ICT4D.at

What’s happening in ICT4D.at

Florian Sturm — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 14:45:43 +0000

Zanzicode

In the mean time, after finishing the third round of our Zanzicode project, we have also gotten the official thumbs-up from the funding agency ADA (Austrian Development Agency) for our book-keeping and reports.

The summary of our final report in German can be downloaded here. For more detailed questions please contact us.

After this, we are currently working on a new concept for the next round of Zanzicode. We want to incorporate the mistakes and lessons learned in the previous rounds of Zanzicode and create a more open space for learning and teaching. However, we are searching for a reliable partner on the spot to realise this - if you are there

The Social Business Forge

Our book “The Social Business Forge for ICT4D” has been released already on 11 December last year - as announced on Twitter. You can check the book online at http://www.socialbusinessforge.org/.

Future projects - Ghana

Together with Margarete Grimus - an Austrian expert for “Erwachsenenbildung” (education for adults) and new member of ICT4D.at -, Worlali Senyo, our Ghanian member and his contacts in Ghana are currently planning for a one-month teachers education course with the topic of using ICTs in everyday teaching in Tema, South Ghana.

The workshop is currently planned for mid-August to mid-September this year and preparations are on the way in collaboration with a local school.

Homepage

Our homepage is currently being redesigned by Paul Spießberger and Georg Steinfelder We want to increase ease of navigation and introduce clear structure of posts, projects and other information. Thanks already!

Online activity

As you might have noticed, we are not as active online as we used to be. One reason for this is that we decided to carry out work more project based and dedicate less work to the “mother organisation” ICT4D.at.

In Progress: Social change and globalization of work

Anders Bolin — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 16:15:55 +0000

The Technical Museum in Vienna, Austria, are now showing an impressive collection of artefacts and display of information under the headline “IN ARBEIT” (”IN PROGRESS”). The 800 square meters large venue opened up for the public in late October this year, and will be running for around two years.

It aims to show different aspects of technical developments, economic conditions, social change and “the effects of increasing mobility and globalization of work”. ICT4D.at are represented here too, with a selected edit of our documentary Hello Africa from 2009.

Go have a look: In Arbeit, Die Ausstellung zur Dynamik des Arbeitslebens, Technisches Museum Wien.

Africa Camp Graz - Part 2

Florian Sturm — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 15:38:45 +0000

Notes from Africa Camp Graz 2011, 26.11.2011 in Graz. List of topics here. As there were parallel sessions I could only attend half of them.

Teeth for Africa - http://www.zaehnefuerafrika.com/en/

“Dentist family project”, started in 2006

1 hour from Arusha, in the Kilimanjaro region (Tanzania) there was a lack of dental health care

They took all dental care and other medical equipment they could get in Austria, put it in a container and shipped it to the local dispensary in Uchira

Worked together with local people to build up dentist surgery

Taught local technician to build tooth-protheses

Surgeries initially done by specialists from Austria - 3 family members are dentists - but since October 2011 there’s a local dentist

Several sponsors - university clinic, other dentists, dental companies

Cooperation with Med-Uni Graz

students can have an internship in Uchira

Local dentist & technician are working together in the mean time and everyday dental care is working ok

Treatment is not for free because people have to get a salary, rent for rooms, …

depending on salary of patients

Supporting the project - on the homepage

ICT4D - (what to do with) IT and mobile phones in “developing countries”

View more presentations from ict4d.at.

Laafi - rural hospitals in Burkina Faso - http://www.laafi.at/

Since 1994, 14 members, financing health projects in Burkina Faso

Costs are covered by donations and

Usually 1 hospital for an area with 10.000-20.000 people

Many duties

medical care in the hospital
awareness about hygiene in the villages
family planning
pharmacy

Burkina Faso has a national initiative to supply all areas in the country with hospitals - but there is no state budget for it; but the personnel is sent to hospitals which are built by other initiatives

Laafi

looking for projects
working with village community and medical personnel
co-financing by the village community (20-30%)
local companies, local resources
control and evaluation on the spot
sticking to reliable project partners

Several projects in Burkina Faso

General medical situation very basic

Budget

1/3 Laafi calendar
1/3 private supporters
1/3 institutional donations

Social Media for NGOs

Prezi-presentation at http://prezi.com/npk3rwlixuks/social-media-fur-ngos/

Further material online

Resources at the Afrika-Camp site: http://www.barcamp.at/Speakers_AfrikaCamp_Graz_2011

Arabian Spring - a social media revolution - Prezi: http://prezi.com/hsdnvfkq_k7g/arabischer-fruhling-eine-social-media-revolution/

Social Media in Africa - Prezi: http://prezi.com/wumvtu_gvmdx/social-media-in-afrika/

Africa Camp Graz - Part 1

Florian Sturm — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 12:57:07 +0000

Notes from Africa Camp Graz 2011, 26.11.2011 in Graz. List of topics here. As there were parallel sessions I could only attend half of them.

Micro Credits as a measure to extend capitalist production

In the mean time more than 100 million people received micro-credits; counting all members of the family there are soon 1 billion people affected by microcredits

More and more institutions are entering the market (becuase they see the possibility for profit) which results into competition and more focus on profit than on information and assistance

Interest rates become higher and more and more people are not able to pay back the microcredits

many cases for this (India, suicide of farmers)
social pressure to pay back loans
sometimes physical force is used to pay back loans

People receiving microcredits often don’t make the step to become independent entrepreneurs and therefore become workers who have no option, only to sell their work force

–> Extension of the capitalist production circumstances

–> People become dependent on private companies/NGOs/institutions and not the state anymore (social system)

–> Makes situation of the people worse, not better

–> The assumption that “social capitalism” works is wrong, as soon as there is competition, the companies who don’t care about social standards win - in general and in our current system

Mojoproject - www.mojoproject.org

Started as building project TU Graz - connected with ITHUBA
- Mojo fullscale stodio - not for profit
- Mojo architectural studio - for profit

Trying to improve the situation by providing education

Active in South Africa & Tanzania - 2 schools each

Building schools in townships & rural areas

Also important who runs the school
Focusing on educating women
Integrating young local men in the building of the schools - teaching them crafting skills on the job

Planning, building and also raising money themselves

student project as initial kickstart - half year of a lot of work
need project partners - universities, NGOs, companies, many sponsors

Open for additional projects from other organisations

Final aim - local people learn building skills and can act independently

Learning from the slum Kibera - from a land use planning perspective

Taking lessons from Kibera to architectural planning projects in the West

slum in Nairobi
~1 million inhabitants

Hierarchy of space

1. public spaces for all
2. public spaces for private activities
3. spaces for reaching other places
core elements - living space and courtyard

System that emerged without architects

Partition between public and private spaces much more logical & natural than in the west
clear borders between private and public - also athmospherical
small clusters of private spaces gathering around public spaces
spaces spiraling from public to private spaces

Systemic approach - inside vs. outside

clear “rules” that distinguish places inside and outside these different spaces structures
addition of structures from North to South
Kibera as an “island”

Public space as more flexible entity - created and changed based on community input

No strict partitions as in the West - no more fighting fore public space

Learning from “slum cultures”

Using ICTs in schools with no electricity

Worlali Senyo — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 18:48:49 +0000

One persistent criticism that I hear of educational technology projects in many places — and especially in Africa — is that ‘there are too many pilot projects’. ’What we really need’, or so the lament usually continues, ‘are things thatscale‘. While I don’t necessarily agree that more pilot projects are not useful — to the contrary, I have in the past explored why we need more (not fewer) ICT4D pilot projects in education — few would argue that we shouldn’t be focused on finding ’solutions’ that ’scale’.

One challenge that many groups find when trying to scale educational technology projects is that they often begin by working with relatively well-resourced schools in or near urban areas, seeking to establish proof-of-concept that something specific works (e.g. a technology, an approach to teacher training) before taking on the greater challenges of working in, for example, rural schools that are off-the-grid and which have few (if any) qualified teachers. It should perhaps not be so surprising that what works in the first set of schools may not work quite so well in the second set.

There are other groups who choose to start with the most difficult environments first, figuring that (1) that is where the need is greatest; and (2) if a model or approach works there, it might have a better chance of working (most) everywhere.

I am regularly contacted by groups who seek to work in such environments, but only rarely hear back from them with reports about what they are actually learning about working successfully in such environments (I do unfortunately hear a lot about failure), and how they are changing their approach or model as a result. One organization I have heard back from recently in this regard was Cybersmart Africa, a group I had initially learned about because of its innovative use of nylon sheets, PVC pipe, and a modified Nintendo Wii remote to assemble low cost interactive whiteboards for use in schools in Senegal. Cybersmart Africa works exclusively in schools with classrooms with very poor physical infrastructure (including those with no or very limited electricity). ”If this is the reality for 80% of schools in Sub-Saharan Africa, and we need to scale ICT use for education, why base what you are doing on what 10-20% of the privileged have?” asks Cybersmart Africa founder Jim Teicher.

(Another example of an approach designed to work in very difficult environments is so-called interactive radio instruction; this has been shown to scale well in many places, but, for a variety of reasons, has often proved to be difficult to sustain. One Mouse Per Child, which has also been profiled on the World Bank EduTech blog previously, is another.)

Many of the Western NGOs and firms with whom I speak who are interested in ‘working in a developing country’ start with a very high level or high concept approach, figuring essentially that, if the strategy is largely correct, the details will follow. (Indigenous groups and international NGOs with long experience ‘on the ground’ usually know better, of course.) Such groups can become frustrated when they discover that it is often an accumulation of ’small details’ that ensure their particular approach or model does not work. It is better to walk than curse the road, or so the saying goes in Wolof, one of the languages used in Senegal, and this is an approach that the Cybersmart team seems to be following. When speaking recently with Teicher, one of the most encouraging things I found was that he first wanted to share information not about grand theories about what *might* work, but rather about a lot of the ‘little things’ they have been learning about what *doesn’t* work, and about how iterating (and iterating, and iterating!) has been key to their ability to learn and make changes to their approach to methodically improve what they are doing. Things like:

If you are off-the-grid and need to use batteries, don’t used lead car batteries, which can cause big problems if/when they tip over, even if they are commonly available. Use sealed AGM batteries instead.
Let’s be honest: In most cases, there are too few computers in a school for too manystudents, and it is difficult to integrate their use into normal instruction. Don’t make things more difficult by segregating computers into their own special rooms (e.g. computer labs). Instead, take the technology to the teachers and students where they are currently teaching and learning — in the classroom itself — and use tools like projectors and interactive whiteboards that impact as many students as possible at one time. (While you’re at it, be prepared to spend more on teacher training and support than on the technology itself.)

And:

Given a choice (and there is a choice more often that you might think!), always search for local products (or, barring that, products that can be assembled locally) instead of immediately looking to import goods from abroad — this can be key to keeping costs down and keeping your supply chain as local as possible. This approach applies as much to the PVC material that they use for the portable ‘interactive whiteboards’ that they have assembled as to lesson plans, which are developed locally.

Sounds simple, you might say, to which I would say: you are exactly right.

Now, it is not my place or intention to do so here to ‘endorse’ the work of any particular organization (I’ll note parenthetically that World Bank has not supported this particular project in the past — although USAID has).

Rather, it is to highlight an approach which begins by working in the most challenging environments and not simply taking a model that worked successfully in Paris or Pretoria and assuming that, with some small modifications here and there, it will work everywhere. That’s common sense, you might say, and I would certainly agree. But, if the parade of groups who (seek to) pass through our offices here at the World Bank demo’ing their wares are any indication, and the many stalled projects I visit around the world are in any way representative, too often ‘common sense solutions’ are discarded in favor of what’s ‘new and exciting’. While funding what’s new and exciting may be fashionable for donors (should I be surprised that every other project proposal I seem to come across these days seems to include the use of mobile phones in some way?), in the end that it is usually the most practical solutions that find traction with teachers and students over time.

More information (short videos):

Here’s a short promotional video from Cybersmart Africa showing off its work. (A hint: watch it first with the sound off to focus on what classrooms in participating pilot schools actually look like)
Here are some interviews with school leaders (don’t turn the sound down on this one!) and a short explanation of how text messages (SMS) are being used in conjunction with low cost interactive whiteboards to support teachers.
Cybersmart has also posted 17 student-made videos, put together as a result of a special ‘digital storytelling’ initiative it sponsored. The idea here was first to gain the confidence and support of parents and community leaders by extend traditional storytelling customs into the digital realm, before moving on to other things. The result: 17 portraits of contemporary village life in Senegal.

Note: The image used at the top of this blog post (”interacting with a whiteboard (in front of a blackboard) in Senegal”) comes courtesy of Cybersmart Africa. The second image (”moving a low-cost interactive whiteboard — over rocks and sand — between classrooms”) is taken from a screen capture of the ‘Snapshot – Cybersmart Africa’ video on YouTube. Both are used with permission of the rights holder.

Author : Michael Trucano

Source: WorldBank Blog

Designing information and communication technologies for development

Martin Tomitsch — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 22:41:11 +0000

A few weeks ago I was invited to give a guest lecture on information and communication technologies for development in a course on political economy of development at the University of Sydney. The course is taught by Dr Elizabeth Hill, who has done very interesting research on work and care dynamics in the Indian economy.

In the talk I gave an overview of our ICT4D.at projects Hello Africa, Zanzicode, and the Seaweed farming study from a human-centred design perspective. Aspects that we discussed in the lecture included methods for understanding the context before doing a project in a development context and how to design for sustainable interventions. I referenced IDEO’s open source human-centred design toolkit which was developed for social enterprises and NGOs. The toolkit describes design techniques that consider the aspects of desirability, feasibility, and viability. The techniques are structured into the phases ‘hear’, ‘create’, and ‘deliver’. Similar to other design frameworks, these phases suggest to start with concrete observations about people in the beginning of a project, to move towards more abstract thinking in the phase of creating ideas, and then back to concrete solutions when delivering the project.

The message at the core of my talk was that focusing on the product or service alone won’t necessarily lead to a successful intervention even if it’s technologically really well delivered. The techniques covered in the toolkit support the consideration of other human-centred layers that will play an important role but might be easily overseen.

In that regard I recently read a very interesting article on why great technology alone is not the answer, as well as the even more interesting responses by Tim Brown from IDEO and Paul Polak from iDE. Tim points out the importance of focusing on the entire chain of how a product reaches and impacts people. Paul talks about the need of establishing an effective communication channel. If no one knows about your product or service no one will be able to benefit from it. Paul describes a case study where they trained local people to install pumps and hired village troubadours and theatre groups to write and perform songs about the pumps, which I think is an amazing story from which there is much to learn.

The slides from my talk are included below and published under CC on slideshare.

Leveraging Information and Communication Technology for the Base Of the Pyramid

Worlali Senyo — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 19:16:58 +0000

Despite possibilities of scaling projects with technology, many technology-based initiatives in social and economic development have failed to make it past early pilot stages or grow to scale. This study by Hystra, in collaboration with Ashoka and TNO, examines what successful ventures within four sectors can teach us about models for scaling Information and Communications Technology (ICT) -based applications and projects aimed at reaching bottom-of-the-pyramid customers (referred to as Base of the Pyramid in the report). The researchers focused specifically on these sectors: education, health, agricultural services, and financial services.

What Did the Study Review?

Initially considering 280 projects as promising models, researchers found that over half were not worth researching because projects lacked sustainability or replicatibility. Many of the projects were dead pilot projects or were small with no sign of the possibility or intent of scaling in size or reach.

From there, researchers homed in on 16 groundbreaking cases. These projects had reached scale (defined as having 10,000 clients or more) or had the potential to do so. All projects were assessed against three criteria: Is the solution solving the (specified) problem? Is the project economically viable? Is the project scalable and replicable? The researchers grouped projects into specific clusters based on business model type. All projects researched were value-added or market-based, because of the researchers’ belief that such models increase project sustainability and client investment in the project.

The models that the researchers looked at varied. For instance, researchers asked whether end-users accessed the technology themselves as opposed to being delivered trough an intermediary.

What did the Researchers Find?

Technology for development is a young and dynamic field. And, with many new fields, especially in the area of social change, the rhetoric doesn’t measure up to the reality of impact for many projects.

Researchers found, not surprisingly, that many projects turn out not to be sustainable and that those that have reached some semblance of scale are rare. Many ICT4D projects, being donor-funded and donor-driven, are also short-lived and lack an identified, economically viable revenue stream. Additionally, the impact of ICT4D projects is hard to single out and measure. Researchers also found that there are various degrees of financial viability across the education, health, financial and agricultural services sectors studied. The most viable cases could be found in the finance and agricultural services sectors.

The paper goes into great detail about findings, with a chapter dedicated to each business model and sector, detailing different types of capital for different models, pros and cons of models, challenges facing each, and strategies for scaling. The paper also analyzes the state of the education, health, agricultural services, and financial services sectors.

Highlights include:

Education - while demand is growing for ICT support, without governments procuring the technology, it remains to be seen if there is sufficient purchasing power at the BoP to support technology education services.
Health - mHealth has the highest proportion of dead pilot programs, especially programs that were grant-funded.
Agricultural services - some of the largest projects are in this sector, some serving millions of people. The most viable of these over the longer term link individuals with income generation.
Financial services - by far, the most mature and viable sector with some great successes, according to the research.

What Makes Successful Project?

With this detailed analysis, the researchers were abe to point to some characteristics of successful projects. These include, understandably, a focus on the end-users ability to pay, a project structure that could adjust through trial and error, an ability to capture a large share of customer’s mind and wallet (often through related services), and varied revenue stream through a wide-range of services.

The authors also described key challenges encountered by many projects in the four areas investigated: Conflicting and confusing policy frameworks to work through (e.g. telecom and health policies), a lack of understanding of local needs and demands, as well as a lack of technical and sectoral expertise; and inability to find adequate capitalization. Technology, especially when a project is growing, remains an issue as well. Similarly, many of the social entrepreneurs who began a venture lack solid IT expertise.

Some Conclusions

The authors aptly note, that while an entrepreneurial spirit is needed to start successful services, the ability to work with other across sectors is needed for scaling projects to include partnering the public, private and civic spheres. The paper further provides several recommendations. These include, not surprisingly, a solid focus on problem-driven approaches and a bottom-up, customer-centric world view. The authors also recommend supporting existing entrepreneurs, promoting cross-sector synergies, and removing specific barriers to scale. The paper ends with the warning that efforts must be made to reach those who as of yet do not have access to mobiles to minimize the likelihood of further excluding already marginalized populations.

Source: Mobileactive
More details and the full report Click here.

Global ITU Study on Information Society

Isabella Wagner — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 20:55:36 +0000

New figures released recently by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), an agency under the United Nations, rank the Republic of Korea as the world’s most advanced ICT economy, followed by Sweden, Iceland, Denmark, and Finland.

The new data, released in ITU’s flagship annual report ‘Measuring the Information Society 2011’, show that information and communication technology uptake continues to accelerate worldwide, spurred by a steady fall in the price of telephone and broadband Internet services.

A key feature of the report is the ICT Development Index (IDI), which ranks 152 countries according to their level of ICT access, use and skills, and compares 2008 and 2010 scores.

The top ten IDI 2010 economies are (in order of their ranks) the Republic of Korea, Sweden, Iceland, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong (China), Luxembourg, Switzerland, Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.

Most countries at the top of the ranking are from Europe and Asia Pacific, and they largely correspond to the world’s high-income economies, given the strong correlation between the level of ICT development and GDP.

Article Source: AsianScientist

Full report: ITU website

Full report: PDF

The Social Business Forge for ICT4D

Florian Sturm — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 15:58:15 +0000

Our project “The Social Business Forge”, which has been running for quite a while now is now about to finish! IT’s a book about our experiences, knowledge we gathered on the way of becoming and being ICT4D.at. Project leader Paul puts it into words:

The Social Business Forge Project is initiated by ICT4D.at with the aim to collect and disseminate knowledge about ICT4D, social enterprises and the implications for setting up an association in Austria to support these developments. We would like to share what we have built up here at ICT4D.at together with guest postings by providing a solid handbook [from the Social Business Forge page].

The whole thing is a book which we will realease online and which you can also order as printed version. We want to release it in October. Additionally to many general chapters on running an organization like ours, Chapters on our projects Hello Africa and Zanzicode are included.

As it should be an ingoing project with updated and new chapters periodically, you can now even apply to beta-read the book and have your comments included in a coming version.

So check the Social Business Forge website and we’ll notify you again when the book will be finally released.

AfrikaCamp Graz November 2011

Florian Sturm — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 23:48:30 +0000

Just a small pointer to an interesting event in Graz, Austria on November 26:

AfrikaCamp Graz will bring together people interested in Africa and IT to talk about projects, ideas and generally to network. We’ll definitely be there and maybe present lessons learned from our Zanzicode project or our upcoming project in Ghana.

It’s the second AfrikaCamp in Austria, the first took place in Vienna in 2009 and we did some coverage here on our blog - AfrikaCamp Vienna Aftermath.

So, if you’re in Austria at that time, make sure to join the AfrikaCamp.

What: AfrikaCamp Graz 2011

When: 26. November 2011

Where: Graz, exact location will be announced at the AfrikaCamp page