February 1, 2011
Immigrant women are critical development actors. They know best. They apply their own individual and community assets to improve their lives. NGOs that provide computer training and other services further enable them to bring these capacities to bear. Donors and policymakers assist by supporting projects that leverage the local initiative, creativity, and improvisation of immigrants and NGOs.
January 24, 2011
TASCHA Talk: Skill acquisition through gaming and social networking — findings from a field visit to Brazil. Judith Yaaqoubi, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering, will discuss initial and revised instrument development for an investigation on if and how people acquire skills through non-instrumental uses of public access computers.
January 18, 2011
Maybe the speed of the blogosphere makes people tell stories with underdeveloped angles. Or maybe, the “underdeveloped angle” provides a glimpse into the assumptions (correct or incorrect) that structure our thinking. It’s not misdirection, it’s revelatory. An example is this Atlantic piece, which asks “Why Isn’t the Internet Helping the Unemployed?” The premise is that the Internet…
January 15, 2011
TASCHA Talk: Maria Garrido and Beth Patin will discuss the role of telecenters and libraries in the context of crisis informatics, an emerging field of inquiry. Crisis informatics reframes the role of public access to ICT in emergency response as a socially distributed information system that leverages citizen-to-citizen communication in the lifecycle of a disaster. Public access to computers and internet, particularly telecenters and libraries, can play an important role in preventing and responding to disasters or emergency situations.
January 12, 2011
TASCHA was awarded a cooperative agreement by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to develop a framework for digitally inclusive communities. In partnership with the International City/County Management Association (ICMA), the project will deliver a proposed framework that will identify the principles, elements, and characteristics of organizations and communities that foster digital inclusion.
December 23, 2010
It is becoming clear through recent research that public access ICT venues can play an important role in various crisis situations. As a contribution to the growing field of crisis informatics, we are pleased to announce our partnership with a related research study, The Role of Public Internet Access Venues in Disaster Management and Prevention: The Case of the 2010 Earthquake in Chile. Exploring the experiences of public access ICT venues in Chile after the 2010 earthquake, this study aims to identify findings that could help in other settings. Exploring the experiences of public access ICT venues in Chile after the 2010 earthquake, this study aims to identify findings that could help in other settings.
December 21, 2010
The Harvard Forum II gathered Nobel laureates and eminent technologists, economists, and communications researchers and practitioners from across the globe at Harvard University in September 2009. Sponsored by Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and hosted by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, the conference offered an opportunity to reassess ICT4D in the years since the first Harvard Forum in 2003, while focusing on a forward-looking discussion of ICTs, human development, growth, and poverty reduction.
December 20, 2010
The Global Impact Study is pleased to announce that we have added Ghana as the fifth country to the user, venue, and non-user surveys and the sixth country for inventory data collection. The country research team will be led by Godfred Frempong of the Science and Technology Policy Research Institute (STEPRI). The surveys and inventory activities in Ghana over the next year will expand the geographical representation of the Global Impact Study by including a country in Africa.
December 2, 2010
TASCHA Talk: Building on the results of the Landscape of Public Access Technology in Developing Countries — which examined 25 countries — Ricardo Gomez (Assistant Professor, iSchool) and Fernando Baron (Ph.D. student, iSchool) did an in-depth study in a single country: Colombia. Using a refined research methodology, they validated trends from the Landscape study (ie., types of users and main uses of public access computing, role of infomediaries, and issues of trust, fees, and education. Gomez and Baron will also explore new topics — ICTs and violence, the relationship between mobile phones and community radio, and users perceptions of impact.
TASCHA Talk: Tyler Davis (Ph.D. candidate, Evans School of Public Affairs) will provide an overview of some some of the work he has done to apply benefit-cost analysis principles and standards to social programs. The talk will begin with an outline of the benefit-cost analysis approach, with an example from the Army Corps of Engineers, the institution that developed these standards in the United States. Next, Tyler will discuss how benefit-cost analysis has been used in other fields, including social programs.
