In the 2nd reading "Can Technology Save the Developing World" the phrase, "technology isn't a ready made aid" is used. I wonder if someone could clarify what this phrase means.

Hi, I think it may mean that technology requires a great deal of infrastructure and other supporting materials put in place to be used effectively - eg. reliable electricity, broadband management, up-to-date software, relevant journals and teaching students/researchers how to use it. Technology as an aid requires more than just giving laptops. It's not like vaccines or food aid where we only have to distribute the items.

While I think it is an amazing goal to make technology more readily available to the continent of Africa, I feel that it should not be a huge priority over the poverty. Of course education is important and these innovations will benefit the educational systems in Africa however what good is that if students are living in poverty and disease? Rather than just delivering various vaccines and food in trucks, money should be put into the country into making them self sufficient to deal with these things. The era of technology in the West has helped our lives but we were living pretty well before the rush of technology. So before giving all of these great innovations to the continent, we should first give our best shot at making their lives livable and happy, and then we can surely assist in improving their access to technology! It should definitely be a "bottom- up" approach.

Hi everyone, great to see some comments on the course readings so far! Naseem, you mentioned that "(technology) should not be a huge priority over the poverty." While I would agree that it seems silly to give someone a laptop, when he or she may not even have enough food to sustain his/herself, at the same time, we should consider the long-term benefits of such an approach. Skills in IT are currently in demand all over the world, and in many budding African economies, these skills are in short supply. Therefore, providing someone with laptops is not only beneficial in terms of educational purposes, but it also gives the opportunity for individuals to gain practical job skills that could, in the longterm, greatly reduce poverty. However, as Raissa mentioned, I'm not entirely sure that simply giving someone a laptop will be sufficient to really develop these skills... there are many other factors that should be considered.

Thanks again to all of you for getting these discussions underway. I hope that you will continue to engage with each others' comments and create some ongoing discussions.

Oh absolutely! Technology is clearly a great tool for education and would indeed be helpful for the continent in regards to improving their living standards (i.e. providing doctors with certain tools that can help save lives). I feel like this should be the main priority and then we can continue to improve technology in regards to improving lives in other aspects i.e. ability to communicate. But for now, the focus should indeed be on providing basic necessities which may easily mean providing technology to professionals who can make this happen (i.e. doctors, nurses, nutritionists).

In other news, I found this article on the UofT website and thought it was appropriate for the class: http://www.news.utoronto.ca/online-computer-science-courses-attract-85000-students

I am going to second Becky. Technology has become the basis of our modern day society. We are a society that is driven by the use of different technologies that constantly connects us all to each other and our work. Yes poverty is brutal and needs to be dealt with using tangible aid but how can we ever expect a nation to fully walk again if all we are giving them is crutch. There needs to be a point where we can point them in the right direction and they can walk the rest of the way, even if it is just a small percentage of the population. The skills required to keep up in this day and time are all technologically based. So if we can help even a few people in Africa learn and understand these skills then maybe they may have a greater hope of solving not only their immediate problems like disease and starvation but also help them push the content towards something greater.

I concur with you stance that we should not expect poor people to rely on others' continued assistance. If I can bring in a saying here, " give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime".

Thank you Raissa for the clarification.
I find that the debate regarding the priority we should be giving to technology in the global south very reminiscent of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Maslow suggests that we must achieve the most basic needs (e.g. shelter, water, food) before we can achieve more complex ones. I agree with Connor and Becky, who suggest that although the issue of poverty is grave, investment in technology should not be put in the back-burner. This notion that we have to complete/"fix" one level before we can move to another is just not realistic enough when it comes to development. If there's anything I have learned about development it's that it's not only complex, but that it's a perpetual process.

After going through these readings, I would say it really depends, who and where you provide the latest technology to. I have a example to relate to this back home in Pakistan, the Punjab province also had the similar scheme of one laptop per child for university students. These are the students that come from low income families and provide the proof of being unable to afford technology assistance for their education. Since than the use of Facebook and other social tools has significantly increased. Theses students actively participate in issues such as political, religious and other social problems in the society. The country had faced many decades of corruption and dictatorship. Rule of law was crushed in the the hands of few powerful men. These concerns and the political knowledge was mostly hidden from farmers and their families, who lacked education. While theses underprivileged students come from from the majority farming families the awareness to political problems and their solutions is increasing. People are now looking towards and honest leadership and the results have shown that a totally new face on the stage of politics in Pakistan Imran Khan is way more favourite and popular to the people, than the typical parties who have ruled the country for decades. The technology has brought a major shift in people`s attitudes towards politics like it did in Egypt, Libya and Tunis. Therefore, giving technology to the people who deserve it, know how to use it and will bring a practical change to the society is not too bad. Only concern to be worried about is that first concern should be eliminating extreme poverty to eradicate death by starvation. Second step should be to educate people about the positive use of technology and the third would be to provide the technology itself.

After reading the "Poverty, is there an app for that?" article, I felt torn. On one hand, it is a great initiative to have these experts come together with the goal of aiding in problems regarding development. However, this implies that it takes that level of expertise to make a difference. Whose to say that a united group of people, with a similar level of passion but who aren't a part of such large technological corporations, cannot make a difference? I agree with the author in the sense that technology can be a distraction from the the real, underlying problems. However, I think the large "names" that come with the experts, is also misleading and distracting. On some level, it takes away from the efforts, and offers instead, some focus on the actual groups themselves. For example, if Apple creates an app that helps development in some way, and that gets attention, alot of the attention will still be on Apple, and not the issue on hand. Anonymity is something that should be considered not just to prevent too much fame being given to the "large participants, but also to include lesser known groups who could contribute something substantial as well. After all, "development is the gradual emergence of a problem solving system", and this is an inclusive phrase, not one that promotes some efforts over others.

I think providing technology to Africans is a great idea to try to alleviate poverty, but the real issues are not being address. I think we in the west always look at development and we think every country should look like us everyone should have laptops, cell phone and that what development is. I think we should look at development in a small scale, so for example, we should identify a village in need and provide them with their basic needs, like food, shelter, clean water, Education and equip them with the necessary tools for them to sustain themselves.

After reading the comments above as well as the articles I will agree with some of you and add my own ideas to the whole ICT as the answer to development in the developing world. I regard Information Technology as a tool which, when used appropriately and in conjunction with other development initiatives it will increase the space of achieving our objectives. For example if we were to come up with an initiative to improve maternal health and reduce child mortality rates, a simple cell phone can be used to provide mothers with information on where to get healthcare access in their local area. Also information can be transmitted to mothers through sms on events special clinics taking place in their area.
In rural areas some clinics don't open daily but a cell phone can be an easy way to have a health practitioner on call which would make him accessible in case of emergency. This same model could be implemented to provide information on basic health care where doctors in urban areas can provide information via the internet through chat or video calls to their colleagues in rural areas. This can provide fast and reliable health care solutions that will save lives as compared to transferring a patient from one hospital to another via poor road networks and risk death along the way.

i thought this was interesting and relevant to the course, and I am not sure how I feel about the concept and its potential effectiveness..thoughts?
http://www.unv.org/en/news-resources/news/doc/online-volunteering-makes-gains.html

I'm actually quite surprised that this "online volunteering" project was initiated in 2000! I guess it goes to show that the discourse of ICT and development is not necessarily new.

As for the project Katarina, I see potential in the "online volunteering" idea, but can be limiting depending on the context. For example in the article it states: "She said most of the participating organizations are in need of help in fundraising, computing, web programming and research." Of course this is a very vague statement, but my understanding is that the volunteers are going to complete these tasks for the organizations. In that case the project seems risky, like said by many of our peers, sustainability is essential and this approach implies that there will be a continued reliance on the online volunteers.

The program also allows online volunteers to provide "youth groups with reading material, ideas for group activities, learning games, educational and psychological advice" -I'm just thinking through a managerial perspective that monitoring this would be extremely difficult. Also the idea of receiving psychological advice via Internet does not seem like an effective mechanism due to the limiting nature of online communication, especially if it is used as the main form of counselling.

I loved the "Can Technology Solve the Developing World?" article! The One Laptop Per Child project is the first step to further advancing the developing world. While bandwidth is still of a concern, with its extremely high cost in some parts of Africa, the laptop being affordable is something that can take away the stigma of the web being considered a "luxury" in this day in age. There is the mention of lack of African scholars exist to take advantage of certain opportunities, like JSTOR's offer to waive their fees and allow access to a wide range of journal articles. However, such incentives will encourage and produce future scholars, whose potential can now be fully reached, as access to the appropriate resources are becoming more easily available.

I found the article " poverty is there an app for it " very interesting. its a question most of us would ask. will technology save the world. The article concludes with the statement " no one really believes there is an app for development" I however do think there is! Apps & technology have changed the world today and continue changing it. Yes i agree that " if an app gives a mother access to maternal health information, but she doesn't have access to basic healthcare. how much good will it do her?" that is definitely true but with technology, apps there must come knowledge. education and technology work hand in hand according to me and i think that once these ' apps' or technology are placed in the right hands ( educated and knowledgeable people willing to share their knowledge in improving the world) then ICT would accomplish this change. Developing countries will change!

I think it is great that now there is a possibility that knowledge from secluded scholars in africa can now be shared via internet through online resources such as "Aluka". I believe corporations and other organizations need to support projects like Aluka and help it develop faster. There may be some negative effects as mentioned in these articles on relying too much on technology but at least people now have access to information that may not have been possible earlier. What is important here is that through online resource websites we are building a network of strong scholars who can interact with each other when ever there is a global problem to solve.