September 25, 2009
Over the past 1.5 days I had the privilege of attending Harvard Forum II: ICTs, Human Development, Growth and Poverty Reduction. Convened six years after the first event, HF2 was convened to allow the (mostly) same 20 participants to reflect on what has changed since 2003 and what they believe are the most important trends […]
September 23, 2009
The Non-instrumental Use of ICT as a Component of General ICT Skill Acquisition Study will explore the benefits library and telecenter users gain from playing computer games, sending email, and chatting. These types of uses — known as “non-instrumental” — are often ignored in studies on public access to ICT. But we suspect that they can help people develop the comfort, skills, and expertise they need to improve their social and economic situations, particularly in the areas of employment and education.
Sharing a computer in a telecenter, cybercafé, or library is the only option for some people — often because they lack the income, skills, or infrastructure at home. But sometimes people prefer sharing computers in public-access venues. The Collaborative Knowledge Sharing Study examines the reasons why. Researchers will visit a dozen public access venues in Ghana — large and small, rural and urban, upscale and relatively modest — to identify when sharing enhances or diminishes a user’s experience as compared to individual or private use.
What is the role of a librarian, cybercafé manager, or telecenter employee? How do people working in public-access venues such as these act as infomediaries — influencing which services people learn, use, and value? The Infomediaries: Brokers of Public Access Study will examine how infomediaries bring people and ICT together, both as service providers (offering advice, training, and content) and mediators (empowering individuals for whom services would otherwise appear unfathomable).
September 4, 2009
Last week the Gates Foundation awarded the 2009 Access to Learning Award to the Fundación Empresas Públicas de Medellín (EPM Foundation) for its network of public libraries in the Medellin district of Colombia. By sheer coincidence – since this award is a closely guarded secret – a team of CIS researchers was in Colombia at […]
August 18, 2009
The Global Impact Study has wrapped up its first phase, which included a year of exploratory fieldwork in three pilot countries — Bangladesh, Chile, and Lithuania. Country Research Teams collected data on several public access venues, looking at user groups and activities, venue characteristics, and the roles venues play in each community. This data provides a snapshot of regional information ecologies — community networks of trusted information sources — and will be used to refine our research design.
July 31, 2009
“We do so much but no one knows about it. We have to do a better job of telling our story.” I’ve heard this again and again. So, why’s it so hard? I’ve come to suspect that part of it has to do with the structure of communications within organizations. The centralized structure is a problem. We need to figure out how to make a distributed model work.
July 21, 2009
On July 24, 2009, Michele Frix, one of our Technology & Disability researchers, will be speaking at the Technology & Disability Forum in Quito, Ecuador.
Tim Hwang looks like a super cool guy. And he’s not just cool because Joi Ito took his portrait. Nope. Most important? He founded ROFLCon, the internet celebrity conference. Or maybe it’s his work at Harvard. Or maybe this awesome talk on video games and citizen engagement. Hmmmm, hard to decide!
July 17, 2009
Identica’s commitment to open standards is hot. And all good technology shares this characteristic: People can figure out how to make it work for them. It’s hackable. Just look at Twyka in Kenya and Naijapulse in Nigeria. And as for me? Tonight I discovered a group that shares recipes in 140 characters or less. Bliss.
