Crowdsourcing 2.0: Why Putting the Slum on a Map is not Enough for A2J

By Christina Gossmann

There was a time—not too long ago—when informal settlements the size of small cities were basically invisible. Beige-gray fields, intercepted by thin blue lines, signifying water, and several thicker, windy white lines that stood for major roads, would pop up on the computer screen when searching for infamous slums such as “Kibera” on Google Maps. The information void stood in stark contrast to the hundreds of thousands of people living in Kibera, ironically tucked away between some of the city’s most valuable and celebrated resources: the Royal Nairobi Golf Club, Ngong Forest and the Nairobi dam.

Designing for Participation (Part 2) - How to design for participation in ICT for A2J

By Eric Zan

In Part 1 I discussed the value of participation in international development and how it can be problematic.Can leveraging the value of openness in technology create solutions to allow participation to be done in the right way? Perhaps these networking tools that foste rparticipation somehow allow for greater inclusiveness. Well, evidence suggests the same pitfalls of participation in development can be found in a virtually networked community. Online communities become a reflection of the offline society of which it belongs. Tools that facilitate openness and collaboration are subject to reflectingexisting authorityhierarchies that affect who participates and the type of information that is shared.

Private companies and public interest: an oxymoron for A2J?

By Antonin Milza

With this blog post, I want to speak not only about ICT4D but more generally about development. The notion of development has interested me for several years. It can be very difficult to give an exact definition of what development is. For me, when I think about “development”, I refer to the development of societies and of all nations in the world. I don’t have a different mental image for “development” whether it is for southern or northern countries. In my mind development is above all else the process that able a Nation to develop itself in order to improve its economy and the living conditions of its citizens. In the northern countries, it was the industrial revolutions in the XVIII and XIX centuries that enabled these Nations - by a better understanding of how scientific knowledge can be transformed into real applications that improve the economy – to increase their GDP, more than in the 1800 previous years. For several reasons, including colonization and decolonization, other Nations in the world, especially in Africa and Asia, didn’t be able to use this phenomenon of industrialization to develop themselves. Today, several countries in Asia, like India and China are catching up with northern countries. Tomorrow, I am sure it will be the same for African countries. The world has changed a lot since the XIX century, and today the solutions and the methods available for a Nation in order to develop itself are thus very different.

A2J for Livelihood: Paid Crowdsourcing: Solution for Un(der)employment or Digital Sweatshop?

By Christina Gossmann

The outsourcing of in-house business operations has existed long before the advent of globalization in the 19^th century, but the more recent offshore outsourcing stories are the ones we remember today: cultural imperialism in Indian call centers, garment sweatshop still prevalent all over the world and suicide after suicide at Foxconn in Shenzhen. But within today’s Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry, knowledge, legal and particularly information technology-based business outsourcing have taken center stage. Not surprisingly, high and growing technology penetration rates in the Global South have not gone unnoticed among socially minded enterprises and the international development sector—which brings us to the ICT4D version of BPO: Impact Sourcing or “microwork.”

LawHelp Interactive: Automating Legal Form and Document Preparation

I blogged about LawHelp previously, which is a network of Legal Aid Websites in the US. As an add-on module for document assembly, LawHelp Interactive (LHI) uses technology to improve the legal form and document preparation process for low-income people and the attorneys who assist them. Using web-based interviews, LHI presents users with a series of questions about a particular legal issue. By collecting the information in a logical and organized way, the answers enable users to create high-quality court forms and other legal documents on their own. Used in over 40 states and U.S. territories, this technology has helped legal aid advocates, pro bono lawyers, and self-represented litigants create over 3.2 million legal documents since 2006. In 2016 alone, 529,000 documents were assembled using LHI. Top states in assemblies are New York, California, Michigan, Illinois, and Minnesota.

LawHelp Interactive is available through many of the statewide legal aid websites. Pro Bono Net, a nonprofit based in New York, works closely with LSC grantees to manage the platform.

ICTs for the Sharing Economy

By Timothy Meyers

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Vietnam is among the 25 countries in the world with the greatest number of road fatalities per capita. A recent WHO report states the country has over 24 road fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants per year, resulting from dense and long-lasting traffic patterns dominated by motorbikes. The rise in motorbikes has also brought a significant rise in air pollution. A 2012 study released during the World Economic Forum in Davos listed Vietnam among the top 10 countries with the worst air quality, and Hanoi as the most polluted city in Southeast Asia.

ICTD in Education – The EcoSchools and EcoZero Model

By Chalenge Masekera

Nelson Mandela once said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” The value of quality education to society can never be underestimated and as long as less developed communities continue receive education that is not at par with their peers, their communities will suffer stunted development. A lot of ICTD in education initiatives have cropped up but a lot implemented solutions that required having computers in a lab. This has often proved expensive to start, run and maintain. The current trends are seeing a shift from this e-learning model that utilizes labs to m-learning (mobile-learning) models without restrictions of location.

Hospital OS: An Open Source EMR System based in Thailand

By Timothy Meyers

As hospitals and clinics around the world seek to stay abreast of new technologies, some health centers are deprived of even the most basic ICT systems. In rural Thailand, this is especially the case. With their high licensing fees andskilled labor requirements, electronic medical record (EMR) systems are out of reach for many Thai health providers, resulting in less-than-efficient health services and poor interoperability between hospitals and clinics. EMR systems are essential to allowing health centers to store, retrieve, manage, and share patient medical records.