The use of information technology to transform impoverished communities in developing countries has inspired philanthropic projects around the world, now collectively referred by the ungainly appellation ICT4D (Information and Communication Technologies for Development). A former Microsoft researcher who spent years trying to implement dozens of what he now calls "geek intervention" projects in Bangalore, India, as founder and head of a research lab there, cautions that making these projects work is a lot harder than its backers think. Kentaro Toyama has just published the book Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology recounting his experiences, and gave a remarkably pithy interview to MIT Technology Review discussing his findings. On developing world medical clinics:
If you go to a typical rural clinic, it's not the kind of place that anybody from the United States would think of as a decent place to get health care. Bringing along a laptop, connecting it to wireless, and providing Internet so you can do telemedicine is just an incredibly thin cover. It's a thin, superficial change.
The interviewer mentioned One Laptop Per Child, a former flagship of Internet-era IT philanthropy that appears to be winding down. Statistical studies showed no measurable differences in academic achievement between those given laptops relative to the control group, says Toyama. But what about the intangible side; the delight and fascination social workers see in the faces of kids in developing countries when technological gadgets are put into their hands?
Toyama:
The reality is, that joy is the same joy that you see when you peek over the shoulder of a kid who has a smartphone in their hands in the developed world, which is to say they're overjoyed because they're playing Angry Birds.
Did his lab have any successes? Yes, Toyama provides an example of a program that delivered video training to villagers on improved agricultural practices, presented by peers. But the success of that program depended on human facilitators who made sure the villagers discussed the program and asked questions; otherwise the exercise would have been "just like watching TV", which Toyama says is not effective in changing farmers' habits.
Another Toyama interview that appeared in the Seattle Times broaches the sensitive subject of Toyama's opinion of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the heavyweight in the ICT4D field. Of course, Gates was Toyama's big boss at Microsoft.
Toyama, now an associate professor at the University of Michigan's School of Information, maintains a blog on ICT4D.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Tuesday June 02 2015, @11:32PM
It still didn't translate to any improved learning. Or are you against learning as well?
Statistical studies showed no measurable differences in academic achievement between those given laptops relative to the control group, says Toyama.
One of the most influential gifts I got as a kid (50s and 60s) was a monthly subscription to a hard cover science book. Each issue on a different topic, dinosaurs, then microorganisms, how to build a water drop microscope, rockets, ants, trains, mines. They were dog eared within a week, I'd wait under the mailbox for the mailman, I'd sit right down and read it cover to cover, go in the house and read it again, then I'd read it to my dad. Best Present Ever.
That set of books were the internet of my youth. I took them fishing FCS.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.