Technology Salon

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a discussion at the intersection of technology and development

Our Past Meetings

  • Best Practices in Incorporating ICT into Funding Proposals

    Washington DC | By on January 24, 2011 | Comments Off on Best Practices in Incorporating ICT into Funding Proposals

    At the Technology Salon on “How to Incorporate ICT into Proposals”, we discussed some of the challenges and solutions for proposal writers when they try to incorporate information and communication technologies into future program design.

  • How to Incorporate ICT Into Proposals

    Washington DC | By on January 12, 2011 | Comments Off on How to Incorporate ICT Into Proposals

    We all want to add the technology sizzle to our proposals. Nothing wins an RFP these days like “e” this or “m” that. Yet ICT projects are complicated, and hasty technology additions in proposals often leave implementers struggling to achieve project milestones after the contract is won.

  • The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has a proud history of transforming development through science & technology. As part of the ambitious reform effort, USAID Forward, USAID is developing a set of Grand Challenges for Development, a framework to focus the Agency and development community on key barriers that limit breakthrough development progress….

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  • What Would a USAID Grand Challenge Look Like?

    Washington DC | By on November 23, 2010 | Comments Off on What Would a USAID Grand Challenge Look Like?

    US Government agencies have issued a number of Grand Challenges to spur science, technology, and innovation. There is even Challenge.gov to solicit new challenges and solutions from the public. USAID is also looking at Grand Challenges, and had a recent conference to discuss them: Transforming Development through Science, Technology and Innovation.

  • Health Information as Health Care: The Role of Mobile in Unlocking Health Data

    Washington DC | By on November 3, 2010 | Comments Off on Health Information as Health Care: The Role of Mobile in Unlocking Health Data

    On the occasion of the 2010 mHealth Summit, please join the United Nations Foundation, the Vodafone Foundation Technology Partnership, and the mHealth Alliance for a luncheon discussion of the forthcoming report: Health Information as Health Care: The Role of Mobile in Unlocking Health Data This report examines the ecosystem of patient-related health information, tracing data…

  • Solar Power’s Twin Challenges of Sizing and Support

    Washington DC | By on October 29, 2010 | Comments Off on Solar Power’s Twin Challenges of Sizing and Support

    At the Technology Salon on Rural Power Solutions for the Developing World, Eric Youngren of Solar Nexus International started us off with the basics, and I learned about the difference between power and energy: Power is the instantaneous creation and use of electricity – what is needed right now to power an electronic device, and…

  • Electrical power is key for an ICT deployment – and many other basic services as well. Yet it is often the main barrier to deployment because often it simply doesn’t exist in rural and underserved areas, or “off-grid” locations. If electrical systems do exist, they can be expensive, intermittent, and unreliable. In short, there is…

  • P2PU Brings Peer Learning to Online Higher Education

    San Francisco | By on October 20, 2010 | Comments Off on P2PU Brings Peer Learning to Online Higher Education

    At the How Peer-to-Peer University is Hacking Higher Education Technology Salon in San Francisco, Philipp Schmidt discussed his Peer 2 Peer University initiative, an innovative approach to further the reach and impact of higher education.

  • Unlike our usual Technology Salons, which are not recorded, the ICT4D, Innovation, and Millennium Development Goals Salon at the UN Week Digital Media Lounge was taped by Mashable for your viewing pleasure.

  • Building an mEducation Alliance for Development

    Washington DC | By on September 23, 2010 | Comments Off on Building an mEducation Alliance for Development

    As part of this month’s Educational Technology Debate on mEducation initiatives, the Technology Salon will be looking at ways to apply mobile phones in education, and scale them across organizations with an mEducation Alliance.

  • ICT4D, Innovation, and Millennium Development Goals

    New York | By on September 9, 2010 | Comments Off on ICT4D, Innovation, and Millennium Development Goals

    The UN Week Digital Media Lounge will be highlighting new approaches that are tackling Millennium Development Goal challenges. Innovative information and communication technologies are one way to accelerate progress toward meeting the MDGs. But what are the big new ideas? Who is pushing the innovation envelope? And how are humanitarian agencies using these ICT tools…

  • How Peer-to-Peer University is Hacking Higher Education

    San Francisco | By on September 7, 2010 | Comments Off on How Peer-to-Peer University is Hacking Higher Education

    Imagine imputing an object into a rigid four-year, $100,000+ process, hoping that when it finally leaves this system its a useful tool. That’s the current university system, where higher education resembled the Waterfall software development process. Now contrast it with short bursts of learning using educational materials openly available online, with constant feedback on progress…

  • OLPC in South America Update

    Washington DC | By on August 24, 2010 | Comments Off on OLPC in South America Update

    There has been a great deal of media attention on the ‘One Laptop Per Child’ (OLPC) project since the announcement of a “$100 laptop” over five years ago. Most of this attention focuses on its potential to address the educational challenges in developing countries. Much less is known about what is actually happening on-the-ground with…

  • A New ICT4D Paradigm: Women + Mobile Phones + mServices = Economic Development

    Washington DC | By on July 19, 2010 | Comments Off on A New ICT4D Paradigm: Women + Mobile Phones + mServices = Economic Development

    While everyone is amazed at the quick proliferation of mobile phones in the developing world, here’s a startling statistic which should check our unbridled enthusiasm for m-everything: 73% of women in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia do not have a mobile phone. Across all developing countries, adult women are 21% less likely to have a…

  • mServices for Women: the Social and Economic Impact of Closing Mobile Phone Gender Gap

    Washington DC | By on July 2, 2010 | Comments Off on mServices for Women: the Social and Economic Impact of Closing Mobile Phone Gender Gap

    Over 300 million women are being left out of the benefits of mobile phone ownership as it becomes the most ubiquitous technology in the developing world, which has major implications given women’s role in social and economic development. Furthermore, the potential value of cell phone ownership increases as mobile services (mServices) including health, finance, and…

  • Sorting the Future of SMS4Dev at San Francisco Salon

    San Francisco | By on June 24, 2010 | Comments Off on Sorting the Future of SMS4Dev at San Francisco Salon

    Short Message Service (SMS) text messages, which started as a way for Nokia engineers to test mobile phone network operations, has grown into a killer app – for everyone. At the SMS4Dev Technology Salon in San Francisco, we looked at three ways to apply SMS to pressing development projects.

  • Where the last SMS4D Technology Salon reminded us of the unique gift of mobile technologies to be implemented in the field, The Cloudy SMS4D Salon really drove home mobile phones as a multifunctional tool whose true impact is tied more to the usage than the technology itself.

  • SMS for Development in San Francisco

    San Francisco | By on June 3, 2010 | Comments Off on SMS for Development in San Francisco

    Are you a Technology Salon subscriber on the West Coast that’s feeling left out of our two SMS4D Salons in Washington DC? Don’t! We’re bringing all the great SMS text messaging fun to San Francisco with SMS4Dev-SF on June 17th.

  • SMS4D-2: the Cloud-Based SMS Solutions Salon

    Washington DC | By on May 26, 2010 | Comments Off on SMS4D-2: the Cloud-Based SMS Solutions Salon

    Now that your interest was piqued with last month’s SMS for Development Technology Salon, get ready for SMS4D-2: the Cloudy Salon.

  • The SMS4D Technology Salon focused on the power of Short Message Service (SMS) text technology to create scaled impact, starting at the local and regional level. We went through an inspiring round of implementations and use cases of on-the-ground efforts using FrontlineSMS in cross-sector development situations.Throughout the examples, we were constantly reminded that mobile phone-based…