Hi everyone, nice to be a part of ICT4D.at. I have been bouncing some emails back and forth with Florian and he asked that I blog on the site, which I will try to do as regularly as time permits.

Over the last few years I have been working on a number of projects concerning new mobile technologies, such as WiMAX, smartphone applications and investigating mobile market places in developing countries. One of the concerning issues that I see is that despite the possibilities of these technologies to change the information access and communication landscape in developing countries, they may also contribute to a new form of the digital divide emerging.
Technologies such as WiMAX-mobile broadband-can technologically fill the Internet connectivity gap like no other technology on the market (satellite technology while covering most of the world is expensive and lesser in quality), and is being used widely in developing countries, Pakistan springs to mind. However, it has not filtered down to the ‘bottom of the period’ nor is it likely to due to economic and political imperatives, which I will not get into. Mobile broadband and smartphones present a technological hybrid future - that is the convergence of mobile devices with PC like functionality and Internet connectivity, but it also presents a potential deepening of the digital divide. So while NGOs, governments and development practitioners are working to close the digital divide (through the MDGs, One Laptop Per Child etc), a new divide between the haves and the have nots may emerge. As mentioned by Ken Banks, the Nokia 1100 remains the most popular mobile phone and Vodaphone recently announced a new cheap mobile phone aimed at the developing world (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8516079.stm). Therefore it is clear that basic voice and SMS functionality will remain the key use of the mobile phones, and probably we will continue to see innovative mobile market place initiatives (such as www.cellbazaar.com) and other SMS and voice based applications. But it is a large leap from this use of mobile technology to mobile broadband, smartphones and tablets. The question is do we aim to prevent this new digital divide and adopt an interventionist approach or allow these recent advances to take their own course?

Stan.

May van Gent is an independent video journalist who initially put us in touch with the Zanzibits project - of which our web development school project Zanzicode developed.

She is also currently on Zanzibar, shooting at Sauti za Busara (Sounds of Wisdom) East African music festival and creating a short movie of Zanzicode.

On her blog mayworld she frequently publishes videos of her travels, right now:

You can follow the first steps in my life as a video journalist.

The journey starts in Tanzania, East Africa.
Where the road will take me I don’t know yet.

I just arrived in Zanzibar. After Sauti za Busara (Sounds of Wisdom) an international festival celebrating East African music from 11-16 February I will continue the trip. Probably I’ll go from Malawi to Mozambique to be in South Africa for the world cup 2010 .

You can see video’s on different events, people, days, party’s, mornings etc etc. [from May's blog mayworld]

She also has a Flickr account, so if you want to get some impressions on East Africa - and especially of the amazing music festival which just took place in Zanzibar, check her out.

It’s time for our monthly meeting - Stammtisch - again, this time even punctual one month after our last one - Stammtisch #4.

This meeting is for curious people in Vienna to find out about ICT4D in general, what we do, how to help and generally just to have a nice evening. We’d be happy to get to know a lot of new people.

What: ICT4D.at Stammtisch

Where: Cafe Benno, Alser Straße 67, Wien

When: Thursday, 11. March 2009, 19:00

If you intend to come it would be great if you could notify us via mail or RSVP on

Just recently, via Thomas Strasser, I found out about Pioneers of Change - a coaching program for young Austrians with a vision to change the world, organized by Plenum.

It’s all about sustainability, ecology, positive change and such things. They have a great network with other organizations such as SocialBusinessDay, Weisssee - Sustainability meets Entrepreneurship, The Hub and many more. They offer a program with interesting lecturers, teaching the participants about project design and management, fund raising and public relations.

I applied with ICT4D.at as my project and was taken! I’m really looking forward now to the eight modules - first one already starting next week. I expect from the program to learn to manage ICT4D.at even better and get some projects in the ICT4D context going. Also I am certain that this will initiate a diverse networks of people with sustainable initiatives working for a better world - social entrepreneurs if you will.

Thomas was also taken - same as Georg Urschitz who together with Thomas built up the IT course at Don Bosco School Sunyani.

So - great opportunity, great company, looking forward to it and I’ll keep you updated on my advances.

We are proud to announce that our flickr group Images FOR Africa reached 10.000 pieces some days ago. From the Images FOR Africa description:

We want to collect ‘Images of Africa’ that are ‘free to use’ according to a Creative Commons License: Social documentary, structures, public transport, village life, poverty, nature, wildlife … everything!

There is no special purpose other than spreading/providing Africa related, CC licensed photos in media:

so they can be used free of charge by e.g.:
- Africa related NGOs/NPOS to do proper media-work,
- local business initiatives for their web presence,
- upcoming journalists,
- …

We took this round lot of 10.000 and created a flickr gallery where we curate the best picks from the group. Based on this beautiful sample we are looking forward to print some shots and try to organize an exhibition.

Click on the image to get to the gallery:

Just a short remark on the group: A lot of people add their images ‘blind’ and don’t license the images as “creative commons” before they post to the group. We assume that these flickr users at least read the group rules but don’t know about creative commons and want to support the cause anyway.

If you want to use the picture for some purpose, just write the user who shot it. Describe what you will use it for and reference to the group rules. If the user is not ok with it, we will have to remove the picture from our group pool. Just send a message to our flickr account in that case.

Yesterday’s 4th ICT4D.at Stammtisch was quite nice again, had a good time with interesting discussions. People that participated - except me:

• Sarah Funk - lecturer for International Development at University of Vienna
• Christoph Derndorfer - OLPC Austria
• Isabella Wagner - studying the master program Science-Technology-Society at University of Vienna and hopefully treasurer to be of ICT4D.at
• PJ McDonagh - Linux administrator and web developer
• Mario Tavric - working at the SAP Sustainability department and studying International Development
• Cornelia Mauser - working at Lebenshilfe Wien

Next Stammtisch will take place at 11 March at Cafe Benno again, hope to see more of you there then

Just a short point to our page “Conferences and Events” where we are gathering upcoming ICT4D events. If you want to add other interesting conferences just contact us, we’ll share the calendar with you.

Check it out!

Late as always, I hereby provide you with the resumé of the final quarter of 2009 - from November 2009 to January 2010.

The preceding quarterly reviews can be read here:

• Internal #Q3 2009
• Internal #Q2 2009
• Internal #Q1 2009

The first event after the last quarterly review was a really significant one - the World Bank Day @ mHealth Summit at 26 October 2009 - another event organized by our partners from the eDevelopment Thematic Group (eTG) of the World Bank. We blogged about it very detailed - with six posts - and covered it on Twitter.

In November Hello Africa continued to tour the world with a screening in Wales at the May You Live in Interesting Times festival. Later that month we covered the Development Marketplace 2009 event, where “100 ideas to save the planet” were presented, with roughly a quarter of them being funded by the Global Environment Facility, the foreign ministry of Denmark, the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the World Bank Group. Oliver, our man in Germany took part in the World Social Web Dialogue in Berlin, which aims to create a standard for exchanging data between NGOs. Furthermore I attended events of the Austrian NGO Südwind - Clean IT - the way to a fair trade PC and one monthly meeting of theirs, focusing on Web 2.0 and new technologies. That was already in December though.

December also started with a very nice present of Oliver Ruhm, designer at Zeughaus Brand Identity Desig, who rebrushed our page design. Except the Donate-button on the top it’s not implemented yet as we all are very busy, but if somebody would be willing to volunteer for that, we’d be grateful!

Thanks to Fritz who was as a teacher in Zanzibar, later that month the homepage and blog for our web application programmers school in Zanzibar - Zanzicode - went online. You can read about the progress of our pupils there - though we’ll update you here on the blog as well.

The eTG organized an event in December focusing on free and open source software, with Brazil as example. Another event we attended was 26c3, the hacker’s conference of the Chaos Communication Club.

January does not seem so stressful on the blog - with only a review of Bamboo, Tin and Callabashes, an exhibition in the Leopold museum in Vienna and the eTG event on climate smart development - but actually it was a very stressful month with many things happening internally.

We had a big meeting with Martin T, Martin K, Paul, Oliver, Fritz, me (Florian) and even two new members - Thomas and Isabella - taking part. Also, we are working on grant applications, scientific papers, new events and our internal structure - more details to be announced when the time is ripe.

February has just started - but we are looking forward to our next Stammtisch next Thursday - and hope to see a lot of interested people there!

A lot of things to come, and we are still motivated and eager for new challenges.

After four months break since Stammtisch #3 took place, we would like to go on with this kind of informal meeting format and therefore would like to invite you to our 4th Stammtisch.

A lot has happened and we have even grown in numbers - so come by to meet us, find out about how our projects go, tell us what you are currently working on or what you’d be interested to do and spend a nice evening with like-minded people.

What: ICT4D.at Stammtisch

Where: Cafe Benno, Alser Straße 67, Wien

When: Thursday, 11. February 2009, 19:00

If you intend to come it would be great if you could notify us via mail or RSVP on

Notes of the Global ICT Department event IT for Climate-Smart Development: “Not Your Grandfather’s Bank” at the Social Development Forum on January 20.

.

We don’t have solutions for climate change and as there are very many stakeholders it is hard to agree on a solution

Global ICT department addresses this issue from the policy angle, but there have to be business models for private investments as well

.

Frank Rijsberman, Director Program of Google.org

Managing climate risk in the cloud

“Innovating for good” - 1% equity spent to innovation

Climate change is impacting people in poor countries

• Sea level rise in Holland and Bangladesh is the same
• But Bangladesh is impacted quite more

Information scarcity increases climate change vulnerability

• acquiring information
• disseminating information
• enabling

Examples where Google.org is involved:

[read the whole article]