As Ismael is blogging from the other room (Notes of Ismael on Coop 2.0 best practices session), I thought I would give him a hand and cover the sessions in this room 1 here.

The sessions are about best practices in existing ICT4D projects.

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CEDDET - La Fundación Centro de Educación a Distancia para el Desarrollo Económico y Tecnológico

Objective: contribution & cooperation for development - ICT4D

Basic tool: knowledge management throught the usage of ICTs

Exchange of knowledge between Spain and Latin America

2 types of activities

• online teaching
• virtual networks of experts
• no model, they should find their own track for development

Target:

• toplevel civil servants
• experience of 5 years
• all kinds of sectors - which have an economic repercussion

Achievements:

• more time & geographical flexibility
• increased number of experts
• p2p communication - exchange of experiences

Weaknesses:

• evaluation
• therefore training is also longer
• shortage of technological resources
• not applicable to all types of knowledge - e.g. presence required

Work with ~50 institutions, implementing online training courses

Average age - 39 years, 15 years experience

Feedback by assessment by trainees

After 7 years

• 449 training courses
• more 10 000 civil servants
• 16 networks of experts with > 4000 members

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Ushahidi - Juliana Rotich

Started in January 2008 when in Kenya after the elections there were riots

Blogs were an important source of information during that time

Ory Okolloh started the project - visualizing information about these riots

• create an online archive about the incidents
• create a way for everyday Kenyans to report incidents
• show where the majority of violence was occuring

Three ways to enter information to the web

• Mobile
• Email
• Directly over internet

User generated content is due to its amount at least as interesting as content created by professionals

A little later:

• DR Congo - Ushahidi in French
• Engine for Al Jazeera Labs - War on Gaza, incorporating Twitter reports
• Peace heroes in Kenya - positive incidents

At the beginning it was all volunteer work - the funding came later

The whole projects is predominantly based in Africa - programmers from Malawi, Ghana, …

If it works in Africa, it works everywhere

Partner with FrontlineSMS of Ken Banks to automate incoming sms-reports

Lessons learned:

• mapping accuracy and value of geolocation
• data poisoning - danger of wrong information and intentional misinformation
• verification is difficult but by partnering with (hyper)local NGOs that could be achieved
• it’s not only about gathering data - create a feedback-loop with sms & rss alerts; make those customizable
• offline (newspapers, radio), online (blogsphere) and mobile (here: FrontlineSMS, but also other possibilities) strategy

Q & A:

What about the cost? How much does an sms cost?

• It can get really expensive

People pay anyway?

• It has come down since then, but it would be great to partner with the mobile phone companies

In offering “heroes” it was difficult to create specific tags - how difficult is it to replicate this process for organizations which are not as tech-savy? Would you provide support?

• Right now, there is a Beta version which can be downloaded and there the categories can manually defined. For the customization PHP knowledge is required. So it’s not that difficult. The tool itself is very intuitive. It’s also possible to use different map providers.

Do you design only for citizens? How are you funded?

• Future: Mass collaboration

• Funding: first 5 months - all volunteers, no funding. July 2008 Humanity United donated some money, but still Ushahidi doesn’t rely to heavily on funding.

Would funding make a difference? Would you expand the tool? What would you do with 4 mio. $?

• Growing the the community of supporters
• support more technology (sms chat, …)
• Geo-RSS - notifications dependent on location
• Freedom Fone integration  - Audio -> SMS

- With 4 mio. $ we would make a very robust application which would run on every mobile and provide an online system and filter the data semi-automated

- Or crowdsourcing crisis response - how many NGOs, volunteers are in that area and willing to help? Moving from crisis reporting to crisis response.

Just a short update from Gijon, where we are right now at the Cooperation 2.0 meeting at the Universidad Laboral (picture on the right).

What’s really impressive here is the content sharing platform integration - the video of a speech is being put online immediately (Cooperation 2.0 youtube channel), there’s live twittering (Cooperation 2.0 Twitter channel - regrettably in Spanish), FlickR (Cooperation 2.0 FlickR account) and as Ismael Peña-López is present, there’s also live blogging (ictlogy.net).

Just this minute I finished my own presentation on Web 2.0 in ICT4D organizations with the following slides.

The talks so far have been very interesting, the opinions range from very enthusiastic about ICT4D to very cautious: The audience is partly the same as at Network Society Barcelona last October.

The overall topic of the meeting is “Innovation” and all the speakers so far pointed out the need for innovative applications and projects - not necessarily new ones.

It’s already been a few months ago that we had the chance to interview Jacob Korenblum, the co-founder of Souktel, at the MobileActive08 conference in Johannesburg. Souktel is an outstanding SMS-based job seeking service developed in Palestine. The project emerged from an urgent need for a job seeking platform, as there were no similar governmental services available and newspapers are rare and expensive. At the time the project started access to Internet was still a problem for people in Palestine and Souktel therefore decided to develop their application for mobile phones.

Job seekers can simply create a profile by answering a couple of questions through SMS. The profiles are then matched against current job offers. At the time we recorded the interview about 5000 job seekers used the service every month and about 40 people a month were matched with a job, internship or training opportunities.

In the interview below Jacob Korenblum gives a great 5-minutes summary of Souktel’s services and current activities.

Also check out MobileActive’s excellent blog post about Souktel.

This is the 12th interview from our MobileActive08 video podcast series, shot at the conference in Johannesburg (organized by MobileActive and sangonet).

So after posting our notes and uploading our interviews we are ready to write some own impressions of the AfrikaCamp.

First of all it was great that so many people from areas different than the usual BarCamp crowd appeared (see also Jana Herwig’s blog post about AfrikaCamp).

This resulted in a big diversity of mentioned topics - from social entrepreneurship to web 2.0 or m-banking.

But different to SocialBar Wien two weeks earlier, there was an overall topic - Africa - and it was always present during the presentation and also in the conversations between the slots.

This leads me to what I think was a shortcoming of AfrikaCamp - we talked about Africa, but where were the people from Africa?

Only Bedi Amouzou from Togo, a friend of mine, made it to the event. Next time it would be a good idea I guess to write to embassies or expat communities. Everybody is talking about the involvement of local people - so let’s practice that.

Another thing which I found quite curious, was that the general opinion was somewhat negative towards “traditional” development aid. Or, how one visitor put it “development aid has been in place for for fifty years - and what has changed? nothing!”. On the other hand, the potentials of ICTs were seen quite optimistically.

The presenters showed several fascinating ways how they use social media and Web 2.0 for promoting their cause - blogs and social media integration almost being state of the art.

I was impressed by the ambition and energy of the people at the event and I’m sure they will all make a difference.

A different topic which we as an organization are right now pondering about is the format of AfrikaCamp, which was right now organized as a BarCamp

Our suggestion is to put in at least a key note and a closing note. Also, such an event should be enlarged to two days to reflect about what happened and to make up own conclusions.

Furthermore, as the topic is international per definition, internationally renowned speakers could be invited and have a fixed slot in the agenda.

Still, overall AfrikaCamp was important and great input for us and we would like to see that more often!

While still reflecting on AfrikaCamp Vienna and the interesting talks and experiences we had there, we stumbled upon the next promising event which perfectly fits to our approach of ICT4D.

Africa Gathering in London on 25th April is

A day for thinkers, supporters, sponsors, doers, geeks, dreamers - and everybody else to come and share, promote, highlight, progress and evolve issues related to ICT, social networking and technology in Africa.

It is organized by Edward Scotcher and Mark Simpkins (geekyoto) and on the speakers list there are:

• Ken Banks (kiwanja.net & FrontlineSMS)
• Tim Unwin (ICT4D collective - UNESCO Chair in ICT4D)
• David Thomas (David Thomas Media and formerly of BBC World Service English)
• Ben Hammersley (Associate Editor of Wired magazine)
• Nigel Waller (movirtu.com)
• Sian Townsend (Google)

So this appears to be a really exciting event - and ICT4D.at will be present. We’re already looking forward to it!

Just a list of the people interviewed at AfrikaCamp - the interviews will be on the ICT4D.at youtube channel soon.

• Helge Fahrnberger - Laafi
• Valerie Hackl - Social Franchising
• Christoph Chorherr - Ithuba
• André Höschele and Martina Öhlinger - KAMA
• Kavindra Mathi - MayaOne
• Fabian Wirnsperger - Pamoja, Highlands Hope
  
• Andrea Zefferer - Licht für die Welt, Kinderpate
• Elisabeth Zenz - Pamoja, Highlands Hope
• Bedi Amouzou Bruno
• Jana Herwig
• Wolfgang Bergthaler - MayaOne
• Bernhard Pfaffeneder - Laafi
• Andreas Lindinger
• Marcel Bernatz
• Helmuth Bronnenmayer - Miakwadang
• Jürgen Eichholz - Afrigadget
• Heinz Grünwald
• Andrea Ben Lassoued - Clean IT
• Wolfhard Zimmermann

PS: We won’t upload all the material, partly because people didn’t want the interviews to be online, partly because the interviews were too short.

Notes from Saturdays AfrikaCamp Vienna. Overview of the sessions can be viewed at the AfrikaCamp wiki.

Session 4 and 5 were our presentations, so I didn’t note down anything.

The platform ICT4D.at - who we are, what we do - Martin Konzett, Florian Sturm

ICT4D.at - UZI, the movie - Anders Bolin

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Business driven Philantropy - Business development platform

Big problem: poverty - can it be eliminated?

Businesses have to help

• philantropy is not the same as charity

Solution:

• social entrepreneurship
• philantro-capitalism - business driven philosophy
• microfinancing - really works

Example: Maya One

• network of partners
• spending 3% of profit to an NGO
• school projects for child laborers
• reward: partners help each other
• cyclic

I have to admit that I didn’t really get the concept of this business driven philantropy - how is it different than just donating a certain percentage of the profit for a good cause just for marketing reasons? Maybe somebody can comment on that?

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OpenStreetMap - Helge Fahrnberger

There is no proper street map of Burkina Faso. The ones that exist are not accurate and quite expensive.

Solution:

• crowd-sourcing mapping of the world
• OpenStreetMap
• CC licensed version of Google Maps
• these maps can also be used for commercial reasons

Helges plan:

• creation of a digital street map of Ouagadougou (capital)
• donation to printing services there

Ouagadougou is currently not really present in Google Maps, but almost fully covered in OSM

Consequences:

• it is very easy to create maps for any country
• these maps are available for free
• local people can map their city

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HandyÖkonomie in Afrika - Christoph Chorherr

How is money on mobile phones created?

At the ITHUBA project:

• until now there is no internet because the cables are always stolen
• but everybody has a mobile phone

Here there are ATMs all around, but how do you pay when there are no ATMs?

-> Mobile Banking

Mobile phone companies see a business there and support this development

• a virtual currency is created
• prepaid airtime
• without interest
• it is not possible to accumulate money, it would lose its value
• economic theory: Schwundgeld

Money is transferred over wide distances this way

• e.g. in Tanzania parents transfer money to their children this way
• Kenya: M-Pesa

What would happen if a mobile phone company stopped its business?

• all the airtime would lose its value
• lacking trust

Nokia has a strong focus on driving forward these development

After attending AfrikaCamp Vienna yesterday, I want to share my notes on some of the sessions. As there were parallel sessions and we had two presentations, I couldn’t attend all of them. There is also the AfrikaCamp wiki on barcamp.at where the sessions are listed.

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HIV AIDS und Human Rights Advocacy - Florian Schirg

Florian talked about his experiences when doing his civil service in Cameroon at a hospital.

Although the work there was quite rewarding and interesting for him, generally it is hard to motivate local people want to work there, as the connectivity in the area is quite bad and it is hard to get access to a mobile phone network or the internet. The only doctor working there right now is Austrian. The next internet connection is a one day travel away.

Now an Northern American church organization wants to install an ERP system there, to make processes more efficient.

Florian raised the question if this project would make any sense taking into account that

• there are not enough employees
• there are no local people capable of maintaining the system
• electricity is not constantly available

and asked for input from the audience.

The subsequent comments from the audience were mainly critical towards the lacking communication between the Northern American sponsors and the local church and hospital. Most people agreed that the project was bound to fail and the approach not to involve local people was ignorant and antiquated.

Another remark was that enhanced connectivity would motivate more people to go there. With mobile network coverage and internet connection people wouldn’t feel as far away any more.

Organization in Vorarlberg: http://www.kamerunpartner.com
Church: http://www.oseelc.org/
Blog: http://florian.nomadlife.org/

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Peak oil und Afrika - Michael Cerveny

Peak oil: the climax in oil production followed by a constant decline and a sharp raise of the oil price - what are the effects on Africa?

Energy is the most important resource in the world, especially oil can cover the worldwide consumption. The production of oil will have its peak some time between 2010 and 2030 which will cause a sudden scarceness and result in a price explosion. This will definitely change the world, how will it affect different societies?

Consequences in Austria:

• everything will become more expensive, especially energy-intense products and food
• standard family:
• about 3000€ additional costs for heating per year
• 700€ more for fuel per year

How will it affect Africa?

Comments from the audience:

Agriculture in Africa is not that energy-intensive, it’s more labour-intensive. That’s why maybe the peak-oil will affect Africa less than other regions of the world.

Most of the African countries would have enough production to sustain themselves without imports. If the countries manage to organize the work efficiently and build up an active market, they would not be dependent on foreign countries so much any more. Inner-African trade is also important.

Right now the agricultural market in many countries of Africa is destroayed through subsidized imports from Western countries. Raising costs for industrial agriculture could correct this imbalance.

In many African countries the Western lifestyle serves as an ideal for a lot of people. So people here have the obligation to change their behaviour before demanding changes from others.

It is substantial to foster education, but on the other hand also production in these countries. NGOs often don’t invest, but donate. This does not help to develop a healthy economy.

Video cast from Christoph Chorherr interviewing Michael Cerveny.

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Web 2.0 für große NGOs - Björn Stockleben

New donation-platforms such as Betterplace or Kiva offer their users a very personal connection to development assistance projects. For big NGOs this project-based approach is not practical as projects are organized at different levels of the organization. So the existing platforms are not used by big NGOs. How can they overcome this dilemma?

Björn suggested a cetral approach for a donations-platform, where all the organizations can upload their projects. To offer an enhanced persoalization, the project desctiptions could be accessed through an API and made visible depending on where they are integrated.

Comments from the audience:

Do NGOs even want that? Is there a demand for this type of platform?

It is important to identify oneself with the NGO and the project as donator. There is no sense for NGOs to compete with 1000 others for donators, if they cannot offer a personal connection to the projects.

Decentralization is vital, every NGO can create their own network with the tools which are already there (e.g. Facebook, …).

NGOs do not have the interest to create a network, when it comes to surviving, the aims are put behind.
-> This is not true, there are a lot of networks such as Globale Verantwortung or Ökobüro. Networking takes place in the exchange of experience, when it comes to donations every NGO works on its own.