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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.
Original Submission
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday June 03 2015, @02:45AM
Consider that Apple specifically requested developers stop submitting "Fart Apps" to the App Store.
I expect that predominant among the many reasons I can't find paying work, is that I quite commonly and publicly make plainly apparent that I have come to regard software as largely useless if not downright immoral.
There _is_ quite a lot that high-tech can do to ease suffering, but it's quite common that people in the industrialized world do not understand the real needs of those in the developing world.
A while back I had a long facebook message chat with a west african who was hanging out in a cybercafe. It's easy and affordable for him to get online. He was interested in learning to code however what he did not have was any place to store his files. What a guy like him could really use, that would actually make a substantial difference, would be one single USB stick and a couple O'Reilly books.
Tainted water is quite a seriously life-threatening problem throughout much of the world. Now look at how water treatment is commonly done in the US as well as most industrialized countries - a tertiary wastewater treatment plant costs tens of millions of dollars. Even if they had the money, people out in the middle of the jungle would not have the materials or tools.
Many years ago my father pointed out a simple solution to water treatment: three large ponds connected by narrow channels. Sewage is dumped into one side of the first pond, which is surrounded by a tall fence. One can drink out of the third pond. I don't clearly remember what the second pond is like. Such a simple water treatment pond system is just south of Templeton, California. That's the only one I know about in the US.
I expect this system is not commonly used in the US because of the expense of the land. However much of the world is quite sparsely populated; the cost of land if miniscule if not actually zero.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2015, @03:11AM
I don't clearly remember what the second pond is like
Constructed wetland [wikipedia.org]
Links there to "stabilization ponds" and "treatment ponds".
-- gewg_
(Score: 3, Insightful) by pnkwarhall on Wednesday June 03 2015, @10:28PM
I quite commonly and publicly make plainly apparent that I have come to regard software as largely useless if not downright immoral.
I have a CS degree, and have worked in several Internet-related roles (hosting and marketing). I, by choice, no longer work in a so-called "technology"-related field, for reasons that are well summed-up in your statement. The **only** true value I have found in computer- and Internet-related technology is the ease of communication--and even that has been widely corrupted to the detriment of the common man.
I am not a Luddite, but the direction that technological "progress" has taken over the last few hundred years, IMO, has not been of benefit to most of humanity. The fact that this article/man's conclusion is even newsworthy is a sad testament to our current attitude towards computer technology.
Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
(Score: 3, Insightful) by pnkwarhall on Wednesday June 03 2015, @10:32PM
Also, thank you MichaelDavidCrawford for your reference of the water treatment solution. It's a great example of **technology** that doesn't require computers, expensive natural resources, or destruction of the environment.
Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven