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Kentaro Toyama in CSE 403
by Nicola Dell 19 Oct '11

19 Oct '11

Hi everyone ROOM CHANGE FINAL REMINDER! Kentaro will be giving a talk at the Change seminar tomorrow in CSE 403 (not the usual room 203). Details below. Thanks Nicki ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Nicola Dell <nixdell(a)cs.washington.edu> Date: Mon, Oct 17, 2011 at 1:54 PM Subject: Kentaro Toyama: Reflections on the 10 Myths of ICT for Development in CSE 403 To: change(a)change.washington.edu *Please note the room change for this Thursdays talk. We will meet in the Allen Center CSE 403 instead of 203. * This Thursday at Change we will be hosting a talk by Kentaro Toyama ( www.kentarotoyama.org) Kentaro is a visiting researcher in the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley. For nearly two years, Kentaro has been giving versions of a talk titled “10 Myths of Information and Communication Technologies for Development” (available as slides<http://www.kentarotoyama.org/talks/2010%2006%2023%20Ten%20Myths%20of%20ICT4…> , video <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_mTwm5m8DM>, blog posts<http://ict4djester.org/blog/?cat=4> , magazine article <http://www.bostonreview.net/BR35.6/ndf_technology.php>, or research paper <http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1940772>). The core claim is that technology’s impact is multiplicative, not additive, with respect to human intent and capacity. Responses have ranged from “The way Kentaro [presents] it, we should conclude that nobody can do anything” to “I was convinced, even as my assumptions were being turned around 180 degrees.” All of the feedback has been extremely helpful, and in this talk Kentaro will discuss how it has deepened his own understanding of the topic, sharpened the exposition, uncovered additional myths, and pushed him towards more constructive recommendations. Kentaro is currently working on a book arguing that increasing human wisdom should be the primary focus of international development activities. Until 2009, Kentaro was assistant managing director of Microsoft Research India, which he co-founded in 2005. At MSR India, he started the Technology for Emerging Markets research group, which conducts interdisciplinary research to understand how the world's poorest communities interact with electronic technology and to invent new ways for technology to support their socio-economic development. Prior to his time in India, Kentaro did computer vision research at Microsoft Research in Redmond, WA and taught mathematics at Ashesi University in Accra, Ghana. Kentaro graduated from Yale with a PhD in Computer Science and from Harvard with a bachelors degree in Physics. Please join us for sandwiches, and to hear Kentaro's reflections on the 10 Myths of ICT for Development. *What:* Kentaro Toyama: Reflections on the 10 Myths of ICT for Development *When:* Thursday, Oct 20th at noon *Where:* Paul Allen Center, *Room* *403*

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TASCHA Talk -- TOMORROW -- Development and implementation of the Global Impact Study surveys
by Karen Hirst 19 Oct '11

19 Oct '11

Please note: The talk will begin 15 minutes later than originally announced. TASCHA TALK: Araba Sey and Chris Rothschild October 20, 2011, from 3:45 to 4:45 pm Roosevelt Commons Building, 4311 11th Ave NE Fourth floor multi-purpose room The Global Impact Study surveys were designed to collect comparable data on uses and outcomes of public access ICT use in five countries on three continents. This TASCHA Talk will reflect on a range of research design and project management issues encountered during various stages of the survey project. About the presenters Araba is the research lead for TASCHA's Global Impact Study. She is interested in the social and economic implications of information and communication technologies in developing countries. Araba holds a PhD in Communication. Chris is a Research Analyst working on the Global Impact Study. His research focus is on the impact of information access users and non-users of technology venues. Chris holds Master's degrees in Public Administration and International Studies. TASCHA Talks are bi-weekly sessions to share, discuss, and advance new ideas around topics related to technology and social change. Learn more at tascha.uw.edu/taschatalks<http://tascha.uw.edu/what-we-do/tascha-talks/>.

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Fwd: [ICTD2012] ICTD 2012 Call for Participation
by Yaw Anokwa 19 Oct '11

19 Oct '11

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: ICTD 2012 Info <info(a)ictd2012.org> Date: Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 16:48 Subject: [ICTD2012] ICTD 2012 Call for Participation To: ictd-announce(a)lists.ictd2012.org ** * * *CALL FOR PARTICIPATION * *ICTD2012* *Fifth International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development* *12 – 15 March 2012* *Georgia Institute of Technology* *Atlanta, GA USA* * * *In Co-operation with ACM SIGCHI and ACM SIGCAS* **** We invite you to participate in the Fifth International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development (ICTD2012), hosted at the Georgia Institute of Technology, March 12-15, 2012, Atlanta, Georgia USA. ICTD2012 is held in cooperation with ACM SIGCHI and ACM SIGCAS. Conference website: http://www.ictd2012.org. *Please register at **http://www.ictd2012.org/registration*<http://www.ictd2012.org/registration> ** *Early bird registration (by 14 Dec 2011): $375 Full registration: $450* Registration fee includes admission to all conference tracks, coffee/tea breaks, lunch, electronic proceedings, and selected social activities. ICTD is the world's premier conference examining the role of computers and communications in social, economic and political development. The conference will attract over 500 leading scholars and practitioners working at the intersections of information technologies and global development. ICTD 2012 will consist of two days of single-track peer-reviewed papers, two days of open sessions (interactive workshops, panels, and more), and a series of keynote speakers, demonstrations, and beyond. Atlanta is a world-class city with a rich and passionate history. Spring comes early to Atlanta; March is likely to be sunny, crisp, and pleasant. The conference venue is the Georgia Tech Hotel and Conference Center. Georgia Tech is one of the top research universities in the United States, distinguished by its commitment to improving the human condition through advanced science and technology. Located in Technology Square and Midtown, Atlanta’s exciting retail and business neighborhood, the conference hotel is on the Georgia Tech campus and minutes from a multitude of restaurants, shops, and attractions. *Conference Venue* Georgia Tech Hotel & Conference Center at Technology Square 800 Spring Street Northwest Atlanta, GA 30308-1015 USA Phone: +1 404-347-9440 Fax: +1 404-347-9088 Email: sales(a)gatechhotel.com *Contact Us* General Information info(a)ictd2012.org Conference Chairs chairs@ictd2012.org** ***Please note that we have attached a PDF file of the Call for Participation. We invite you to print and post it in your institution or place of business.*** _______________________________________________ This is the ICTD2012 announcements mailing list at ictd-announce(a)lists.ictd2012.org To unsubscribe go to https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/ictd-announce or send email to ictd-announce-leave(a)lists.ictd2012.org Visit us on the web at http://ictd2012.org

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Kentaro Toyama: Reflections on the 10 Myths of ICT for Development in CSE 403
by Nicola Dell 17 Oct '11

17 Oct '11

*Please note the room change for this Thursdays talk. We will meet in the Allen Center CSE 403 instead of 203. * This Thursday at Change we will be hosting a talk by Kentaro Toyama ( www.kentarotoyama.org) Kentaro is a visiting researcher in the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley. For nearly two years, Kentaro has been giving versions of a talk titled “10 Myths of Information and Communication Technologies for Development” (available as slides<http://www.kentarotoyama.org/talks/2010%2006%2023%20Ten%20Myths%20of%20ICT4…> , video <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_mTwm5m8DM>, blog posts<http://ict4djester.org/blog/?cat=4> , magazine article <http://www.bostonreview.net/BR35.6/ndf_technology.php>, or research paper <http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1940772>). The core claim is that technology’s impact is multiplicative, not additive, with respect to human intent and capacity. Responses have ranged from “The way Kentaro [presents] it, we should conclude that nobody can do anything” to “I was convinced, even as my assumptions were being turned around 180 degrees.” All of the feedback has been extremely helpful, and in this talk Kentaro will discuss how it has deepened his own understanding of the topic, sharpened the exposition, uncovered additional myths, and pushed him towards more constructive recommendations. Kentaro is currently working on a book arguing that increasing human wisdom should be the primary focus of international development activities. Until 2009, Kentaro was assistant managing director of Microsoft Research India, which he co-founded in 2005. At MSR India, he started the Technology for Emerging Markets research group, which conducts interdisciplinary research to understand how the world's poorest communities interact with electronic technology and to invent new ways for technology to support their socio-economic development. Prior to his time in India, Kentaro did computer vision research at Microsoft Research in Redmond, WA and taught mathematics at Ashesi University in Accra, Ghana. Kentaro graduated from Yale with a PhD in Computer Science and from Harvard with a bachelors degree in Physics. Please join us for sandwiches, and to hear Kentaro's reflections on the 10 Myths of ICT for Development. *What:* Kentaro Toyama: Reflections on the 10 Myths of ICT for Development *When:* Thursday, Oct 20th at noon *Where:* Paul Allen Center, *Room* *403*

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Samasource is hiring software engineers (remote locations OK)
by Rosalyn Mahashin 16 Oct '11

16 Oct '11

Samasource is looking for enthusiastic, idealist engineers who want to write code that meaningfully impacts the human condition. Ideal candidates will want to leverage their problem solving and creative talent to hack real-world social systems. They see the fundamental application of technology as human empowerment. If you are an engineer with a passion for building brilliant solutions that address tangible problems, we need your help to re-imagine work. Link: http://samasource.theresumator.com/apply/yVLsQD/Software-Engineer-Generalis… The Company: Samasource is a social enterprise that connects people living in poverty to work via the Internet. We are a small, dynamic team committed to changing the world with an innovative business model. To get a quick overview of what we do, watch this 50 second video on YouTube of two of our workers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96bSBNRCSoQ. Then watch the suggested videos on the right, and if that's not enough, watch the 9 minute TEDx talk our founder gave: http://vimeo.com/9305118. The Code: We're building a global distributed microwork platform customized to our unique ecosystem. This is a big space with lots of unsolved technical problems, here are a few we're trying to solve this month: - Distributed, collaborative education and training - Remote rural content delivery - Intelligent task allocation and adaptive workflow - Operational and platform scalability - Mobile payments and messaging The Tools: We keep up with the latest Rails 3.0.X releases, test with Test::Unit/Shoulda, use Redis for some fanciness, plan with Pivotal Tracker, and template with Haml and SASS. See something missing? Tell us, show us, make it happen. Responsibilities: - Write elegant, high quality, unit-tested code in Ruby. Be prepared to send in samples of work that you're proud of, bonus points for contributions to open source projects - Own new platform components from conception to deployment - Proactively communicate with workers and customers to understand and fix problems - Fearlessly learn new technologies and comprehend new problem spaces - Share your work with internal and external stakeholders in team meetings and at conferences Requirements: - Comprehensive understanding of a web application stack - 2+ years of software development experience - 2+ years of relational database experience - API design experience is a plus! - Strong working knowledge of unit testing frameworks - Self directed, self motivated, and at home in a very fast-paced environment

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The African Laptop Killer: Android And The Developing World
by Yaw Anokwa 14 Oct '11

14 Oct '11

interesting talk on the growth of android in the developing world (or at least in kenya) from claire hunsaker of samasource. The African Laptop Killer: Android And The Developing World "More than half of the 1 billion people in Africa carry a cell phone, but only 12% are online. In the last few years, mobile technologies have revolutionized everything from actual revolutions, to rural commodity pricing, to how people pay for bubble gum. With the advent of inexpensive smartphones this year, the revolution is picking up steam. Huawei’s IDEOs has sold 350,000 handsets in Kenya since launching in January – a startling number for a country where 40% of the population live on less than $2 a day. Developers around the world are responding to the emerging market with impressive speed and focus. Claire Hunsaker, from Samasource, will explore applications and integrations that are shaping frontier app development around the world." source: http://androidopen.com/android2011/public/schedule/detail/22305 slides: http://goo.gl/x3cGt (pdf) video: http://youtu.be/sGPkssyVzeg

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FW: [TIER] Inveneo is hiring a COO
by Richard Anderson 14 Oct '11

14 Oct '11

-----Original Message----- From: tier-bounces(a)tier.cs.berkeley.edu [mailto:tier-bounces@tier.cs.berkeley.edu] On Behalf Of Eric Blantz Sent: Friday, October 14, 2011 10:01 AM To: TIER Subject: [TIER] Inveneo is hiring a COO Inveneo is Hiring: Chief Operations Officer http://www.inveneo.org/newsfeed/chief_operations_officer Cheers, ---------------------------------------- Eric Blantz Sr. Program Director Inveneo (www.inveneo.org) email: eric.blantz(a)inveneo.org tel: 415-901-1969 x1275 cell: 415-847-1232 AIM/Yahoo/Skype: eblantz fax: 415-449-6073 ............................................................... Watch Inveneo in action on CNN http://www.inveneo.org/?q=CNNPrincipalVoices Subscribe to Inveneo via: - Email: http://bit.ly/inveneo-email - RSS: http://bit.ly/inveneo_rss - Twitter: http://bit.ly/inveneo-twitter ............................................................... _______________________________________________ TIER mailing list Website: http://tier.cs.berkeley.edu TIER(a)tier.cs.berkeley.edu https://www.millennium.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tier

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TASCHA Talk -- October 20 -- Development and implementation of the Global Impact Study surveys
by Karen Hirst 14 Oct '11

14 Oct '11

TASCHA TALK: Araba Sey and Chris Rothschild October 20, 2011, from 3:30 to 4:30pm Roosevelt Commons Building, 4311 11th Ave NE Fourth floor multi-purpose room The Global Impact Study surveys were designed to collect comparable data on uses and outcomes of public access ICT use in five countries on three continents. This TASCHA Talk will reflect on a range of research design and project management issues encountered during various stages of the survey project. About the presenters Araba is the research lead for TASCHA's Global Impact Study. She is interested in the social and economic implications of information and communication technologies in developing countries. Araba holds a PhD in Communication. Chris is a Research Analyst working on the Global Impact Study. His research focus is on the impact of information access users and non-users of technology venues. Chris holds Master's degrees in Public Administration and International Studies. TASCHA Talks are bi-weekly sessions to share, discuss, and advance new ideas around topics related to technology and social change. Learn more at tascha.uw.edu/taschatalks<http://tascha.uw.edu/what-we-do/tascha-talks/>.

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Global Impact Study - October 2011 newsletter
by Melody Clark 14 Oct '11

14 Oct '11

Hello, Change friends! The latest newsletter from the Global Impact Study is out! Learn more about our upcoming survey data analysis reports on public access users, uses, and perceived impacts, our communications strategy and upcoming new Knowledge Sharing section of our website, and some emerging findings from the Philippines and the Interpersonal Communications in-depth study. You'll also find our report from the June 2011 project-wide workshop. Download the newsletter<http://bit.ly/mUYD7p>. Follow us on Twitter.<http://twitter.com/#!/ICTimpact> Sign up for the newsletter.<http://www.globalimpactstudy.org/resources/newsletter/> As always, we welcome your feedback! Cheers! Melody -- Melody Clark Research Coordinator | Global Impact Study Technology & Social Change (TASCHA) melclark(a)uw.edu<mailto:melclark@uw.edu> | 206.685.7819 Twitter: @ictimpact<http://twitter.com/#!/ICTimpact> www.globalimpactstudy.org<http://www.globalimpactstudy.org/>

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Phone Tech Transforms African Business and Healthcare (New Scientist)
by Gaetano Borriello 12 Oct '11

12 Oct '11

Phone Tech Transforms African Business and Healthcare New Scientist (10/10/11) Melissae Fellet Homegrown innovation in the developing world is leading to new technologies that are helping less advantaged societies improve the lives of their citizens. For example, the MedAfrica mobile application, developed by Kenyan computer scientists, provides Africans with medical advice and direct communication with doctors. Other apps include mFarm, which connects farmers with current market prices for produce using text messages, and an app that provides community health workers with instructions on how to treat common problems during pregnancy and childbirth. Meanwhile, the number of local developers building software for cell phones is growing, especially with the launching of several innovation labs, known as mlabs, in Kenya and South Africa. The goal of mlabs is to teach programming and business skills, as well as connect young developers with mentors. Similar centers are expected to open in Pakistan and Vietnam. "The mobile phone has revolutionized the [developing] world much more subtly and profoundly than people really know," says Ethan Zuckerman, director of the Center for Civic Media at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. NOTE: the crop disease app is based on ODK (http://cropmonitoring.appspot.com/methodology.html) THE cellphone has revolutionised life in the western world. Now, thanks to plummeting hardware prices and homegrown innovation, the developing world is poised to reap the benefits of this game-changing technology. Take MedAfrica, an app that can be used on almost any cellphone, whether it uses a sophisticated operating system like Android or just SMS messaging. The idea is to provide people in far-flung areas of the continent with medical advice and direct communication with doctors. Last month, Steve Mutinda and Mbugua Njihia took to the stage at the DEMO conference in San Francisco to ask potential investors for millions of dollars to develop MedAfrica. Njihia argued that it could offer 200 million people reliable, user-friendly and affordable healthcare. Such lofty goals are commonplace in Silicon Valley. But Mutinda and Njihia are an unusual case: they hail not from California but Nairobi, Kenya. In Africa, cellphone penetration - the number of phones as a percentage of the population - is still the lowest in the world, but it is growing quickly. In 2010, an estimated 41 per cent of the population on the continent had cellphones, compared with 76 per cent globally. That's double what it was in 2005. Just as importantly, the number of local developers building software for cellphones is growing too. Innovation labs called mobile development labs, or "mlabs", have opened in Kenya and South Africa as a way to bring burgeoning numbers of developers together. Funded by Nokia, the Finnish government and the World Bank-backed business development organisation infoDev, the goal of mlabs is to teach programming and business skills, as well as connect young developers with mentors. They help entrepreneurs identify community needs, craft a product and a business plan, and allow for product testing. The Nairobi mlab, called iHub, has been open for just over a year. In June, the organisation invited developers in Kenya and Uganda to compete for a $25,000 prize to start their business. It received more than 100 entries, including an early version of MedAfrica specifically for use in Kenya. That idea won, springboarding Mutinda and Njihia towards what Njihia told the DEMO conference could generate $2 billion in revenue in the next five years. Such initiatives aren't limited to Africa - similar centres are expected to open in Pakistan and Vietnam as well. Firms like Google and Nokia are partnering with the World Bank on these and other efforts to train and nurture budding technologists. But such centres are only truly successful when the community of entrepreneurs they help to create can stand on its own feet, even in the absence of outside funding, says Oscar Salazar, founder of Citivox, a software platform designed to collect and share data between citizens and their government. "When the money runs out, the project [often] dies," he says. "We're pushing to create an ecosystem where people can benefit from the technology on a long-term basis." MedAfrica is an example of this. Part phone book and part basic medical reference text, the app has a symptom checker and lists nearby doctors and hospitals based on the user's location. It is based on a software platform, called Tuvitu, that Mutinda designed to provide news and entertainment on feature phones like the Nokia C3, one of the most popular models in Africa. Since 2009, Mutinda has used the platform to build 27 different apps that, as of last month, have been downloaded 700,000 times around the world. There's plenty of innovation outside the internationally backed mlabs, too. An app called mFarm, developed by a group of female coders from Kenya, connects farmers with current market prices for produce using SMS messages. And Daniel Stern, founder of UConnect in Kampala, Uganda, is working to create an app that provides community health workers with instructions on how to tackle common problems during pregnancy and childbirth. "It's like the first days of movable type," Stern says. "We are all trying to put together a printing press and we have a sense of mission. We know there's a tremendous need for products yet to be developed, especially in rural areas." Beyond developing apps to improve healthcare, agriculture and other aspects of life, the cellphone has also brought with it more rigorous time-keeping. "The mobile phone has revolutionised the [developing] world much more subtly and profoundly than people really know," says Ethan Zuckerman, director of the Center for Civic Media at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. People in developing countries used to spend a lot of time waiting for taxis and appointments. Now scheduling apps enable them to organise their time effectively, thus increasing productivity. "The question is: what else can it do?" Zuckerman says. The answers are myriad. The vast majority of phones in use in the developing world are basic phones like the Nokia 1100, rather than the more expensive smartphones. Such phones have limited web-browsing capability, but developers have learned to squeeze huge amounts of performance from them. It is possible to check bank accounts and transfer money over SMS, for example, or even to pop in a specially designed SIM card to gain access to Facebook. Earlier this year, Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei released an $80 Android phone in Kenya, putting smartphones at a price reachable for many middle-class Africans, says Zuckerman. London-based consultancy firm Balancing Act projects that such price decreases will drive smartphone penetration in Africa from today's levels of between 3 and 5 per cent to between 10 and 15 per cent in the next five years. With ever-increasing computing power available in cheap, rugged handsets, the rapid growth in cellphone-based innovation is likely to continue apace. Local developers and entrepreneurs are looking for ways to improve quality of life and boost the economy. On the back of their ingenuity will be built the business, economic and infrastructural development that could one day change the face of the developing world. Smartphones keep an eye on crops A handful of workers armed with just 10 smartphones could monitor an entire country for crop disease. An app can extrapolate information on disease severity in cassava crops collected at a limited number of sites to the whole of Uganda. Cassava, or tapioca, is widely used as a staple crop across the developing world as it is resistant to drought. But when disease hits, farmers need to find healthy plants as replacements. Each year, the Ugandan government sends survey teams into the countryside to measure plant health and bug infestation. Using data from 30 sites, workers map the levels of disease across 80 districts. But it takes five months to produce a nationwide map. Smartphones could radically speed up the process. John Quinn at Makerere University in Uganda has developed an app that workers can use to record the severity of the crop disease. Their report is linked to the GPS coordinates on the phone and uploaded within minutes to an online map. An algorithm then extrapolates the information across the country. Workers can also use the phone's camera to take a photo of whiteflies - which spread the African cassava mosaic virus - on the underside of a leaf. Software on the phone then counts the number of bugs. The software can also estimate the degree to which cassava is infected with other diseases by analysing images of yellow, diseased leaves. The pilot project, set to begin this month, will involve trained survey teams, but Quinn hopes that untrained farmers will be able to use the app in the future.

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