Technology Salon

Let us be honest with ourselves. Most of the shiny, flashy new technology is not designed for the developing world we care about. Technology is designed for the rich Hardware designers in rich countries are turning out super light laptops and tablets of glass to impress their rich peers. Software developers are creating apps for…

I am Amos Cruz and below are my thoughts around a recent Technology Salon on “How Can We Make ‘Cloud’ Solutions Relevant in the Offline World” with a cohort of though leaders and decision makers in information technology and international development.

We all know that broadband connectivity is an accelerant for social and economic development. And we know that in the developing world, women are the key investors in family health and education. So shouldn’t we be working towards a world where every African woman can have access to broadband Internet?

At the global level, a very small percentage of development funding goes to urban spaces, yet hard-hitting issues impact many of the urban poor: lack of tenure, lack of legality of land, informal settlements, lack of birth registration and civil registration in general, waste disposal, clean water, politicizing of local authorities and more. Can new…

If we are serious about ICT as an accelerant for social and economic development, and we know that a) women are the key to investments in family health and education, and b) broadband connectivity is a major ICT catalyst for both, then we should be working towards a world where every African woman can have…

Open your wallet right now. Most likely, you have a debit card, a credit card, a health insurance card, and access to the massive financial infrastructure that these three cards represent. The ability to store, save, use, and borrow money anywhere in almost limitless fashion, without worry about amount, theft, or even making change. Add…

Back when Bill Gates was young, he had multiple opportunities to geek out – he had access to computers at home and at school – but he would sneak out of his house to go the library. Why? Because he loved the wealth of knowledge, curated and guided by libraries.

Access to information has been part of the development discussion since the Internet arrived. Previously, many saw community telecenters as the way to bring technology to the developing world. Yet telecenters are not sustainable without donor funding and the concept of public access hasn’t kept pace with advancing technology.

Local Internet Service Providers woefully under served rural communities in Haiti before the 2010 earthquake. ISPs said that broadband infrastructure was too expensive to deploy and there were too few customers to make the investment profitable. Using traditional sales models and technology, they were right. Then the earthquake happened. During the humanitarian relief phase, Inveneo…

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…

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…

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…

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…

On April 8th, Inveneo was pleased to host approximately 20 experts in technology and development for a Technology Salon held at mission*social, a collaborative workspace for social enterprises. The event was billed as a conversation about the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in the Haiti earthquake response, but the conversation focused on a…

In the immediate aftermath of the Haitian earthquake, several Bay area organizations deployed life-saving ICTs to speed disaster response in Port-au-Prince and the greater humanitarian efforts across Haiti. At the next San Francisco Technology Salon, we’ll hear from InSTEDD and Inveneo on how they deployed their respective technical ecosystems, its impact, and their transition possibilities…

We at SSG Advisors are currently incubating a new approach to the delivery of higher education services that leverages both new technology and disruptive business models. We presented this model at last week’s eLearning Technology Salon and I am very grateful for all of the thoughtful and useful input received The Salon was a great…

The Girls and ICT Technology Salon was a great opportunity to get an amazing group of thinkers and do-ers in the same room to debate around a particular topic. I’m Linda Raftree, Plan International West Africa Regional Office, Advisor for New Technology and Social Media. I was honored to lead 20+ people in a conversation…