More Tech Salons About ICT4D
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The recent Technology Salon on How to Counter Malign Influences in Digital Development was a fascinating discussion that should start with the idea that we are mainly talking about the Chinese and Russian country governments. These governments may not reflect the will of its citizens, or even a majority of them, and the governments themselves…
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The digital development field has consistently focused on improving female access to technology and related services across low- and middle-income countries. With over 250 million more women owning a mobile phone as compared to 2014, there has been considerable progress. Yet, the importance of female representation in leadership has become even clearer. A recent study indicated that…
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Governments are scrambling to catch the culprits behind the cyber attacks that are disrupting operations at large organizations across the globe. Cyber security experts say the spread of the worm dubbed WannaCry locked up more than 200,000 computers in more than 150 countries. Ghana lost a total of $50 million dollars to cyber-attack in 2016….
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Currently, over two billion people worldwide live in fragile, violent and conflict-affected (FCV) environments. Furthermore, according to the World Bank, the share of the extreme poor living in conflict-affected situations is expected to rise above 50% by 2030. FCV environments dramatically impact development outcomes as conflicts drive 80% of all humanitarian needs – yet it…
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Our technology for development specialty is changing. Macro forces like reduced government funding and PEPFAR’s push to local organizations are intersecting with increased local capacity and robust commercial solutions, forcing us to consider a post-ICT4D world. This inspired a Technology Salon asking, “What does the future of ICT4D look like?”, where we had a lively…
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The title of this post is the most memorable quote from our May 2017 Technology Salon, asking the question “Are We Really Closing the Gender Gap in ICT4D?“, a discussion led by: Catherine Highet, Technical Advisor, mStar at FHI360 Revi Sterling, USAID-GBI Chief of Party Melissa Persaud, VOTO Mobile We’ve talked about gender and ICT4D…
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Twenty development professionals recently met in Bangkok to ask, “How Can We Build the ICT4D Capacity of Development Organizations?“. They discussed the usage, implementation as well as the successes and challenges of building capacity of development organization to make use of ICT in their work. The lead discussant, Simon Gee from TechSoup Asia, started the…
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The special focus of women’s use of technology has been a part of ICT projects for decades. Whether it’s focus groups, particular reports, or special training programs, the fact is that women are often a central point within ICT4D projects. But looking even further, what has all that work achieved for women’s empowerment? The San…
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Mobile phones have transformed development, and a recent London Technology Salon focused on whether digital government could have a similar impact. As more and more countries are looking into digital government, could the public sector’s leveraging of data, digital and technology be a catalyst for development? The session’s lead discussants were Calum Handforth – a…
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At the recent Technology Salon on ICT for Cuba, experts came together to discuss the role of ICT in growing the Cuban economy and how the United States government, private industry and nonprofit organizations could help. The main takeaway I got from the event was the uniqueness of the Cuban system and that any company…
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At the September 23 Technology Salon, attendees faced a question: Is ICT4D slowly dying or slowly changing? Earlier this year, James BonTempo, Director of ICT and Innovation at Johns Hopkins CCP wrote that ICT4D is slowly dying. ICT4D enthusiasts had a lot to say in response (don’t miss Part II of BonTempo’s blog post). While…
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Myanmar will be going online fast in the next 2 years. Right now it has the same mobile phone usage as North Korea, Eritrea, and Cuba – less than 10% – yet with Teleno, Ooredoo, and Myanmar Post and Telecommunication set to race each other to get all Burmese a mobile phone, expect the country…
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At the November 8th Technology Salon in New York City, we looked at the role of ICTs in communication for development (C4D) initiatives with marginalized adolescent girls. Lead discussants Kerida McDonald and Katarzyna Pawelczyk discussed recent UNICEF reports related to the topic, and John Zoltner spoke about FHI360’s C4D work in practice. To begin, it…
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The Technology Salon on Why Does Information Security Matter in International Development? was a predictably raucous debate on finding a sane balance between using 30-character passwords with symbols, numbers, and mixed-case letters that must be changed every month for your time sheet systems… and taking basic security measures to protect super-private data.
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Recently Priya Jaisinghani, Teressa Trusty, and I brought together a few folks to have an informal Technology Salon around the pertinent question of how can the development community get technology to scale?
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At a recent Technology Salon on “How Can We Make Data Useful for Development,” one of the participants put forth an interesting question to the group: Could computers make better international development decisions than humans?
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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…
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In what has become an annual tradition, we’re honored to have Terry Kramer, now Regional President – Vodafone Americas, return to the Technology Salon and update us on Vodafone’s continued efforts to bring mobile technology to the developing world.