Drew Cogbill | Thesis Blog

“Cometh the hour, Cometh the technology”

The interesting thing about these three projects is that they all proved that they worked — in other words, proved there was a need and developed a track record — before receiving significant funding…. If there is a lesson to learn here then it would have to be this: Don’t let a lack of funding stop you from getting your ICT4D solution off the ground, even if it does involve “failing fast.”

The article “Recent immigrants driving advanced mobile phone use, both in Europe and in the US“  states “immigrant workers are the most advanced users of communications technology.”

(graphic from Rabia)

1. MobileActive
2. IEEE Computer
3. Mobile Communication Technology for Development
4. ICTD
5. New York Times Technology
6. Clinton Global Initiative
7. Open Source in Mobile
8. My Hearth’s In Accra
9. Good Magazine
10. Better by Design
11. Timbuktu Chronicles
12. ICTlogy
13. PICNIC
14. Ars Technica
15. Innovations
16. Web2ForDev D Group

Ken Banks is co-chairing a W3C group for mobile web for social development.  A recent Economist article, “The Meek Shall Inherit the Web“, quite articulately discusses this new group and Internet delivery via mobile phones generally.  It makes a case for the growing demand for mobile web content, covers past successes, and cautions that web access will continue to be mediated through the simple mobile phone interface for quite some time.  It also advocates the use of business to ensure effective development and sustainability.

In China, for example, over 73m people, or 29% of all internet users in the country, use mobile phones to get online.

One conclusion from the workshop was that promoting social development through the mobile web will mean engaging with businesses.

Google, HSBC, and Libety Global have invested in O3b networks.  The group plans to implement satellite wireless broadband access to the ‘other three billion’.  The scalable plan calls for partial coverage in Africa by 2010.

(Thanks Ambreen!)

My thesis question is the basis for or the umbrella under which all of my prototyping does and will exist.  The question itself, nonetheless, will continue to develop throughout my process.  The following are my recent stages of thesis question development.

I started articulating my question in the summer paper:

• “This thesis process I began this summer, and will continue through the year, investigates the overlap of poverty, personal storytelling, and accessible communication technology, to see how design solutions can improve the lives of people living in poverty by giving them ways to communicate more often and intimately.”
• This isn’t really a question, but it was my thoughts about the thesis concept.  “improving the lives of people living in poverty” is a bit ambiguous.

From the paper came the summer presentation:

• “Improving the lives of people living in poverty in technologically limited areas through innovative communication solutions”
• I think I was trying to be less verbose, but this actually seems less substantial than the first.

Brought to thesis class last week:

• “What technologies or systems can most effectively enable people living in poverty to ‘transcend space and time?’”
• And “What does it mean to deliver the internet (in developing regions/emerging markets)?”
• In class discussion, people had big problems with the word “poverty.”  Most assumed this was living under $2 a day poverty, while I was being poverty in a larger sense, even to include exclusion from normal communication technologies.  I need to be more explicit about what I mean by poverty and probably use a different word or phrase.
• “Transcend space and time” is a Jan Chipchase phrase which refers to the basic human need to communicate over long distances to people we care about.  First, I should really use my own words.  Furthermore, my classmates wondered about the basic need idea.  I need this to be more clear in my mind before using it in my thesis quesiton.

Currently:

• “How can accessible communication technology provide a richer experience and be more affordable for people with limited technological access in developing nations?”
• “What does it mean to deliver the internet to people with limited technological access in developing nations?”

“You can never tell how you sound over the phone, that evil piece of machinery, and I would stop using one, we all would, if only there weren’t these great distances we need to put between us and the people we need to talk to.”

from An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England by Brock Clarke

Top Five Critiques of Development and Humanitarianism

via Do Good Well

At the end of my summer explorations, here are my goals and motivations going into the thesis academic year:

• Create a way for people living poverty to communicate with greater ease and affordability
• Deliver ‘the internet’ in some way via voice and/or SMS
• Prototype work in Belize as this is the context I’m most familiar with
• Make a sustainable system - the best way to facilitate this seems to be by creating a for-profit or non-loss business

These are things I need to cull through before class starts (beyond my paper and presentation that are due):

• Interviews that need to be transcribed
• Finishing maps which I’ve already made notes and observations for
• A bit of prototyping
• Reading through my increasing pile of academic papers

Downloaded a bunch of papers and a book from DIRSI (Regional Dialogue on the Information Society) to read and comment on soon.  This is an important academic source for me as it focuses on information and communication technology use in Latin America and the Caribbean, the context in which I will be carrying out my work.