The research for cheap computing solutions for providing computing services for children from poor families or communities led to the development of the XO laptop from MIT. Similarly, Intel had also run their own research with the same goal. Though, recently both of them lost a bid for providing education computing services to Andhra Pradesh, India to NComputing's solution using virtualization (where each student only has peripherals like a monitor or screen, and a mouse and keyboard, and all computing is done on a central computer. This solution proved cheaper than both XO and Intel, costing $70 per student), nothing can undermine the need for research in areas such as this. Poor countries have less money to spend, and thus the cheaper the technology, the more those societies can reap it's benefits.
Another research project will take us back to the issue of accessibility. As it turned out, two separate researches done in two different continents produced similar results - one in USA and another in Italy. Both developed a system to help navigate people with blindness around an area using RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification). In the case of the research in Italy, they installed RFID transponders into pavements and they each hold an ID. These get activated by chips installed on the tip of the canes and this results in the ID being sent to a smart phone which uses the ID to search a database of locations to retrieve information about the current location and announce it to the person using the cane. This way people with blindness can know where they are, or if they are at a crossing, etc.
A story closer to home is of the work of Tapan Parikh, who helped the fishermen and MFI's (Micro Finance Institute) achieve efficiency in a village in Kerala, India. Without really doing something innovative in terms of creating technology, he thought of a way to harness the computing power of modern cell phones to bring about managerial improvements for self help groups (little groups formed by those taking the loans from MFI with a common goal to achieve).
'Sustainable development' is a term well known, practically, everywhere today. It is a very important fact that development cannot be considered without thinking about whether it is sustainable or not by the community it is being sought out for, and in that scenario, if technology is to be used for the benefit of third world countries, it has to be affordable. This phenomenon has been observed here with mobile phones whose market is now full of different brands of a wide range of prices. So, projects like Tapan's is now easily attainable and sustainable for its target group. Phones with the advent of GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) and EDGE (Enhanced Data rate for GSM Evolution) that allow them to access the internet can do a lot to reduce a digital divide. Another aspect in computing is software, which is also getting help achieving sustainability from the open source software development community. Linux has been from a long time ago, been the favorite operating system (OS) of choice in many research circles/academia. As mentioned before the XO Laptop for children in poor areas also used Linux as its platform in helping keep the price of the product low. Considering that the XO and Tapan Parikh's work are quite recent happenings, research along these lines started long before that, at the beginning of the 21st century, a research with the intention to help the poor farmers in India by providing computational power in the form of a simple computer running on a Linux OS. That simple computer was also small, as the size of a PDA, and was aptly named Simputer. Though developments in other ares even half a decade later brought to question the success of the Simputer, it was a deserving research area - reducing the digital divide. The license to develop Simputers were given out to two computers who still continue to manufacturer devices based on the Simputer specifications (search online for the Amida Simputer).
There are also organizations out there who continue to reinforce the use of ICT for social change, for social empowerment. These organizations do their part by showing their appreciation for those who directly contribute towards bringing about social empowerment and change.
A lot of the readers probably heard of the Stockholm Syndrome, and now its time to hear about the Stockholm Challenge. This is a contest that has been taking place since 1994. Its current organizer is The Royal Institute of Technology (KTH for short), which also happens to be a mildly popular destination for students from Bangladesh to go for higher studies. The challenge is meant to promote and appreciate projects in ICT that help sectors in society which might go overlooked normally, to “counteract social and economic disadvantage”. The award is given in six categories:
1.Public Administration, 2. Education, 3. Economic Development,
4. Culture, 5. Health, 6. Environment, and 7. Global Knowledge Partnership (Included from 2008's competition).
The Stockholm Challenge is now a biannual event, and the winners of this challenge receive a trophy and cash prize, and has some big Swedish companies as sponsors – Ericsson and Sida, and the City of Stockholm. Though the competition for the current year is over, our students and researchers of ICT might want to start thinking on whether they are up to this challenge for 2009! Lets hope so.
There is also an annual conference on ICTD, with even biddings taking place to host them. Well known and respected universities like Berkley take part in those bids and host these conferences. 2009's conference is destined to take place in the Qatar campus of another well reputed university of the United States of America - Carnegie Mellon, with none other than Microsoft's Chairman Bill Gates as the keynote speaker. At each of these conferences, many research papers are presented, workshops are held, and panels of researchers are poised to hold discussions on important, novel or unresolved issues on the use of ICT for development. This is also an event that the universities of a country like Bangladesh should be very aware of, and they should organize their students to think about and participate in these kind of events. We are operating in a country where there is a spectrum of economic divide, where the right kind of education is not accessible to most, and bad bureaucracy steals the life of most good intentions. ICT might have a way out from a lot of those used in the right context, or not, and that is the matter of research. The call for papers for the 2009 ICTD conference is open, and the details of this is laid out nicely on their website (Available in the references section below).
Monday, May 25, 2009
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Social ICT: Education
How can ICT help education? The answer to this question probably has a million components. To be very optimistic, we could replace workbooks with desktops or laptops, books would not be needed to be carried in backpacks to school, but downloaded from the internet and students would no longer need to write small notes to each other behind the teacher's back, they could IM (Instant Messaging, the likes of MSN Messenger or Yahoo Messenger)! Not quite, but why not?We mentioned the project DonorsChoose.org before, and that is one way that education can be facilitated by ICT. Education is a necessary component of any healthy well functioning society. Schools lacking things necessary in instilling that education on their students will be falling short of their goals, not doing as good a job as might be possible. So when projects like DonorsChoose step in and lend a helping hand, it fills in a void that would otherwise hamper the goal of a good education. What is interesting is that it started in a country like USA where people assume they have everything. I smile thinking about the possibilities of such a project carried out successfully in a country like ours where economic disparities are high. We need a link between the low end of that spectrum and the high end badly, and in more sectors than just education.
The Internet is the largest database in the world, and it serves as an important accompaniment to books for students everywhere. However, those who were not privileged to attend technology savvy schools in third world countries are missing out. Some schools might have one computer, or more, but then they might not have internet. They might have internet, but the teachers might not have the right idea of how to use it to benefit the students. So besides having technology, another important criteria is to have a plan or understanding of how to use the technology to better educate.
SchoolSat is a project that was launched to improve Internet speed at schools in Ireland, with the help of the European Space Agency, and the Internet to the schools there were considered a higly useful resource. They used the Internet to search for materials to support the subjects they were already teaching their students. Later they also learned to use the internet to showcase student projects complete with pictures. This way schools could also see what the others were doing and learn from it. The SchoolSat project was supported by the National Center for Technology for Education (NCTE), which was formed by the government of Ireland to advise, inform and support schools on how to use ICT in education. Thus, the technology is there, the purpose is there, and a government body is in place who actively support the use of technology in education. Definitely these are things we, as a country, can emulate.
Another initiative to promote the computer as a teaching/learning tool was the One Laptop Per Child project. This is not a project that just arranges for each child to have access to a laptop, but it was an initiative to design a different kind of laptop that would appeal to a child's imagination and curiosity and also provide software appropriate to children's learning needs. This laptop was named XO. Another goal was to keep the price of the resulting product to a $100. Without getting into whether the price is/was conducive to be really sellable to the third world countries, the rest of the computer was just marvelous. It had a colorful appearance and ran on free Linux operating system which helped keep its price low immensely. It also has multimedia support and assuming that the children in a small village were using this laptop, in relative proximity, they could share their drawings, or other things they worked on. The XO was developed mostly in the research labs of MIT driven hard by Professor Nicholas Negroponte and made all kinds of design decisions like the kind of battery life that would be necessary for surviving in a village to how to avoid the most usual point of failure of a laptop (the connection between the mother board and the screen, the XO's motherboard lies behind its screen) to ergonomics.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Social ICT: Accessibility
One issue remain either unsolved or ignored even in some of the developed countries, and its a huge issue in poorer, badly governed countries. This issue is of integrating people with disabilities into the rest of society. One dimension of this issue is 'Accessibility'. In the physical world, the solution to this rests in providing the support for people with disabilities to enter a building, e.g. with ramps that is an alternative to stairs for those who use wheelchairs; or making sure buses, trains, planes allow accessible passage for them to get on, so that the bus' floor is at level with the pavement on the side of the street, or it has a folding ramp in it for wheelchairs. Similarly, for ICT, there is a need for accessibility for people with disabilities. This is thus a social awareness issue for manufacturers of ICT equipment and software.
Disabilities arise from the loss of any or many of the senses or physical function of a person. In interacting with technology, we use our hands, eyes, ears and our mouth, and thus the experience of ICT can be disrupted with a loss of any of them. There is a condition called 'low vision' whereby the print on this paper would be impossible for a person with that condition to read. A magnification of 5 times would possibly make it readable for them, or maybe more. Whereas a newspaper on its print is not readable then without a magnifying glass, the online version of a newspaper could achieve that magnification easily. Any website for that matter can make sure they have support for people with such disabilities. With the development of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) that allow the separation of the styling of a site from its html (Hypertext Markup Language) code with holds the content, this has become easier for both website developers and also companies who make web browsers (the software you use to view a website). Mozilla's Firefox is an example of a browser that allows its users to magnify the text on pages easily.
Other features are necessary to make web browsers accessible to a majority of the people with disabilities, keeping in mind the different kinds of disabilities. One such feature would be to make a website readable by a 'Screen Reader'. This would be a separate software or one that is a plugin installed on the browser, that reads out the content shown on a browser. This will be helpful for those with any kind of visual impairment. However, how the content is arranged on the website can make it difficult for a screen reader to read the website, or the user will have a hard time navigating a website. To tackle issues like this, W3C.org has stepped in. W3C stands for World Wide Web Consortium who lay down the standards of markup languages like html, and they have also laid down what needs to be done to ensure accessibility in surfing the internet. All that is laid out in a website maintained by the specialized Web Accessibility Initiative, and its very important to be noted by both who develop websites or those who make web browsers.
The US government has actually also gone a step in that direction by laying out guidelines of its own for what it accepts as 'accessible' technology, all grouped under an act termed Section 508. These have been laid out as a guideline to be followed and comply to by all federal agencies, and those working with them. If people with disabilities can handle data the same way as those without any disabilities can, there is nothing to stop them to function at the same level as any other colleague, or member of society.
Design of interfaces like keyboards for computers or keypads for phones also need to be considered for accessibility. Braille keyboards, keypads will be very helpful for people with blindness. People with low vision would need large keys with the characters in large size they can view. Phones like the Samsung's Touch Messenger is a good example of innovations made to increase inclusion of people with disabilities into mainstream society. The Touch Messenger is a mobile phone whose interface uses braille number input, and can also send braille short messages (SMS) to other braille phones.
There is a strong movement within people with disabilities across all countries in taking charge of making sure their rights to all facilities enjoyed by people without disabilities are given and preserved. Over the years they have and are still striving to take charge of their own plight in society by demanding they be given the necessary facilities to operate normally in society. This is opposed to the idea that society will hand out things to them out of pity. To be able to do this successfully, accessibility to all forms of communication technology is vital to their purpose. Speaking locally, its probably easier to ensure that the people with disabilities in Bangladesh have more accessible technology, faster than providing accessibility on the streets and buildings. Even till now however, there is no Bangla screen reader. It has not been long that content has been able to be served in Bangla and so, the needs to have screen readers for Bangla are also quite untouched.
Disabilities arise from the loss of any or many of the senses or physical function of a person. In interacting with technology, we use our hands, eyes, ears and our mouth, and thus the experience of ICT can be disrupted with a loss of any of them. There is a condition called 'low vision' whereby the print on this paper would be impossible for a person with that condition to read. A magnification of 5 times would possibly make it readable for them, or maybe more. Whereas a newspaper on its print is not readable then without a magnifying glass, the online version of a newspaper could achieve that magnification easily. Any website for that matter can make sure they have support for people with such disabilities. With the development of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) that allow the separation of the styling of a site from its html (Hypertext Markup Language) code with holds the content, this has become easier for both website developers and also companies who make web browsers (the software you use to view a website). Mozilla's Firefox is an example of a browser that allows its users to magnify the text on pages easily.
Other features are necessary to make web browsers accessible to a majority of the people with disabilities, keeping in mind the different kinds of disabilities. One such feature would be to make a website readable by a 'Screen Reader'. This would be a separate software or one that is a plugin installed on the browser, that reads out the content shown on a browser. This will be helpful for those with any kind of visual impairment. However, how the content is arranged on the website can make it difficult for a screen reader to read the website, or the user will have a hard time navigating a website. To tackle issues like this, W3C.org has stepped in. W3C stands for World Wide Web Consortium who lay down the standards of markup languages like html, and they have also laid down what needs to be done to ensure accessibility in surfing the internet. All that is laid out in a website maintained by the specialized Web Accessibility Initiative, and its very important to be noted by both who develop websites or those who make web browsers.
The US government has actually also gone a step in that direction by laying out guidelines of its own for what it accepts as 'accessible' technology, all grouped under an act termed Section 508. These have been laid out as a guideline to be followed and comply to by all federal agencies, and those working with them. If people with disabilities can handle data the same way as those without any disabilities can, there is nothing to stop them to function at the same level as any other colleague, or member of society.
Design of interfaces like keyboards for computers or keypads for phones also need to be considered for accessibility. Braille keyboards, keypads will be very helpful for people with blindness. People with low vision would need large keys with the characters in large size they can view. Phones like the Samsung's Touch Messenger is a good example of innovations made to increase inclusion of people with disabilities into mainstream society. The Touch Messenger is a mobile phone whose interface uses braille number input, and can also send braille short messages (SMS) to other braille phones.
There is a strong movement within people with disabilities across all countries in taking charge of making sure their rights to all facilities enjoyed by people without disabilities are given and preserved. Over the years they have and are still striving to take charge of their own plight in society by demanding they be given the necessary facilities to operate normally in society. This is opposed to the idea that society will hand out things to them out of pity. To be able to do this successfully, accessibility to all forms of communication technology is vital to their purpose. Speaking locally, its probably easier to ensure that the people with disabilities in Bangladesh have more accessible technology, faster than providing accessibility on the streets and buildings. Even till now however, there is no Bangla screen reader. It has not been long that content has been able to be served in Bangla and so, the needs to have screen readers for Bangla are also quite untouched.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Social ICT: Internet Philanthropy
Lets start with the simple examples, since within the simplicity of these ideas lay the beauty of its achievement. Lets start with a few websites. Up first is DonorsChoose.org. At their site, they have a section where teachers from different places, schools list project proposals, for which they do not have enough resources to implement it fully. A price tag is usually attached to these projects so that visiting philanthropists can make better judgment on the commitment they can make to these projects financially. This goes with their tagline: 'Teachers Ask. You Choose. Students Learn'. And the resources listed can be simple things like books, dictionaries, to technical equipment like projectors. As part of the process, the receiving students also send back thank you letters and photos to the donor, which I am pretty sure makes for a very happy ending for everyone.
This site, in a nutshell, performs one very important task - it brings the right people together. There are many out there who have the intent of giving, but not sure how, and where, and schools are also struggling to find funds to finance all their needs. DonorsChoose.org is the place where these two parties shake hands. Similar websites are out there which also bring the right people together. Kiva.org is one such site, where micro-financing is given a lift. Micro-financing is usually associated with financial institutions like banks who give out the small loans. Here, the financier is an individual, and through Kiva's help, this donor can find another individual to loan his money out to. The individuals listed as seeking loans are from the developing countries, and in these countries, sums of money which might be considered small in developed countries, amount to a lot of money. Not to forget, its still a loan, and is at some point returned back to the lender. Kiva doesn't operate entirely independent of MFIs or Micro-Financing Institutions. The MFIs help Kiva pick out the candidates for loans. Similar to DonorsChoose.org, the visiting philanthropist can go through a list of these candidates, see which country they are from, learn their story, what they plan to do with the money, etc. The lenders can thus get a feel for the person they are borrowing out their money to. The actual handing over of the loan is handled by the MFI.
As long as we are on the subject of connecting, mention has to be made of TakingITGlobal.org. It has existed for as long as the most ancient of social networking websites, long before MySpace, or Facebook. Though not as popular (in terms of media coverage received) as the latter two, it does have an enormous number of members who are dispersed all over the globe and who interact with the aim of learning and pursuing social work. TakingITGlobal is a non-profit organization based in Canada which connects youth all over the world committed to social change. As stated on their website, their mission is to provide opportunities for learning, capacity-building, cross-cultural awareness and self-development through the use of Information and Communication Technologies, and beneath their logo are these three words - inspire, inform, and involve. With these goals in sight, the site is available in 12 different languages, has a good organization of information, and provides ample search facilities to locate kinds of social activities, organizations, discussions etc. The main navigating system is a menu with the following options (each with many sub options within):
Make Connections - with discussion boards, e-cards with social messages, user defined groups, search facilities for locating members, reading stories on social work or social issues posted by members, newsletters etc.
Take Action - contains guides to how youth can involve themselves in taking action in various fields like climate change, or HIV/AIDS related work etc. These are downloadable electronic documents and free. Other sub sections of this are projects (to create or browse through projects to which the viewer or other users can join depending on the vicinity), an open forum, petitions, commitments (where people can state a commitment, e.g. - to stop using non-biodegradable plastic bags, and others can take pledges to do the same, thus creating a kind of virtual solidarity for a cause). Each commitment gets a page of its own, where its acceptability can be tracked in terms of how many pledges it had targeted and how many pledges it received in reality, and also a blog for the commitment and more.
Browser Resources - with search capabilities to locate organizations, events, financial opportunities (scholarships, grants), professional opportunities (internships, volunteer positions, etc) and publications.
Express Yourself - with a global gallery (a potpourri of art, poetry, and other creative outlets that the members want to express themselves through), an online magazine called Panorama, and a printed publication called TIG Magazine, and the member blogs.
Understand Issues - with a list of internationally declared special days celebrating different causes, small games demonstrating different global issues, and whole sections dedicated to the following topics: Art and Media, Health and Wellness, Human Rights and Equity, etc.
Explore the World - Has data organized according to countries, and also a separate section on Aboriginal Canada.
The organization of information is multifold, in the sense that it is presented in many perspectives, tagged with appropriate categories. The categories in Understanding the Issues are also available for selection as search criteria when using the search facility under Browse Resources to locate organizations, financial opportunities, etc. Similarly, International Days is a sub category under Understand the Issues, yet, if someone is viewing an issue such as Health and Wellness from the Issues list also under Browse Resources, that page will also list the international days that are related to health and wellness. This makes sure that the readers are aware of all presented information from all angles on any topic.
TakingITGlobal sends a monthly dispatch to its members which outline the topics covered in its Panorama magazine, and other updates of the activities of its members. Its vast database of resources, plus its community approach, its creative outlets, make it, in my opinion, quite ideal for use even within schools and colleges, and maybe even universities to get them organized in social and community activities. TIG realizes the potential for use of its resources and toolkits for educating children about social issues, and thus one can find the link 'For Educators' right below its 'About Us' link. That outlines what they call TIGed ('TIG for Educators' made short), which has support for the issues presented as easy to understand lessons and also lets the teachers create virtual classrooms where students are taught to use tools to write and speak out on social issues. The tools are basically blogs, podcasting (audio/video content in digital formats that can be subscribed to) software, digital image galleries discussion boards, etc., put together to good use.
This site, in a nutshell, performs one very important task - it brings the right people together. There are many out there who have the intent of giving, but not sure how, and where, and schools are also struggling to find funds to finance all their needs. DonorsChoose.org is the place where these two parties shake hands. Similar websites are out there which also bring the right people together. Kiva.org is one such site, where micro-financing is given a lift. Micro-financing is usually associated with financial institutions like banks who give out the small loans. Here, the financier is an individual, and through Kiva's help, this donor can find another individual to loan his money out to. The individuals listed as seeking loans are from the developing countries, and in these countries, sums of money which might be considered small in developed countries, amount to a lot of money. Not to forget, its still a loan, and is at some point returned back to the lender. Kiva doesn't operate entirely independent of MFIs or Micro-Financing Institutions. The MFIs help Kiva pick out the candidates for loans. Similar to DonorsChoose.org, the visiting philanthropist can go through a list of these candidates, see which country they are from, learn their story, what they plan to do with the money, etc. The lenders can thus get a feel for the person they are borrowing out their money to. The actual handing over of the loan is handled by the MFI.
As long as we are on the subject of connecting, mention has to be made of TakingITGlobal.org. It has existed for as long as the most ancient of social networking websites, long before MySpace, or Facebook. Though not as popular (in terms of media coverage received) as the latter two, it does have an enormous number of members who are dispersed all over the globe and who interact with the aim of learning and pursuing social work. TakingITGlobal is a non-profit organization based in Canada which connects youth all over the world committed to social change. As stated on their website, their mission is to provide opportunities for learning, capacity-building, cross-cultural awareness and self-development through the use of Information and Communication Technologies, and beneath their logo are these three words - inspire, inform, and involve. With these goals in sight, the site is available in 12 different languages, has a good organization of information, and provides ample search facilities to locate kinds of social activities, organizations, discussions etc. The main navigating system is a menu with the following options (each with many sub options within):
Make Connections - with discussion boards, e-cards with social messages, user defined groups, search facilities for locating members, reading stories on social work or social issues posted by members, newsletters etc.
Take Action - contains guides to how youth can involve themselves in taking action in various fields like climate change, or HIV/AIDS related work etc. These are downloadable electronic documents and free. Other sub sections of this are projects (to create or browse through projects to which the viewer or other users can join depending on the vicinity), an open forum, petitions, commitments (where people can state a commitment, e.g. - to stop using non-biodegradable plastic bags, and others can take pledges to do the same, thus creating a kind of virtual solidarity for a cause). Each commitment gets a page of its own, where its acceptability can be tracked in terms of how many pledges it had targeted and how many pledges it received in reality, and also a blog for the commitment and more.
Browser Resources - with search capabilities to locate organizations, events, financial opportunities (scholarships, grants), professional opportunities (internships, volunteer positions, etc) and publications.
Express Yourself - with a global gallery (a potpourri of art, poetry, and other creative outlets that the members want to express themselves through), an online magazine called Panorama, and a printed publication called TIG Magazine, and the member blogs.
Understand Issues - with a list of internationally declared special days celebrating different causes, small games demonstrating different global issues, and whole sections dedicated to the following topics: Art and Media, Health and Wellness, Human Rights and Equity, etc.
Explore the World - Has data organized according to countries, and also a separate section on Aboriginal Canada.
The organization of information is multifold, in the sense that it is presented in many perspectives, tagged with appropriate categories. The categories in Understanding the Issues are also available for selection as search criteria when using the search facility under Browse Resources to locate organizations, financial opportunities, etc. Similarly, International Days is a sub category under Understand the Issues, yet, if someone is viewing an issue such as Health and Wellness from the Issues list also under Browse Resources, that page will also list the international days that are related to health and wellness. This makes sure that the readers are aware of all presented information from all angles on any topic.
TakingITGlobal sends a monthly dispatch to its members which outline the topics covered in its Panorama magazine, and other updates of the activities of its members. Its vast database of resources, plus its community approach, its creative outlets, make it, in my opinion, quite ideal for use even within schools and colleges, and maybe even universities to get them organized in social and community activities. TIG realizes the potential for use of its resources and toolkits for educating children about social issues, and thus one can find the link 'For Educators' right below its 'About Us' link. That outlines what they call TIGed ('TIG for Educators' made short), which has support for the issues presented as easy to understand lessons and also lets the teachers create virtual classrooms where students are taught to use tools to write and speak out on social issues. The tools are basically blogs, podcasting (audio/video content in digital formats that can be subscribed to) software, digital image galleries discussion boards, etc., put together to good use.
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