ICTworks by Inveneo

"Girls in Cyberspace: Dangers and Opportunities" (PDF) from Plan USA examines both the challenges and empowering possibilities facing girls when accessing ICTs (Information Communication Technologies). In many ways, technology has facilitated girls’ ability to do what they were already doing: connecting, learning and sharing. ICTs have also increased their opportunities to do these things and to interact beyond their immediate communities.

Although adolescent girls are not a homogeneous group, and the way they choose to interact with ICTs may vary according to their location, social-economic status, capacity for mobility and personal inclination, there are some common threads emerging from Plan’s analysis.

ICTs can have an empowering effect on girls as they go through puberty: ICTs have exposed adolescent girls to new ideas and ways of thinking that open up possibilities for learning, networking, campaigning and personal development. Overall, the skills that adolescent girls can develop through and with ICTs build their resilience, allowing them to mitigate some of the challenges posed by puberty. This gradual process is shown in the following diagram:

At the same time, ICTs can also have negative consequences as they increasingly provide strangers with access to a girl’s personal space and allow for exploitative practices that can harm girls in faster and more immediate ways than ever before. On-line patterns of behaviour are a reflection of the way that society operates off-line. This paper will examine how attitudes towards empowerment and the abuse of adolescent girls reveal themselves through technology.

I was not computer literate when I started using Internet on my mobile phone, so it was quite an eye opener. Now I want to learn everything; my uncle bought a computer two months ago, and his wife has been teaching me some basics.
– Patience, a young refugee from Zimbabwe, living in South Africa16

Based on original research undertaken in Brazil by Plan for the 2010 “Because I am a Girl” report (together with the Child Protection Partnership), this paper will outline the opportunities ICTs provide adolescent girls and analyze the potential dangers and exploitative behaviours that are facilitated through them.

To conclude, we draw out the main policy recommendations for and with adolescent girls to make cyberspace safer. Greater knowledge about ICT-related sexual exploitation and violence against girls is needed, and more emphasis on prevention and stronger international standards is critical. We call on various sectors to do more to protect girls on-line and to ensure girls have the capacity and knowledge to protect themselves and each other.

Adolescent girls must be empowered to use the Internet and other communications technologies safely, on their own terms and in ways that promote their overall development and build their future possibilities.

This post is an adaptation of the Girls in Cyberspace report executive summary

The Educational Technology Debate - an initiative of World Bank and Unesco to explore the impact of low-cost ICT devices on educational systems in the developing world is is coming to India with a live debate to be webcast around the world:

The live Educational Technology Debate will employ the classic Oxford-style debate process to engage noted experts in the field on the following motion:

The debate will be moderated by Dr Tim Kelly, Lead ICT Policy Specialist, infoDev/World Bank. He will introduce the topic and our discussants, who will respond with concise arguments, initially restricted to five minutes each, using only the power of their arguments to sway the audience. This will be followed by a discussion, initially among the panelist and then extended to the audience. To conclude, panelists will be given a further three minutes to summarise their arguments.

The goal of the panelists will be to persuade the audience to reach one of two conclusions:

1. FOR the motion: Most current investment is being wasted and needs a fundamental rethink
2. AGAINST the motion: Existing schemes are already bearing fruit and need only ongoing support

The audience will hold the last word. Participants will be invited to vote FOR, AGAINST or UNDECIDED on the motion both before and after the debate. The side that swings the most votes during the course of the debate will be declared the winner.

In the immediate aftermath of a disaster, like the earthquake in Haiti, the need to communicate is immense. From the search for loved ones, to coordination of humanitarian relief, to simple messages of "I'm alive," between family members.

In fact, Secretary Clinton mentioned the three highest proprieties for the US government efforts will be communications, electricity, and transportation.

But much of the telecom infrastructure in and around Port-au-Prince was severely damaged or destroyed by the earthquake. And the resulting information vacuum is hampering vital emergency relief operations and recovery efforts.

Into this gap, several ICT solutions are arriving:

• Ushahidi's crisis mapping is identifying places of need
• The Inventorisation Wiki and Sahana are coordinating relief efforts online
• Inveneo will be bringing Internet connectivity to local NGOs

Establishing networks like these are a cornerstone of good disaster relief, and will support additional ICT infrastructure and facilitate long-term ICT capacity building and reconstruction. Yet the task is not easy.

Just to send two staff and equipment, Inveneo worked through the weekend to prepare:

Learn more about Inveneo's response, by subscribing to their RSS, Twitter, or Facebook feeds.

Often governments have the idea that that can increase the competitiveness of their country by investing in the ICT industry as an export sector. They are enamored by the success of Silicon Valley in creating wealth and want to have their own Google Guys to brag about.

ICT for teachers

Sometimes this hope becomes hubris, but we all need to keep realistic about the impact of ICT on a country's economy. ICT is usually best and enabler of other industries, not a viable export industry in itself.

In the Technical Brief When Should the ICT Sector be a Target for Private Sector Competitiveness Work?, USAID goes into detail on why.

Mainly, countries are looking to increase employment, but the high skills required for competitive ICT development cannot be created quickly. Then, ICT as a sector is not a large employer when compared with industries like tourism or agriculture. Last but not least, technology investments can actually reduce employment at the enterprise level - firms can do more with less given the technological inputs.

But ICT can have a large catalytic effect on economic growth - they enhance productivity and innovation in other industries, making them more competitive. In fact, USAID recommends that:

Economic growth projects try to leverage this catalytic effect [of ICT] with a variety of activities that are different from activities that focus on growth of a country’s ICT sector itself. These catalytic activities should be aimed at helping to increase the chances businesses can recognize and implement ways to use ICT to boost their competitiveness and increasing access to affordable telecommunications services and devices to use them.

So rather than looking to replicate Silicon Valley, governments should use the tools of ICT to increase the efficiencies in other industries. Like ensuring Internet marketing by the tourism industry or promoting better crop management through push voice mail for farmers. Its in this use of ICT, as an enabler of other industries, that countries will see the greatest ICT impact.

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