This Thursday at Change, Sylvain Cibangu will be discussing his upcoming work on the contributions of cell phones to economic development in Africa. Specifically, he is doing an information study of corn growers’ experiences in the Congo. "The last few decades, information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D) has been seeing unprecedented cell phone spread across the globe. By the same token, extensive literature shows cell phones to be the shaper of economic development in rural areas of developing countries. However, experts bemoan little to no systematic study showing cell phones’ effects on individuals’ development in rural areas, all of which is coupled with increased anecdotes, donor-sponsored stories, and context-independent figures. More particularly, the basic needs of users in rural areas have received little attention. In fact, cell phone literature has focused on m-banking, micro-credits, markets, prices, transactions, ease of travel, entrepreneurship, and the like, assuming that, as is the case in the developed world, users’ basic needs are taken care of. The present project seeks to fill this gap by investigating cell phone usages with regard to corn growers’ basic needs in the Congo. To this end, the projects employs the information model (iModel), combined with capabilities approach (CA). IModel focuses on information uses and context-specific users and needs whereas CA understands development as the expansion of human capabilities. The goal is to allow cell phone-led development that enhances corn growers’ capabilities." What: Sylvain Cibangu on Contributions of Cell Phones on Corn Growers in the Congo When: Thursday, February 11 at Noon Where: UW, Paul Allen Center, Room 403