Latest Blog Post
|
Monday, 27 November, 2023 - 17:46
Introduction The growth in the popularity of the internet around the world, as evidenced by growing user numbers, particularly in Africa, has enabled citizens to harness its power as a tool of agency, creating new global and transnational spaces for civic participation, advocacy, and social change. Digital technologies have become crucial tools for African citizens to highlight concerns, claim rights, and demand social justice. At the centre of this digital transformation are two key and interconnected concepts: (i) digital citizenship to claim rights; and (ii) digital solidarity to act collectively to secure social change. These twin concepts highlight that citizens exercise their rights and collectively support each other in the digital realm. This post reflects on how these two concepts manifest in the African context and how they are shaping the continent’s socio-political landscape. Building on our previous conceptualization of digital... |
All Blog Posts
Should all ICT4D be Commodified? |
Alex Deng from Huawei's Corporate Sustainable Development Committee has posted a stimulating article on the Harvard Business Review site. In it he argues that to really help the global poor we must create technology that they’ll pay for. |
Join the Founding Team at UNU-CS |
If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook you will know that as soon as I finish the final (?) revisions on my PhD this September I am moving to Macau. |
UN University Computing and Society (UNU-CS) Research Fellowships |
The United Nations University is recruiting Research Fellows for its new Institute on Computing and Society - UNU-CS - in Macau. |
It's Not About the Technology Stupid! |
I'm busy reading Kentaro Toyama's new book Geek Heresy. |
Another Technology is Always Possible |
Rui Roberto Ramos provided a fascinating case study at IFIP9.4 of ICT use by Recife City Council to impose control over informal street traders. |
Is a Transformist ICT4D Possible? |
Comment about ICT4D tends to be either celebratory hype or entirely negative criticism. Both extremes tend to be based on assumptions that are uncritical about exactly what we mean by development, as well as about the relationship between ICTs on the one hand and development on the other. |
A Critical Look at Participatory Video |
As you know participatory video (also known as PV) is the process of enabling non-experts to make films about (development) issues that they prioritise. Participatory video can be a way for disadvantaged communities to appropriate technology in order to take control of the way in which they are represented and to amplify local voices on key issues of concern to them. |
Top ICT4D Conferences of 2015 |
As usual I have had a go at putting together a calendar of ICT4D conferences scheduled for the year ahead. With many conferences still to announce details it already looks like a bumper harvest with May, as ever, looking to be the busiest month. |
Talking about ICT4D: a typology |
There's an interesting discussion going on within the civic-tech community about the lack of a common language for discussing the hugely diverse ways in which citizens are using technology to foster social change. |
All ICT4D is Political |
Emily Shaw wrote a great blog this week about 'Civic Tech', which, in case you have been living in a cave for the last year, is the new lingo for the field of 'citizen technology for social change'. |
Lyon Declaration on ICT4D |
The post-MDG Lyon Declaration on Access to Information and Development [pdf] is very welcome in that it represents a clear advance over the original Millennium Development Goal on ICT4D, but in my opinion the declaration does not go far enough in giving the most disadvantag |
Keepod: a positive critique |
Last week I got a call from mobile technology expert, and BBC Technology journalist Dan Simmons asking me to comment on the new keepod, an initiative that recently raised $40,000 on the Indigogo crowd-funding platform for their programme in Mathere, Nairobi. |
