Aadhar Cards - Good Idea, Failed Execution

By Ruchita Rathi

The government of India initiated Aadhar card (UID project to uniquely & digitally identify people with the prime motive of tracking the social security of an individual. The project is inspired by the Social Security Number (SSN) issued in the USA. The goal of Aadhar project was to disseminate education, health, employment to all the stratas of Indian society.

What is Development?

By Sidee Dlamini

After a year of taking graduate level classes in development, I still have not found the answer to what development is. This is not disappointing to me, but it is rather encouraging. The fact that there is no straight answer to this question confirms that we actually do not know what development is and because we do not know we will keep searching. On the other hand, we could say development is not one simple thing and therefore there are many definitions for it. The latter response also implies that individuals will choose what development means to them and resort to approaching development that way. I will admit that I am not too fond of the second option because it takes away the need to keep learning and exploring alternative definitions.

An ICT approach to filling the informal employment gap in India

By Priya Iyer

It all started in Fall 2013 when second year Masters students at the School of Information, UC Berkeley had to submit proposals for their final projects, that they would be working on in the last semester before graduating. My classmates and I had been brainstorming a lot on projects that we could potentially work on but did not have a particular problem in mind. The only thing we knew, for sure, was that we wanted to work in the ICTD space. We started out at a macro level to understand the kind of problems that we wanted to target. We were particularly interested in the problems of food insecurity in India. We researched to find out the root of this problem through literature reviews, YouTube videos and anecdotes from our professional and social networks. The most glaring cause that came to the forefront was the problem of unemployment in the informal labor market in India.

There’s an app for that: Mobile banking as a tool for A2J

By Laurent Arribe

Mobile banking has become all the rage. Over 110 money mobile systems have been created across the globe with more than 40 million users. Ever since the technology’s introduction in the mid-2000s, its take-up rate has soared as lower income populations gained access to a banking savings system.

The expected benefits from mobile distribution and banking include lower costs and greater privacy. Especially in resource poor settings, low transaction amounts for informal money transfer were over 30 percent less expensive than informal money transfer options. They also drastically increased savings rates and even reduced the risks robbing. As apparent benefits accrued, development practitioners took notice and new applications began taking place.

Outstanding Technologies in Africa

By: Sidee Dlamini

To the unaware, Africa is still known as the Dark Continent; however, numerous trends continue to show how much progress has been made on the African continent. More importantly, there has been a lot of technological advancement that the majority of the world is unaware of. It is my belief that most of the issues faced by the continent will be solved through the use of technology. I envision technology being deeply implemented in government procedures such that efficiency is increased ten fold and corruption is greatly. Of course, technology isn’t the answer to all problems, but it has the capability to solve a few if not most. How might these visions be accomplished you might ask? Well, I myself am in pursuit of that answer, but for now, I would like to explore a few outstanding technologies on the African continent.

AirJaldi - Bringing affordable internet connectivity to rural India

By Priya Iyer


About AirJaldi

AirJaldi is a social enterprise currently operational mostly in North India aimed at providing affordable broadband connectivity to the remote parts of the country where internet access is a rarity. Establishing the infrastructure in the rural hilly areas of India is a tedious process owing to difficult terrains, unfavorable weather, lack of uninterrupted power, supply and transport costs and lack of awareness about Internet usage among the rural residents. 

Hiil Conference: Can ODR Really Help Courts and Improve Access to Justice?

The 15th annual conference on ODR comes to The Hague, the place with the highest density of judges and courts you can find anywhere in the world. It will be held at the Peace Palace, on Monday May 23 and Tuesday May 24.

For previous editions, the most prominent practitioners, academic experts and dispute resolution entrepreneurs have met in high tech hot spots such as Haifa, Chennai, Silicon Valley, and most recently at Stanford University and New York City.

This year’s conference will be organized by HiiL Innovating Justice with the National Centre for Technology and Dispute Resolution at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

As a part of our ODR2016 programme we will be regularly posting information, ideas and highlights on global ODR developments in our blog. Click here to see the full ODR 2016 blog, and here to receive our periodical ODR2016 Newsletter.

Argentina ICTD Initiatives Review

By Gustavo Pereyra (@heroedelmate)

Context

At the turn of the millennium Argentina faced one of the worst crises in its history: roughly 25% of its population was unemployed, and the economy had been in recession for most of the late share of the 90’s [1]. 

Call it funky timing, but it was only a couple of months before the president had to resign that the government passed legislation that encouraged –among other major reforms– the strategic inclusion of ICTs in the various administrative bodies of government [2]. Later on, and not without undergoing heavy circumstances some of which remain unsolved today, the country crawled out of the hole it had fallen in and entered a period of economic bonanza, so it became a much fertile ground for ICT initiatives. Those conditions led by 2005 to the National eGovernment Plan (“Plan Nacional de Gobierno Electrónico”) [3], which empowered the Undersecretary of Public Service as the main federal government organ to lead ICT initiatives.