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One of the peculiarities of conceptualizations in the age and context of the Internet is the continuing desire to retain the traditional categories of the pre-Internet age. We talk of rural development and urban environments, of the "local" as feature of spatial connection and the "global" as the field in which large processes and interconnections take place.
July 21, 2012
As per the just published World Bank 2012 Information and Communications for Development: Maximizing Mobile the world of ICT4Development (ICT4D) has been undergoing some truly profound changes and including in rural Sub-Saharan Africa. Those changes are being precipitated by the remarkable development of almost ubiquitous mobile telephone access into even the most remote of rural areas, the development of low cost mobile phones, and the dramatic lowering of communications costs through widespread deregulation and the related competition between mobile carriers
May 15, 2011
The interest in Telecentres has ebbed and flowed within the broad technology stream. In Developed countries the various programs which supported the development of telecentres (called by various names in different jurisdictions) have been in considerable retreat in recent years as the initial need for access to low cost Internet access and computers has been to a very considerable extent overtaken by commercial Internet service providers and the continuing reduction in the cost of computer hardware and the availability of low cost or free software.
March 11, 2011
As both an academic (and research) discipline and a community (and policy) practice, Community Informatics links a variety of communities and many with a widely varying degree of resources and opportunities.
December 1, 2010
Certainly it is very hard to fault (or even disagree) with any of the above except that this definition and the following paper seem to not understand that lack of access in most developmental contexts isn’t simply a failure of reasonable people to understand that they should proceed in an “open” rather than a “closed/restrictive” fashion. The lack of access in many if not most cases serves the interests of some quite well including many who gain considerable advantage from lack of transparency, restrictions on use of government data, the use of security designations in inappropriate contexts. In these instances a lack of access is most frequently a function of a lack of power in a particular social and economic context and that articulating the good feelings attendant on an “openness” strategy are as unlikely to change those restrictions as were the thinking of good thoughts sufficient to stop the flow of oil from the BP Gulf catastrophe.
September 3, 2012
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