Title: A Response to "A Dialogue on ICTs, Human Development, Growth and Poverty Reduction"
Author: Ethan Zuckerman
Source: Publius Project
Publisher: Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University
Date (published): 18/09/2009
Date (accessed): 05/10/2009
Type of information: essay
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
If we imagine Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle falling asleep in a developing nation in 1998 and awaking today, it's likely that he'd be fascinated and surprised by mobile phones. When Rip went to sleep, only a few hundred million people had access to mobile phones, and most lived in wealthy nations. A decade later, the ITU sees 4.1 billion mobile phone accounts, two-thirds of them in the developing world. The changes brought by mobile phones are both subtle and omnipresent - mobile phone numbers painted above shop doors allow merchants to untether from their stalls; carpentry ads scrawled on road signs turn a craftsman with a phone into an independent, mobile business; secure money transfers from abroad pay the village school fees that grant a child an education.

Title: Gender, ICTs, Human Development and Prosperity
Author: Nancy Spence
Source: Publius Project
Publisher: Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University
Date (published): 17/09/2009
Date (accessed): 05/10/2009
Type of information: essay
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
Plus ca change! Much has changed in the past 6 years since the first Harvard Forum. In particular, mobile phone access has jumped in every region and in most countries of the World. From research sketched in the Forum’s background paper, and research starting more from a gender lens, phone access for women, mostly mobiles, is greatest where total access is greatest – highest in Asia, next in South and Central America, and lowest in Africa. In Asian countries, mobile phone access and use is becoming universal – through market supply and demand and, particularly for the poorest of the poor, also through the provision or support activities of non-profits.

Title: Social Enterprise to Mobiles – The Curious Case of a Propped up ICTD Theory
Author: Anita Gurumurthy
Source: Publius Project
Publisher: Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University
Date (published): 17/09/2009
Date (accessed): 05/10/2009
Type of information: essay
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
Appropriating the tremendous potential of new ICTs for meeting development challenges requires a sound theoretical basis – drawing from the social theories of ICTs and connecting them to the experience and values of development thought and practice. However, the dominant ICTD discourse has, in its steadfast loyalty to techno-determinism and neo-liberalism, largely adopted an atheoretical stance. It has unabashedly glossed over empirical evidence in not interrogating the failure of the social enterprise model both in ensuring sustainability and in meeting socio-economic goals in a manner that promotes equity. Instead, in an eternal search for new narratives aligned with market interests, ICTD has now chosen to deploy a watered down empiricism to over valorise the market-led mobile telephony model without critically examining its full implications for development practice and possibilities. By reposing firm faith in 'win-win' partnerships, ICTD practice has depoliticized development, recasting notions of the 'public' and of 'inclusion' in a corporatised rhetoric of the 'user community' and the 'poor at the bottom-of-the-pyramid', respectively.

Title: A Response to "A Dialogue on ICTs, Human Development, Growth and Poverty Reduction"
Author: Hernan Galperin
Source: Publius Project
Publisher: Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University
Date (published): 21/09/2009
Date (accessed): 05/10/2009
Type of information: essay
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
In general terms, I found the paper (A Dialogue on ICTs, Human Development, Growth, and Poverty Reduction) fascinating and provocative, as it is one of the first attempts that I am aware of to link two insofar separate fields, i.e., organizational theory and ICT4D. The comments below are intended to contribute to building this new framework, which hopefully could help not only to orient grant-making but also to advance the ICT4D field in general. They start from the more theoretical to those closer to real-world issues in the ICT4D field, and stress points of weakness which I think if addressed would strengthen the new framework. I also suggest areas to which the openness concept could be extended.

Title: Communication and Human Development: The Freedom Connection?
Duration: 1:24:50
Source: YouTube
Publisher: Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University
Date (published): 28/09/2009
Date (accessed): 04/10/2009
Type of information: video
Language: English
On-line access: yes
Abstract:
Professors Michael Spence and Amartya Sen join leading ICT (Information-Communication Technology) experts Yochai Benkler and Clotilde Fonseca in a public discussion of the role of communication and ICTs in human development, growth and poverty reduction. Michael Best will moderate the discussion. What has changed, been learned, not been learned, needs to be learned, needs to be done most urgently?

This talk was organized by the International Development Research Center, and hosted by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University on September 23, 2009.

Title: A Dialogue on ICTs, Human Development, Growth, and Poverty Reduction
Authors: Randy Spence and Matthew Smith
Source: Publius Project
Publisher: Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University
Date (published): 21/09/2009
Date (accessed): 24/09/2009
Type of information: essay
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
In September 2003, IDRC organized A Dialogue on ICTs and Poverty: The Harvard Forum. The current paper has been drafted as background for a second Harvard Forum - A Dialogue on ICTs, Human Development, Growth and Poverty Reduction, September 2009. Six years later, much has changed. Trends highlighted at the Harvard Forum and elsewhere have progressed and many have accelerated. ICT regulation and policies have improved in many countries, often in response to good research and advocacy. There has been explosive growth in mobile phone access and use in all regions, with both private and non-profit operations servicing the ‘bottom of the pyramid’ (BoP) with very low-margin, high-volume business models.

Title: LAN Houses: A new wave of digital inclusion in Brazil
Authors: Ronaldo Lemos and Paula Martini
Source: Publius Project
Publisher: Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University
Date (published): 21/09/2009
Date (accessed): 24/09/2009
Type of information: essay
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
The majority of Brazilians who access the Internet today do so through lan-houses. LAN stands for “Local Area Network”, i.e, computers assembled together to allow people to play multi-player games. Popular in Asia, in places like Korea, and previously existing only in the rich neighborhoods of Brazil, they have now become a phenomenon proliferating in poor communities, especially the favelas.