November 3: Report on Open Cambodia 2011

October 6, 2011

TASCHA TALK: Joe Sullivan November 3, 2011 In September 2011, members of TASCHA, Mozilla, Aspiration Technology, and the East West Management Institute convened “Open Cambodia 2011″ — an un-conference to mobilize makers/doers in Cambodia. The event brought together more than 100 open-source technologists, human rights activists, and civil society representatives to share their work and experiences….

April 28: Reflections from the Global Telecentre Forum

April 25, 2011

In this TASCHA Talk, Chris Coward and Melody Clark will reflect on their experiences at the Santiago Forum. You will hear two different perspectives. Chris attended the first two forums and has been a longtime follower of telecenters through his research. Melody comes from the library field and for her this was her first encounter with the telecenter community. The “talk” will begin with opening thoughts from Chris and Melody, to be followed by discussion.

April 21: Information society statistics and analysis

April 11, 2011

As part of our TASCHA Talk series, George Sciadas will bring us on a guided tour of information society statistics and analysis. George will describe, synoptically, the evolution of quantitative research in ICTs from the early days and the preoccupation with access through major milestones such as the digital divide, e-commerce and the ICT sector, to its present state of affairs internationally. This domain provides the common ground for multi-disciplinary research including the quest for “impacts.”

April 12: Technologies of choice? Chilean national ICT policies seen through the eyes of microentrepreneurs in rural communities

April 1, 2011

In the early 2000s, Chile was considered a leader in Latin America in terms of its comprehensive and integrated national ICT policy, the Agenda Digital. Action lines included a campaign for digital literacy, networks of telecentres, access in schools, e-government initiatives, favourable import conditions for hardware, and an appropriate regulatory framework. Dorothea will discuss her recent paper, which draws on research that combined interviews with key civil servants leading each of the action lines at the national level with five months of ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with microentrepreneurs — from one of the most economically disadvantaged parts of the country — at the local level.

March 17: AnthroDesign: Cultural practices as design guides

February 15, 2011

TASCHA Talk: Drawing on his experiences in the academy, industry, and the philanthropic sector, Mohammed traces the trajectory of AnthroDesign from the intellectual adventure of a fledgling community of industry practitioners towards a key product-cycle domain as well as its re-absorption back into the academy as an area of study.

March 3: Skill acquisition through gaming and social networking — findings from a field visit to Brazil

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 20: Public access ICT in disaster management

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.

December 1: Public access technology in Colombia — Emergent findings

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.

November 30: Applying benefit-cost analysis to social programs

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.

October 20: The Gates Foundation Global Libraries Program

October 2, 2010

TASCHA Talk: Melody Clark will discuss her experience as a graduate research assistant at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Global Libraries program. In addition to talking about her personal experience, Melody will also provide an overview of the goals and priorities of the Global Libraries program, as well as some challenges they face working in developing countries. She will also introduce some interesting questions for discussion related to public libraries and technology use in developing countries, and how these questions could offer possibilities for future research.