ICTD 2012 - Fifth International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Develop

ICTD 2012 - Fifth International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Develop

Faizul Khan Tanim, back from Atlanta, United States, highlights a few of the achievements of this conference

The ICTD 2012 which ended recently in Atlanta, Georgia of the United States (March 12-15) was significant for a number of reasons.

Interestingly this conference saw an equal mix of ICT academicians armed with theories and frameworks, and ICT practitioners straight from the grass roots, all under the same umbrella and on a single platform, breaking barriers in field of ICT on a global scale. This year, the conference focused on very interesting papers, projects and presentations based on the development of ICT in Africa; mobiles, social media and democracy; sustainable ICTD; role of ICTs in post-conflict situations, ICTs as an enabler for private sector development (PSD) and more.

ICTD is the world's premier conference examining the role of computer and communications in social, economic and political development.  The conference attracted over 500 leading scholars and practitioners working at the intersections of information technologies and global development. ICTD 2012 consisted of two days of single-track peer-reviewed papers, two open sessions (interactive workshops, panels, and more), and hosted keynote speakers, a series of demonstrations, and beyond.

Probably one of Nigeria's greatest achievements and a huge feat for Africa, jointly with the co-located annual symposium on computing for development (ACM DEV) conference, David Kobia, Co-Founder and Director of Technology Development for Ushahidi, gave a keynote speech on the opening day.

The reclaimnajia.net Ushahidi is a technology platform which monitored the 2011 general elections in Nigeria. It promoted participatory grass roots development and good governance in Nigeria. The platform became so successful that now it is replicated in many countries around the world.

David Kobia in his speech mentioned, “The platform's significant success was due to not just to map crisis, rather, we wanted to use ICT to achieve massive citizen participation in mandate protection in a country where elections are usually rigged.”

The few key factors highlighted why the Ushahidi model worked so well were:

•    There was a sense of collective ownership to the people

•    Community Leaders were trained to become Voter Educators and Community Advocates to organize events and activities all over the country under ReclaimNajia.net

•    SMS system and voice reports in local languages facilitated the inclusion of disadvantaged people, increased participation by removing barriers

•    Use of both conventional and new media

•    Feeding real-time information to the Electoral Body and the prompt response to citizens reports boosted confidence in the effectiveness of the Ushahidi reporting platform and encouraged massive participation of citizens

At one point, members from the organizing committee mentioned that this project is very important since the US election is coming up and this platform might very well be used.

Another very interesting session was on Mobiles, Social Media and Democracy  by Tim Unwin. This half-day session explored the critical success factors in effecting political change through social media, particularly with the use of mobile phones. The session began with a debate on the motion that the house believes that the use of mobile supported social media is an effective means of promoting democracy and the side for this motion won the debate.

Meanwhile, the only session - ICTs as an Enabler for Private Sector Development - which saw Bangladeshi participation was by Md Arafat Hossain as a panellist. He is a business consultant from Katalyst, a market development project in Bangladesh, implemented by Swiss Contact and Giz International Services.

The session featured an interactive discussion among experts and practitioners on how to take advantage of the recent significant improvements in ICT connectivity and applications to accelerate private sector development.

The session reviewed and disclosed facts like that to achieve sustained development, the creation of productive capacities and employment must be placed at the heart of policy making. This is all the more urgent in view of current economic turbulence. With United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)’s Information Economy Report 2011 as a starting point, this session highlighted the possibilities for ICTs and ICT-enabled solutions to become a more powerful force for improving the competitiveness of enterprises.

The session focused specifically on how to bridge the two development communities dealing with private sector development (PSD) and ICT4D, respectively. The discussion revolved around four facets of the ICT-PSD interface: 1) ICT infrastructure as a factor in the investment climate; 2) ICT use by the private sector; 3) the ICT sector as a part of the private sector; and 4) ICT use in interventions aimed at facilitating PSD. In the discussion, panellists and the audience engaged in a discussion about the most relevant and effective policy options.

Another interesting project/demo was called Water Alert! By Deana Brown, Gary Marsden, and Ulrike Rivett, something which can be very useful in Bangladesh.

WATER Alert! uses  mobile phones to improve community perspective on drinking water quality in

South Africa. With a high number of illnesses and deaths in the country due to diarrhoea diseases, the impact is critical.

This research addresses the challenge of reporting complex and critical water quality information in a way that is accessible to all South Africans. High illiteracy rates, the presence of 11 official languages and limited-to-no access to technology in many areas, present some of the major challenges to the design of an alert notification and reporting system.

WATER Alert!, a symbol-based prototype mobile phone application is used to alert and report water quality information to consumers and allow for citizen involvement in water management. Revealed that WATER Alert! is simple to use and has a perceived usefulness amongst participants. The findings also suggest that such an application would help to improve consumers' understanding of water quality information leading to an improved community perspective on drinking water quality.

The conference wrapped up on March 15 with the declaration of the venue of the next event in Cape Town, South Africa.

This article was first published in The Independent Weekend Magazine April’20 2012

http://www.theindependentbd.com/weekly-independent/105588-ictd-2012-fifth-international-conference-on-information-and-communication-technologies-and-develop.html