Clint, you start to look like David Attenborough’s brother.

That… is rad. I’ll announce your course to my Social Entrepreneurship class today at BYU and spread the word of this great opportunity!

Hi Clint,

I am looking forward to the course. Whitin ICT4D is where my main academic interests lay and knowing you I am sure it will be a great course. I believe ICT holds a lot of potential for development but yet it seems like the gap of the digital divide rather widens than decreases at least in Tanzania where I spend a lot of my time. At the moment I am thinking of the role of ownership in ICT4D and believe it to be a key as technology and applications often appear very foreign.

Hi every one!

I am PhD student at the Department of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm University; I am assistant lecturer at Eduardo Mondlane University Mozambique.

I am so happy to join you in this course, and I am interested in ICT4D. My country, Mozambique is developing country and I believe that ICT is a tool that can be used to fight poverty and as a tool to break the gap between the city and rural areas of the country.

My interest is related to elearning specifically how can we introduce elearning to give education opportunities for people living in different places across the country, and to learn how we can use ICT for another services like government, health, tourism agriculture, etc. I hope to learn with other participants within different perspectives and culture.

Hi everyone I am Ashes Timsina currently I am Masters student in the Joensuu University Finland. I am from Nepal and I have completed my graduation as computer science student from Purwanchal University in my country. I had this opportunity to study different subjects related to computer science during my graduation aka BCA(Bachelor in Computer Application). But I never had the opportunity of taking courses related to ICT. I first had opportunity to take part in seminar related to ICT4D during my initial days in University and I have been attracted by this field since then.My interest to this course is to gain knowledge on what are the tools and techniques being developed in this field and how can we implement this in developing countries like ours(Nepal).Also i want to get insight of what are the prominent problem in this field and develop some concept to find solution to such problem.Also to get the way of implementing such techniques in the challenging conditions of the country which are in the transition phase (from under developed to developing).
I am looking forward for the course to get started with great anxiety.

Best of lucks with the course!!!

(next time tape the intro indoors: all that snow and clothes scare me to the bones 😀 )

Hello All! I’m SaraJoy, from Colorado, USA. I’m studying Instructional Psychology and Technology at Brigham Young University.
ICT has opened up a whole new world of possibilities for engaging more of the world in improving the world 🙂 I am interested in looking deeper into the successes and failures, the potential and limitations of instructional and communications technology applied to systems from micro-franchising to self-sustaining schools, to disease control to family planning…
Fun stuff!

Tim Unwin’s book is available at Amazon as well. Useful if you cannot get it straight from Oxford Press:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/052171236X?ie=UTF8&tag=youcanalwaych-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=052171236X

(small percentage of the book price will go to fund edtech students at Joensuu if book bought throught that link, use at your own will!)

Here is also a blog that includes updates from the ICT4D book. The editor, Tim Unwin offered it as a way for any of us reading the book to communicate with him and offer our thoughts.
http://unwin.wordpress.com/2009/02/16/ict4d-additions-to-the-book/

I’m a PhD student at DSV, Stockholm University (www.dsv.su.se/en/), but currently based in Kampala, Uganda. My PhD is on ICT and good governance (focusing on how ICT, including mobiles, can be used in anti-corruption work and strategies). I also run a consultancy company called UPGRAID (www.upgraid.com) and lately I’ve been working on a Sida (http://sida.se/) consultancy on the use and possibilities of mobile applications in East Africa. The final report should be ready just before this course starts…

The reason why I want to conduct this course is simply that I want to learn more. There are great opportunities in using ICT in and for development but ICT4D consists of two complex elements and integrating the two is in itself even more intricate.

Has anybody got hold of Tim’s book? It is not available in any store at the moment…

Hi All

I’m Lenandlar Singh(Len) from the Department of Computer Science, University of Guyana, Guyana, South America(sorry if i went into too much details, when we say Guyana, ppl who don;t know says ‘ah Ghana’, then we have to say no, Guyana, arrrr….Guy…ana)

Reasons for wanting to be on this course are many and diverse. However, i’m about to commence a PhD program (fingers crossed that all things work out)where i hope to pursue research in ICT4D.Particularly i hope to investigate the digital divide and models for measuring and reducing same.

I believe the course will provide me a great opportunity to explore and gain the much needed groundings in the area of ICT4D.

Regards.

Len

Hi Jussi

I like the title of your PhD dissertation. Would it be possible to say share some of this?if you can, then i;d be most happy to have an insight into your work.

lenandlar.singhgmail.com

Thanks.

Len

My country -Iran- is a developing country with good social capital but…
I am interested of this course because I want to expand my knowledge and skills about ICT4D. ICT4D in Iran is my major obsession.

I have BS degree in Computer Engineering.
This course is a great opportunity for me to contribute, communicate and participate on ICT4D.
I am so happy to join you in this course.

Hi fellow students.

I am participating this course after an extended period of non development oriented work in the ICT sector. As a M.Sc. in International Agricultural Develpoment I devised and implemented from 1988 to 1998 database driven management information systems for project cycle management (monitoring & evaluation). This eventually led my activities away from development cooperation (technical assistance). Now I am fully back into my initial area of competence, and I am trying to acquire as much as possible knowledge relating to ICT4D.

Glad to be here and looking forward to a lively learning experience and exchange of thoughts with all of you.

Cheers,
Frank Kiel

Hi all,

It is a pleasure to communicate to you all . I come from the Pearl of Africa but to be more specific Uganda. I believe that in this new era where the world has gone wireless,every one should embrace ICT as being the center of Development. However, it is unfortunate that not many people especially in this side of the world have come up to push for ICT as a priority for Development. I hold a Bachelors Degree in Adult and Community Education of Makerere University.My conviction is that meaningful development today should embrace ICT as a central Player.
It is in this regard that I wish to join the ICT4D course, seeing it as a great opportunity to instil and bring to light the Major role that ICT plays or can play in the Development of economies especially Africa.
Don’t look back…

Side note:

I’ve recently been on a project formulation mission for a Central Asian Ministry, i.e., in a rather developed country (however, historically a Russian ‘backwater’). While their Universities are building web based facilities (and soon e-learning) around an extremely poor backbone connectivity, that Ministry is very reluctant to enabling universal internet access … while every single household is equipped with at least one satellite dish.

Ergo: People are most hungry for information and education, but more than 10 years after the advent of the internet, web based ICT4D is still a very long way to go!

Hi Frank,

Do you have more information about the Simputer and the use of it for the farmers. We had an early version of the Simputer in Joensuu and did some experiments with it in Tanzania. We found it quite useless as price was not low and commercial PDAs had better screens and more functions. One thing I remembered was good was the text-to-speach function. However I guess the newer models have been improved but it is still a surprice to hear that the Simputers are found to be useful by the farmers. The Simputer of today would in my opinion be the OLPC which is a bit more interesting and think they both meant a lot in triggering the more established companies to come up with cheaper computers especially targeting developing countries.

Hello everyone,

My name is Thai Bui, I come from Vietnam. Currently, I am PhD. student at IMPDET, Computer Science and Statistics Department, Joensuu University and I am working at Technical unit of Kemi-Tornio University of Applied Sciences.

In Vietnam, ICT is considered as an important factor in developing, especially in education. The Vietnamese government is investing strongly both infrastructure (e.g. bandwidth of the Internet, wireless communication) and human competence for ICT and they believe that ICT will help the society to be developed faster and more stable. However, as other developing countries the government has faced with many problems in deployment and management in ICT (e.g. e-government, e-learning…). And currently they are fighting with the problems and trying to find the best solutions to utilize the ICT for development.

Therefore, this course is interesting me very much and I hope that I can find many interesting things from here. I would like to know how is ICT is used and deployed in developed countries and also I want to know experiences from developing countries.
I am looking forward to working with all of you who come from many places on the world.

Cheers,
Thai

Hello Everyone

My name is Monika and I’m a master student at University of Joensuu.

I am originally from Poland. I moved to Finland over 6 years ago. I’ve also lived in Russia and South Korea for a while. I’ve been to a few developing countires in South East Asia.

I’m interested in taking this class because I’m intrested in helping people that really need help. I’d like to find out how with my IT skills I can help others. I guess I’m interested in seeing a different perspective to IT and new opportunities. I’d like to spend some time next year in some developing country.

I managed to order the book yesterday via the link that Andres gave.

I’m looking forward to next week and first lecture!

Hi all!

I’m a sociology student in Turku, Finland, with interests in urban studies and development studies. I have also studied Computer Science, and work on making web portals.

I’m honored to be able to participate in this course with you all in here, and look forward to getting to know more about all! Like kasinavrao and Wakabi and others above I look forward to the interaction and getting to know the debates and practices. Some interests/questions:

A case can be made that rich countries haven’t been good at managing technological development in terms of its impact on society so far, or – of course – the depletion of natural resources. If one looks closer at the issue of ICT4D it seems that one gets to confront this issue of what the “proper” usage and management of technology is.

ICT4D is two complex matters, as described by Johan above – and then there’s the “4”, as Tim Unwin writes in the first chapter of the course book. ICT for what development, and how does one get there? Development (like ICT) is definitely a matter of economic aspects and of power. But I think it also needs to make reference to a decent life – it can’t be only a technical definition.

As pointed out by Andrès above in reference to Easterly’s work, there is no neutral development, and any path taken will clearly to some extent benefit some and harm someone else more or less. If we can be explicit about our values and experiences throughout this course I think much can be gained.

Easterly is correct to a high degree about that development hasn’t “worked” (and maybe often also about “The Rich Have Markets, the Poor Have Bureaucrats”?). Maybe, the closer one gets to the actual needs in the intersections between all different interests in specific cases, and understanding how the formulation of these needs comes about (“who decides what the poor need?”), the more we will understand of all the related issues in the contexts we encounter. I hope and believe that we can get a bit closer to that here.

And then, how does one go about to organize and implement an ICT4D strategy so that it actually works, once we have an idea about what to do? I look forward to all of this!

Hello there,

I am an architect and urban development planner, having recently finished my MSc in Development Planning from University College London as a Commonwealth Scholar. I am originally from India, and I am back in India currently, teaching part-time at two national universities of Architecture and Planning.

I am very interested in this course as it gives me a unique opportunity to learn about technology appropriated for Development. I am personally a man of varied interests and I love to experiment with technology and different streams of learning. Eventually, I wish to be able to use my experiences and knowledge for the betterment of all.

best wishes from the sunny and warm India. May the spring blossoms bring colors and fragrance in all our lives.

Allah’u’Abha

Raj

And Yuliya Shiyan =)

I am a senior researcher in the Emerging Innovations at the Meraka Institute. Currently one of my projects called MobilED [Mobile learning] Project. We at Meraka we believe that with over 100% mobile phone penetration in South Africa that mobile phones are an African computer. This is based on the fact that majority of South African public do not have access to computers and related technologies [with only about 10%] but have access to the mobile telephony.
The problems of access to and skills in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) are some of the major contributing factors to economic and social inequality in South Africa, which has one of the greatest divides between rich and poor in the world. This divide is most evident in the ICT arena. While the government has made huge improvements in providing computers and Internet access to schools, this access is still insufficient for the poor majority who are mainly black. The manifestation of these problems is seen in the imbalanced socio-economy and quality of education, leading to high failure rate among others.

My belief is that most of the problems which South Africa is faced with could be solved through the wise usage of ICTs, in particular the mobile phone which the majority of the people do have access to. I also believe that the amounts of money spend in acquiring new computers are not in vain but because access to these is not that easy there is, therefore, a need to leverage mobile phone as the most ubiquitous tool available.
My research interests are therefore, generally in ICT for education and development in general. This entails how people can use mobile to access information on health, education, business etc. in order to enhance themselves and to participate in their economic development. For those who are able to use the computer and have access to it there is plenty of information they can access from the internet but for the majority of South Africans who do not their options for access to information are limited.

Therefore, I intend to learn about usage of mobile technologies in addressing the social, cultural and development issues. This will help me in my R&D job when I come back as I shall be able to develop packages and software which can assist the poor majority of South Africans who do not, under normal circumstances, have access to information but do have mobile phones. The knowledge acquired shall be used in our attempt to bridge the digital divide while increasing the number of citizens in the information society.

hi clint,

i’ve been looking forward for this course, with your work and experience in the field of ICT4D, i have no doubt that this would be an interesting and productive course.

coming from a developing country (maldives) i’m sure there will be a lot to relate to the issues and challenges for the developing countries and how ICT maybe utilized.

cheers.

Hello,

The content of the course appeals to me as a student coming from a developing country. I am originally from Rwanda and have been living in Namibia for more than 10 years.

I am an IMPIT student and through this time i have come to know Clint and his works. Thus i look forward to the course and learning from everyone.

I am a CBU master degree student in Information and Communicationat Technology in Kuopio University. I am from Nigeria. I think the knowledge I will acquire from this course will help me in future ICT project.