobile phones and the need for an inclusive approach, integrating other technology already in place.

On the “reshaping development cooperation” side there were for example

• Nadjat Rochdi on the transition to a new phase in ICT4D
• Najet Teutit on Digital Solidarity – a new concept of empowering the countries of the south to bridge the digital divide
• Vikas Nath on Cooperation Agencies vs. Cooperation Networks

The statements in these presentations were supporting an increased integration of the southern countries in the process of bridging the digital divide. Furthermore the need for urgent cooperative actions was underlined. As Vikas Nath put it – networked cooperation is a must – institutions have to learn to integrate themselves in bigger networks.

In the discussion panels it was often claimed that in ICT4D, development needs to be in focus, not technology – but in my opinion most contributors at Coop 2.0 seemed to have understood that. What they shared was the enthusiasm about ICTs – as Oleg Petrov put it – one of the most powerful tools in human history.

Coop 2.0 was therefore in my understanding a highly valuable event for the international ICT4D and general development cooperation community to meet, network and share experiences and best practices. It was inspiring to hear of innovative projects using ICTs on the one hand, but also of attempts to achieve increased networking in development cooperation – where ICTs naturally can contribute substantially.

Here’s a list of the interesting people we did interviews with, on location at the Coop 2.0 conference that took place between 10-12 of February in Laboral University in Gijón, Spain. We will publish all or most of the videos, continuously in the coming days on our ICT4D.at YouTube channel.

• Ana Ruth Bernardo de Paz & Juan Pablo Moncada Florez – S.E.D.E Itaca
• Jan Blom – Nokia Research Center
• Stéphane Boyera – W3C
• Brendan Doyle – CTIC Foundation
• Anriette Esterhuysen – APC (Association for Progressive Communications)
• Jon Legarrea Oteiza – Universidad Pública de Navarra
• Adrien Mangin – Cibervoluntarios
• Vikas Nath – South Centre
• Ismael Peña-López – Open University of Catalonia
• Oleg Petrov – e-Development Thematic Group
• Juliana Rotich – Ushahidi
• Miriam Ruiz – Debian Woman
• Kentaro Toyama – Microsoft Research India
• Alexander Widmer – SDC

We met Alex Comninos at the MobileActive08 conference in Johannesburg, where he told us about his research on mobile payment and mobile transfers. In the interview below he explains how mobile payment systems like M-Pesa may improve the banking situation in Africa. “We are looking at how we can deepen services like this to integrate people into the formal bank sector, give them access to credit,” Alex says. He further explains how having access to a transaction history would not only help people learning about budgeting, but also potentially make it easier for them to receive loans.

Alex works as researcher and network coordinator for Research ICT Africa, which is based in South Africa.

See also MobileActive’s notes from Alex’ talk at the conference.

This is the 13th interview from our MobileActive08 video podcast series, shot at the conference in Johannesburg (organized by MobileActive and sangonet).

Participants:

Merryl Ford – Manager of the Emerging Innovations Group of the Meraka Institute of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).

Kentaro Toyama – Assistant Managing Director of Microsoft Research India (MSR India)

Oleg Petrov – Coordinator of e-Development Thematic Group of World Bank

Jan Blom – Director for Nokia Research Center – India.

Stephane Boyera – W3C

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Aspects that have emerged:

• For many people the web browser on their mobile device is the door to the internet
• 3 core points: Issues of communications infrastructure, deployment, cost of mobile devices
• There have to be well-designed technologies to serve the user
• e-Health, e-Education, e-Governance

Merryl

Focus on use in mobile phones in schools

2006: ways to integrate mp in teaching

• what can you do with your cell phone? voice call, sms, run application, access the web, mms
• concept of an audio wikipedia – information on how to join the school
• platform audio-wikipedia
• sms with a keyword to a number, system called back and read the article to that keyword
• worked extremely well
• kids discovered how to use the device immediately
• educational use – student podcast
• not only access – contribution
• students contributed to audio wiki

even poor children have access to powerful phones

applications are important, because connectivity is not necessary for them
project: creating surveys on the PC and frame it for mps
successful project: based on mixit – South African instant messaging service
now 10 mio. users
set up on top: service for mathematical questions, helping learners
a lot of stuff developed in the educational sector can be transferred to other levels
also: development of open source tools

Kentaro

Will take the position of skeptic for this panel

There is an immense hype around mobile phones

It’s important to put development first and not technology

• This is restricting yourself
• Many problems can be solved in other ways
• There might be no technology solution
• Unless you are constrained to the technology you better leave it undetermined
• No matter how much technology is provided, this will not foster development if no capacity building is offered

There are more ICTs than mps or PS

• Community radio
• TV
• Low level devices, combinations with paper

Oleg

Mobile phone is the newest vision of the ICT toolbox so it’s naturally that there’s excitement

There’s a lot of reasons to be enthusiastic

Mobile is the most powerful ICT we have – especially for the poor

• We don’t have a better tool so far
• All other technologies don’t reach the bottom of the pyramid

Of course we should keep perspective

Development sector is often slow – so enthusiasm is something to embrace

Knowledge sharing is important – workshops on mps

• Good to avoid mistakes
• Best practices

Mobiles can the poorest people access to finance

Mobile for better governance

• complaining about corruption on mobile phones

Also agriculture & health field

The World Bank is joining the bandwagon on this – so there should be sharing of knowledge & experience

We cannot ignore the potential

We need to find a new expression – e-development, effective development – to show we focus on development, not on ICTs

Work with vendors, operators & governments to frame the surrounding

Let’s have a partnership on mobile for development – moving to the next level

Jan

Bangalore – taxi driver

• never used a PC before, didn’t know email
• but he had a mobile phone

Nokia does a lot of work on development

• recently launched a project to help health NGOs to collect data on the field and get response with GPS data
• services for agricultural sector – sms as backbone, launch in India soon

Research at Nokia

• Bangalore
• multidisciplinary team
• role of technology in terms of empowering
• what can be done in the field of mobile?
• sister lab in Kenya

Example of research:

• combination of mobility and location specific information – LBS
• in the west: info about restaurants …
• in an LDC: more fundamental needs & motivations
• governments are not very tranparent
• disease based info takes very long – 1-2 month lags until info reaches local hospital
• how to decrease this lag?

Example

• map of Soho, London
• Cholera transmitted through contaminated water – visualizing on a map
• correlation of death cases & contaminated pump
• 150 years ago

Now every citizen can collect this kind of information

Visualizing local information

Project: comfort zone

• Upload comfortable/unconfortable information about a place
• trial in Bangalore

Another project

• health radar
• collecting disease information and centralize it
• feeding back to health-NGOs and hospitals

Stephane

Approach: looking at what we see in the field

Technology is just one more tool

If you bring them new opportunities perhaps they use them or not – could change their impact

It’s important to provide local existing organizations with as many tools as possible

Mps are available & cheap & therefore have a lot of potential

Oleg

Mps offer drastic opportunities to do things differently

Technology has to be integrated in design , otherwise the impact is lost

We can’t take technology for granted

It’s important to be informed about technology

Merryl

What’s already in the hand in the people, what are they already using?

Not everything needs to be solved with mps, but many things are already and people use it

Jan

Methodological challenge: how to get immersed in the community?

Many have difficulties to understand local people – which methods should be used?

Kentaro

Hype in mps similar to telecenter hype

Many examples of projects constrained to mobile phones because it’s so hyped now

“We want to do something with mobile phones” – but there is no way to do it sometimes

Reach of mobile phone

• Agree with that, nothing else is even close
• but reach is not development
• it’s not enough
• it’s a weak reason
• radios have even greater reach, TVs

Q & A:

Najat Rochdi

The reason why it’s ICT4D was to make a difference ICT as a sector and the efforts to develop the sector. Driver: we need to do more and to do better.

One big mistake that is always present: we start talking a lot about technology, we forget talking about development – what is it about? what do we want to achive? there is no single answer;

Our duty as ICT4D “agents” is to be aware what’s going on in the development zone – awareness – so we can turn it in information we can share to help them to come up with the most approptiate tool.

The right message here is: we have to be aware about what is available – but we have to keep in mind that our duty is to provice our partners with a choice.

6 years ago we didn’t have Microsoft and Nokia addressing development issues. Let’s work together in a transparent and proper way.

?

There is a demand at the end user level – how can we get those to ask us to hep them? What about the governments? How can we provide our help?

Oleg

People are at least asking for ICTs – even if they ask for the wrong tools.

Jan

What is the right model? Ethnographoc methods? Let the people themselves come up with the solutions – grass root level.

Manuel

Users point of view: it seems like the picture gets more complicated

MPs get function rich and more expensive, PCs get better and cheaper – how come? Our tasks as ICT4D specialists is to inform responsible persons (governments) what the best choice is.

Make up of best teams is multidiscipinary – does it make sense to create an inter-institutional approach?

?

Dark side of mobile hype

Mobile operators are one of the most exploiting comapnies in the world – they are evil

Poor people pay much more for their calls than rich people

The industry is smart & opportunist – we have to deal with it

It’s no liberalized sector, poor quality of services, monoploists

In terms of “development first”

Where does the money go to? Where does the information go, can you handle it?

Upscaling is useless unless the backend to manage the inormation is not in place

Implementing mobiles can be implementes without the government – that’s what’s exciting

But development always wants to go large scale – although small scale would be more successful

?

Confusion of the idea of “needs” of communication

That development is in the hand of mulitnationals – who try to boost their profits

Mobile telephony is also smoke and mirrors

• In grassroots communities in Latin America above 3000 meters don’t work any more

Increased competition decreased prices

I don’t see why in schools there have to be so many mobile phones

• There are still problems with mobile phones – messages don’t arrive
• Mobile technology myth

Stephane

If we upscale, a lot is missed

Oleg

How can we collaborate?

We don’t know enough to be really helpful – at least the World Bank

Knowledge management at this stage is very important

• Forming a network around the knowledge issues
• That’s the most urgent thing right now

?

Do you think stadardizing batteries and chargers might help?

Stephane

It works – people can charge everything with everything

Electricity problem is solved in innovative ways

It’s not a bottleneck

Cecilia Torres

Development is complex and now ICTs arrive – basic needs are still unmet

ICTs influence young people and change their way of life

They could be used to preserve tradition, but they are not

First we have to think about development and then about technology

Merryl

A mobile is opening up the world to children

How can it be controlled?

It’s necessary to develop value systems in using ICTs

Mobile phones for human development – Stephane Boyera, W3C

Presentation of Stephane Boyera

Stephane Boyera:

• W3C mobile web for Social Development
• Web for Society Program of the Web Foundation
• EU-FP7 project Digital World Forum

Mobile phones:

• In December 2008: 4 bio. subscribers
• change the way people work, communicate, live
• People offer their work with their m.p. number – makes them flexible
• but no evidence that the development challenge is addressed

ICTs have changed the Developed World

• work, meeting, movement

ICT4D promises to bridge historical divides

Issues:

• Connectivity (devices, bandwidth)
• Information Availability (relevant & useful services)
• Information Accessibility (too expensive, language, illiteracy)
• Without addressing these issues, ICT4D is useless

Last 15 years:

• focus on connectivity – telecenters
• no sustainability
• hard to replicate (legal issues, hight cost)
• hard to scale up
• relying on unstable governments – limits the potential of ICTs

What can mobile phones bring?

Minimal connectivity & computing power worldwide

• it’s possible to focus on new, mobile, innovative services (e-agriculture, e-health)
• people start to think big – scalability

Bottom-up approach

• empowering people – now they can contribute and act instead of only consume

Why is that important?

• it’s the only way to make services scalable – few people in development agencies vs. thousands of NGOs
• people can start businesses themselves – entrepreneurship & innovation
• governments are not that important any more – there is put pressure on the government for transparency

Challenges:

• Capacity building – creating expertise on mobile phone technology locally
• Make tools available – free & open source, easy to use software
• Raise awareness about the potential of mobile technology and the easiness to create new content/tools

Current focus: on information availability

For sms, there have to be a lot of prerequisites fulfilles

To make all people benefit:

• Address the needs of illiterate people or low reading skills
• Local languages
• Digital literacy – teach people how to search & use content and services

Technologies:

Mobile phone: “Swiss army knive” – a lot of services

Today: sms

• easy setup, available, free reception
• issues: high cost of running services, only text, interoperability between operators

Next generation:

Mobile web:

• free & easy development, powerful interface, access to knowledge in the internet
• issues: availability on mobiles, cost

Voice:

• Natural way of communication, easy to use, everywhere available, flexible
• Issues: high expertise required, usability, technology

No “one-for-all” device

Next steps

Community building

• development agencies, local people, academics, NGOs, private sector

Explore local needs

• field studies, pilot projects

Lower access barriers

• illiteracy, usability, internationalization

Empowerment

• easier development & deployment

Mobile phones is a way to reach the people & they are available in the field

But:

• Expensive
• Constrained
• Also other devices necessary – low cost laptops, broadband infrastructure

Conclusion

• Mobile technology has the potential to meet the ICT4D hopes & make significant impact
• But next steps: concerted effort of all communities, focus on local needs, bridging the gaps between people, empowerment

Q & A:

Telecenters can also be a complementary service – let’s combine services. What about mobile services for internet access?

• I agree, inclusing approach is substantial
• Internet access: we have to understand what it means that people access the web via mobile phone – different interface, constrained
• Linking your PC to the internet via a mobile phone is possible, if there are PCs available

Comment – internet access & mobile technology are equally important because you need access at the institutional level, not just private level.

How big is the challenge of interoperability? Are there enough standards? Where should they be established?

• Each technology has a different level – moving from one platform to another is hard
• On the mobile: making the mobile browser an open standardized tool is a challenge
• It’s also an issue of power – monopolies
• Voice is already standardized, but is lacking the open source community
• Developing applications on the mobile – there is nothing standardized
• Middle layer: Java stack

One thing that is missing: a lot has to be invested in science and technology – high level innovations, not just applications. There is some kind of technology fetishism.

• It’s correct, work is primarily on application level.