Salon (via Boing Boing) had an article about Richard Heeks' interesting economic and developmental analysis of so-called "gold farming", titled "Current Analysis and Future Research Agenda on "Gold Farming": Real-World Production in Developing Countries for the Virtual Economies of Online Games". Gold farming is the fairly common (albeit unethical and in some circumstances even illegal) practice of playing online video games for the sole purposes of collecting in-play money and valuables to sell for real-world money. Heeks claims that this has become a very lucrative activity for developing countries especially with several players involved, including individuals all over the world (often sending remittances to developing countries) and even enterprises whose primary business is gold farming.
Heeks sees this as an important issue for many fields including economics and the ICT4D (ICT for development) field. Heeks claims:
"Gold farming presents two things [for ICT4D]. First, a current model for earning money via an Internet-connected PC. Second, an example of a possible future model in which Internet-connected workers in developing countries produce a wide range of virtual goods and services. For both these reasons, the ICT4D field should be taking a keen interest in gold farming."
I certainly agree with Heeks that this is something that the ICT4D field should be aware of, but I do not see this as being something that the ICT4D field should be especially occupied with. First of all, as far as I can tell, gold farming is merely about making money and has little, if anything, to do with the types of impact the ICT4D agenda hopes to achieve in terms of the advancement of the knowledge economy, education and encouraging equal access to, and distribution of, the fruits of globalization. Tying up scarce computers in schools and telecenters in developing countries with dubious activities in online virtual worlds is something I hope that few would condone, no matter what the fiscal returns might be. Heeks does address some negative sides of this development, ex. when he compares it to the exploitation of Chinese immigrant workers in the US in the 19th century (hence the "quaint" title given to some Chinese gold farmers, "playbourers").
The BBC News site ran an article yesterday about the spread of the mobile web. Nothing surprising about that, it is the big buzz these days. I guess what is noteworthy now is that the "big" corporations (in this case Intel) are finally starting to take this seriously. The shift to mobile web is very interesting because it can both be seen as a reaction to the changing role of the web in people's daily lives while it also would seem to herald a new direction for the web. The overall result is that the amount of information that goes on the web and the interaction between people is exponentially greater than before. This changes a lot for the web as a "knowledge repository" since the nature of the communication facilitated by the web changes significantly. I think all this has some pretty serious implications for education and development that need to be taken into consideration sooner than later.
A large part of what is driving the spread of the mobile web is the increase in social web services, ex. blogs, twitter.com, digg.com, etc. In the early years the web was something that you sat down with and worked on, whether you were looking for information, making a web page or just cruising. Now, the web is a place where people share their daily experiences, not with summaries of a few days or so or pulling together a number of experiences into a coherent narrative, but with instantly communicated little tidbits. These are posted as they happen so it has become important for people to be able to access the web wherever and whenever people feel the need to communicate something.
This has some obvious consequences for the web as a knowledge repository because much of what is posted is presented in a limited context and/or is very subjective. Before these services became available, effective searches for specific topics were very likely to yield entire websites full of relevant information and references to supporting information. The type of communication that we see increasing on the web today with mobile services yield a very different set of resources - often simple "this is what I saw..." or "something I picked up somewhere" communication with little if any reference to supporting information to back up any conclusions drawn or suggested. With the spread of the mobile web this is very likely to increase. Things start to look a little more like a rumor mill than a knowledge repository.
I'm not suggesting that real valuable objective information is going to disappear off the web. Nevertheless, it seems reasonable to suspect that it may become somewhat separated from the information that web users will increasingly interact with on a regular basis. There are probably several ways to address this. I think the semantic web could make a big difference if it makes it possible to evaluate and tag information contextually. But, most important is educating users about the impact that their actions are likely to have when they interact using information through a public medium like the web. I think one of the most important elements in this is that web users be aware that information always travels in a chain, i.e. source and context are as important, if not more, than the information being conveyed. To illustrate:
I think that, in general, we consider our assumptions to be strengthened if we can point out sources to back them up, i.e. "I know that ... because of ..." This needs to be turned on its head such that our assumptions are first shown to be directly derived from sources, i.e. "[Source] says that ... therefore ..." This is a very simple and almost too obvious distinction, but makes all the difference in how we communicate information. Consider this, if in both of these cases you neglect the latter part of the equation, the first (I know that ...) really says nothing other than conveying a personal opinion that we may have no reason to believe while the second ([Source] says that ...) conveys a truthful and useful statement.
The spread of the mobile web is a good thing. But, it does have the potential to considerably change the nature of the web-user experience and there there is a mix of potential good and potential bad. Attitudes toward the mobile web seem to be very positive and very little attention has been given to potential downsides. There's more of a "It's coming, it's coming!!!" anticipatory excitement but now is the time to start thinking very seriously about what this really means.
OLPC is making a big mistake by considering including Windows on its laptops. In this BBC News article, Negroponte is quoted as saying,
"We are in the learning business and what the operating system is underneath is less germane"
Hogwash! The openness of the underlying system is an extremely important factor given what we have been told about the aims of the laptop project. The whole project was supposed to be firmly based on Papert's constructionist theory. Running a closed proprietary system (and the inevitable software that goes with it) entirely defeats this purpose. If Windows is an included OS on the OLPC laptop the nature of the project completely changes.
The problems that OLPC are facing are not because they don't have Windows. They are due to the fact that they have utterly failed to get potential buyers to buy into the theoretical underpinnings of the project and the goals that they suggest (hardly surprising - I don't think they've really tried). People that ask for an OLPC laptop with Windows are asking for something entirely different than what OLPC initially set out to produce. If OLPC goes through with the Windows-ization of their laptops, it's just not the same project as they set out with.
Then there is the matter of cost. Microsoft may be willing to donate Windows to OLPC so that OLPC's selling price isn't effected but only because they hope to recover it elsewhere. That's just how business in the proprietary software world works. The cost of computing in general (e.g. upgrades and future choices resulting from computing=Windows indoctrination) will be higher in the long term.
Finally, a couple of links to interesting articles on the BBC web by a reporter that had his child try out an OLPC laptop running open source software and an Intel Classmates laptop running Windows. I think this speaks for itself.
OLPC laptop with open source software
Windows based Intel Classmate
The focus of the World Bank's "Global Economic Prospects" this year is "Technology diffusion in the developing world". Not surprisingly, this has generated a lot of discussion about the "leapfrogging" concept, i.e. accelerating development through the adoption of cheap new technologies, as evidenced by recent articles in the Economist (and here) and on various blogs. Judging from these commentaries, the new report has cast a shadow of doubt on the whole leapfrogging approach to development. Although mobile phones remain the posterchild of leapfrogging development, they seem to be something of an anomaly. Other information and communication technologies (ICTs), especially computers, have not had as much of an impact (or maybe just not as noticeable an impact). This is largely blamed on the lack of communications and power infrastructure in developing regions which limits the useability of computers. I would suggest that many of these criticisms reflect an unfounded technological determinism and are based on a very limited view of the relationship between ICTs and society in that they overemphasize the "leapfrogging" and technology aspect and ignore the "leapfrogging" and development aspect.
Many efforts to introduce and diffuse ICTs, computers in particular, in developing countries assume that ICTs have become well-defined tools with well-defined roles and "appropriate" interfaces suited to those roles, and therefore, a "tried and true" "westernized" ideal of these technologies are promoted. In fact, there is little evidence to support such assumptions. In the past few decades computer interfaces have changed dramatically and existing metaphors (esp. the desktop metaphor) become increasingly unsuitable as computers have taken on roles that may have been somewhat unexpected by mainstream users ca. 10-15 years ago, ex. social networking, vehicles for personal commentary, media centers, etc. It would seem more reasonable to say that computers have served as a flexible platform that each generation of users has been able to shape to meet its own needs and expectations. What's more, these types of changes, or expansions, of the roles of computers have become increasingly rapid as their use has become more widespread. So, why the tendency to expect new users in developing regions to embrace technology presented in a manner so far removed from the experience of others? I think it may be, at least in part, due to a tendency to focus on anticipated general results of widespread diffusion of computers rather than focusing on the way things are done with computers and what is done with them.
From an educational point of view there are a few notable trends that can be identified where computers have achieved considerable diffusion (this is not to be taken as a claim that computers in education have been a raging success). Over the last four decades, the most notable impact that computers have had in a very general sense is obviously that the flow of information has increased, is more diverse, and has become more rapid. Over the same period, changes in thinking about education have corresponded with the impact that computers have had such that there is now a greater trend toward individual-based learning, constructivism and lifelong learning. This makes perfect sense when we consider the ways that use and manipulation of information flows has developed. For example, increased information flows have challenged existing notions of "truth" and we now generally accept that even seemingly well grounded scientific "truths" may be more relative to social and cultural norms than was previously assumed. This has become one of the primary justifications for individual-based and constructive learning, i.e. that "truth" is, at least in part, subject to individual conceptualizations and understandings of the elements involved. This in turn has underlined the importance of lifelong learning, which has evolved into a concept that not only encourages continuous learning, but also acknowledges that learning is an inherent aspect of human life, i.e. we are always learning and what, where and how we learn affects the way we internalise information that we receive in formal and non-formal interactions (I take this to be the gist of the Delors' report's definition of learning as "lifelong, life-wide and life-deep").
ICTs didn't change education overnight. We can identify trends, as I've done above, and in hindsight it may seem to us that the impact of ICTs was rapid and dramatic. But, I think that this is mostly because they have been very effectively rationalised, i.e. they have subtly changed whole conceptual frameworks, which in turn bounces back to effect ICTs. So, to get back to leapfrogging, do we introduce ICTs to promote novel forms of social interaction that may accelerate development or do we highlight the aspects of social interaction that may accelerate development and introduce ICTs to facilitate these? The ICT for development agenda is commonly referred to as ICT4D, but I'm going to make a distinction here and refer to the former path described above as ICT2D, i.e. ICT to develop - the assumption being that ICTs will spur on development, and the latter path I will refer to as ICT&D, i.e. ICT and development - ICTs can augment other development initiatives.
The question I raise above is not one that I am prepared to answer. But, I think that ICT2D carries a risk of introducing ICTs that are not relevant to the existing social fabric in the community involved because, at any point in time, technologies tend to reflect the societal values from which they emerge, and current ICTs have primarily emerged from western societies (obvious examples that come to mind are initiatives that are based on the "we need Windows" assumption). Therefore, outcomes ranging from total failure to diffuse the technology to cultural homogenization would hardly be surprising. However, ICT&D would launch ICTs in an environment where there may already be a perceived need for the types and levels of communication and information exchange that ICTs can provide, making for a more "organic" integration of the technologies into existing societal structures (examples would include initiatives in countries where they already have well educated computer scientists, like in Estonia and India). ICT&D is no less a potential "leapfrogging" path than ICT2D even though the diffusion of the technology itself may be somewhat delayed because it seeks to accelerate development in the same way as the former. The problem is that ICT2D is undeniably the easier to implement quickly and progress can be easily measured by simply counting cell phones and computers, measuring fiber optic cables, etc. (whatever that's supposed to tell us about levels of development...). I think it is this "easier" path that is usually envisioned in regards to leapfrogging development. In light of recent experiences we might want to take a better look at the other path.
I have received several requests to post references referred to in my so-called "Millennium Declaration Analysis Series" which I link to in the left margin of the main page of this blog. These lengthy articles are drafts that I produced for my MA thesis in Comparative Education. In most cases I did not include full references nor did I even include citations everywhere that they should be. These should not be taken as complete scholarly works but more as a snapshot of my thinking as I worked my way through my research and thesis process. Nevertheless, these are the most popular content on this blog. Therefore, I have decided to post here the complete list of references from my completed thesis. This should include almost all, if not all, references referred to in the draft chapters posted on this blog.
References
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Last summer, Craig R. Barrett, chairman of UN GAID and chairman of the board of Intel Corp., issued a list of "Recommendations from the UN GAID Chairman". A couple of the recommendations are worthy of a slightly raised eyebrow, and perhaps even a "wink wink nudge nudge" or two.
Barrett addresses education in his first recommendation. Conspicuously missing here is any mention of students. The gist of Barret's first recommendation is "Train teachers to integrate technology into the classroom". This is pretty obvious, but he goes on to say, "Computers aren't magic, teachers are." In light of recent spats between Intel and OLPC project (esp. Intel's teacher focus vs. OLPC's kids focus), one has to wonder whether this is Barrett the UN GAID chairman or Barrett the Intel chairman speaking here. The thing is that there is an abundance of research that gives us reason to question the effectiveness of entrusting classroom teachers with the spread of ICTs. Numerous studies have shown that even after receiving special training many teachers are hesitant to fully integrate ICTs into their classroom activities. They are far less likely to attempt to do something innovative with ICTs, choosing rather to use familiar off the shelf products, the most common being word processors. Meanwhile, ICTs have been shown to be truly transformative in very unpredictable ways when put into the hands of users, even when those users have little previous experience with them. Put simply, there is plenty of evidence to support a claim that computers may be more magical than teachers.
Barrett's other point that raised my attention is his fourth recommendation, "Competitive telecommunications markets are necessary to allow for affordable Internet access." Again, this makes sense up to a certain point. Competition certainly has brought the cost down, but only if there is a market to work with. Telecommunications markets have not seemed eager to seek out new markets where the most costly parts of the infrastructure are missing. East Africa remains the most poorly connected part of the world and it doesn't seem like the telecommunications market is exactly knocking at their doors with an adequate submarine cable in hand. We even have a rather dismal situation here in Iceland. Infrastructure within Iceland is very good (except for several rural areas) but the country is connected internationally by only two submarine cables, only one of which is for commercial use. Internet access outside of Iceland is metered (except for the most expensive services and even then there are limits) and quite expensive (not to mention the all too common outages that occur when something happens to that one cable). This will gradually get better, but still, it's a few years off. If Iceland's progress in this area is any indication of what can be expected for East Africa, they'll be waiting for quite some time for the telecommunications market to get around to building up decent infrastructure there.
The BBC News website has a great story about a child's first experience with the OLPC laptop.
Reminds me of my family's first home computer when I was at the tender age of 11-12. That was almost 30 years ago so obviously we weren't discovering the Internet, but I was very quick to pick up on programming with no instruction at all. Kids just figure these things out and often even things that no one had anticipated. Does this surprise anyone?
Update: I didn't dig deep enough to see what was really meant concerning constructionism and SimCity - see here - makes more sense now.
Game producer Electronic Arts has donated the original SimCity to the OLPC project (read more here). A GPL'ed open source version will soon be released under the name "Micropolis".
This is an interesting addition to the growing collection of OLPC software. I played SimCity way-back-when and enjoyed it immensely. It certainly has educational potential in areas such as civics and citizenship. However, I'm not quite sure that I agree with Slashdotter Zonk that it is "the epitome of constructionist educational games".
Papert's constructionism builds on Piaget, et al's constructivism. One of the key factors of constructivism is that knowledge is cumulative and adaptive in that it builds on previous experience and knowledge ("scaffolding"), and let's face it, a lot of the intended OLPC users will be children from poverty stricken areas and not the have-it-all-and-be-happy cities that SimCity promotes. While SimCity does make it possible to play the bad politician, as I recall this generally led to a chaotic unmaintainable city. In many parts of the world, this doesn't entirely jibe with the reality that people are faced with. Quite the contrary, poverty is quite carefully maintained through the wielding of political power. So, to provide a relevant context, will it be possible to carefully engineer and maintain poverty in the OLPC version of the game?
The Nigerian government has finalised a plan to make 17,000 Intel Classmate PCs available to school children. The project then took some strange twists and turns regarding the operating system for the laptops to run on. A strange series of events that illustrate the growing competition for control over computing platforms in developing countries.
Initially, the plan was that these laptops would run on Mandriva Linux, as announced by French Linux distributor Mandriva. Meanwhile, it seems that the Nigerian computer provider, Technology Support Center (TSC) (note the "Our values are openness..." under "Who we are" on TSC's webpage), decided that they would replace the Mandriva Linux system with Windows XP before distributing the laptops. Yet, they were still going to pay for the customised Mandriva distribution previously agreed to. Mandriva understandably complained and, finally, the government has stepped in and it appears that the initial plan, to have the laptops run on Mandriva Linux, will carry on, as reported in the ComputerworldUK article linked to at the beginning of this post.
Although I've not been able to find any explanation of what happened and why TSC was going to replace the operating system, it can't be ignored that Microsoft has been known to employ questionable tactics when faced with the possibility that competing operating systems may be widely deployed.
In the end, I think the Linux decision is a good one. Open source solutions give developing countries far more power to adapt technology to their own needs and contexts. What's more, the possibility to have an impact on the global ICT community is far greater with open solutions, which is something we all can benefit from.
At the recently concluded "Connect Africa" the ITU announced a partnership with Microsoft to produce ITU Global View, an online platform for tracking ICT development. It will be based on Microsoft's Virtual Earth and will allow for visual representation of data on ICT infrastructure and implementation. I'm sure this will be a very valuable tool for policy-makers, researchers and others. However, I'm somewhat disappointed that this will be built on a closed platform when perfectly viable open platforms, such as Google Earth, are available (for ex. see Gapminder recently acquired by Google).
The problem, as I see it, is that a closed platform will be controlled by, and fed by, institutions. Institutions necessarily generalise, simply because they cannot feasibly gather data that would be truly representative of all the imaginable levels of locality that are involved with their projects. Open platforms have shown that they are able to give individuals and communities a voice in a larger global community. We see this daily on blogs, wikis, social bookmarking sites and other open platforms. The sort of granularity that an open platform could provide would be far more interesting in a project like this.
For example, take a look at the Google Earth (American Cell Tower Density) visualisation posted here. That's some pretty interesting info. However, the visualisation is broken down into sectors. So, we don't know about cellular blind spots within those sectors, which might be very helpful. But, far more helpful and informative would be visual representations of the actual signal strength on a granular localised level. Then we might be able to look and say, "There are a lot of people in that spot right there that say they don't get a signal. Why not?"
But, even more importantly is that communities and individuals can develop their own data representations, telling the world what they want them to hear, rather than what one of many international institutions decide to collect data on.
As distribution of the OLPC project's XO laptop nears, has the shift of attention from the educational aspects of the project to the technical aspects injured the project?
When Negroponte and the MIT Media Lab started talking about their plans for a "$100 laptop" they never ceased to remind everyone that this was first and foremost an educational project and not a technology project. The project was well grounded in Seymour Papert's "constructionist" theory of learning, an expansion on constructivist theories' notion of "learning as creating meaning" to emphasise the conscious activity of creating, i.e. "constructing" as opposed to "having been constructed". However, the primary target audience for this revolutionary educational project, children in developing and under-developed countries, presented the project members with considerable technological hurdles, ex. how to overcome limited access to electricity and the Internet, how to ensure that the computers can endure harsh environmental conditions, etc. Although it was clear that, if successful, the project would deliver many technological innovations, the claim was that the primary focus was always on the educational aspects of the project.
Critics quickly came crawling out of the woodwork. Many criticized what they felt would be a waste of development funds that would be better used to provide the poor with food, water, medicine, etc. As the project moved forward, we finally started getting glimpses of what the computer would look like, and even got hints of how it would actually work. That's when the criticisms started to get confused. Many criticized the "non-standard" interface (and here) and the decision to use a Linux-based system, presumably based on the assumption that anything that isn't Windows (or at least Windows-like) isn't preparing users for a realistic future. Some even attacked the computer itself, claiming that it was too "cute", too "gadget-like". Even some big-wigs, like Bill Gates and Intel's Craig Barrett (who, by the way, heads the UN's Global Alliance for ICT and Development (GAID)) were delivering low blows, claiming that the $100 laptop would never amount to much more than a toy, all the while scrambling to introduce their own products to compete with the OLPC project (Barrett and Negroponte seem to have made up since).
Somewhere along the way, I think the critics managed to put OLPC on the defensive and directed attention away from the initial educational goals to technical and other aspects of the project. Negroponte lost his cool - lashed out at Intel for competing with his non-profit, started making unfounded claims. He played right into the hands of the critics and the critics seized the opportunity.
Although the OLPC project continues to receive considerable attention, very little is said about the initial educational goals of the project (ex. this BBC piece). Almost everything is about the technology, which, while certainly noteworthy, is really more a means to an end than a goal in itself. There is little if any mention about the nifty "activities" (why should a "desktop" metaphor make sense?) and software being developed.
I think that the real value of the OLPC project is in the educational goals of the project and the foundation that they are built on. These certainly are not above criticism (Robert Kozma has done a good job of shaking things up), but they are what will make or break the project in the end. With delivery of the machines apparently right around the corner, the OLPC project should put more resources into these educational aspects. In fact, they should never have stopped doing so. Kozma's criticisms of the theoretical assumptions of the OLPC crew are perfectly valid. The OLPC project could have spent a lot of valuable time testing and refining these theoretical aspects.
I have a lot of stuff on this blog on my analysis of the Millennium Development Goals, the United Nations Millennium Declaration and ICTs for development, but I never got around to posting anything about the research that came from it. Time to rectify the situation.
This post is about a document analysis of an ICT4D program that focuses on what Atkinson and Coffey (1997) have referred to as a "document reality", i.e. how an organization, institution or other entity presents itself through the documents it produces. My results surprised me somewhat because they reveal what I feel may result in many missed opportunities for the ICT4D community.
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I chose an ICT4D program that is fairly well known and well established and set out to determine how its documentation reflects the role of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and especially how it refers to the MDGs to promote consistency and coherence among a diverse range of activities. I based my assumptions about the MDGs on my previous analysis that can be read here, here, here and here. Basically, this is that, in terms of organizational policy, the MDGs should be viewed holistically based on globalization, the knowledge-based economy and learning as core processes, with poverty reduction as a core issue and goal, to maximize potential cross-cutting benefits of ICTs. For example, let's say that we have an initiative that focuses on a specific health issue. ICTs may have a specific role to play in the initiative, but because ICTs are not context specific (they're just very flexible communication technologies that can be used in any number of ways) it's important that an initiative try to relate specific goals to broader issues to emphasize the flexibility of ICTs. So, let's say our initiative concerns the development of a database on HIV related information. It should be made clear that the experience and knowledge gained from this specific HIV related project may, and probably will, yield useful experience and knowledge that can be applied to other initiatives - ex. expanding the database to include information on other health issues or linking it to information on health services, etc. Then, future projects can also make use of the results of our HIV related initiatives because that element of expansion was built into the project in the first place.
When I started collecting my data I got a bit apprehensive and quickly started to think that this wasn't going to be a very useful project. I had collected data and had a quick look through it and saw that it wasn't really organized the way that I had hoped or expected. But, I was persistent and dove into my data, coding and recoding and reading until I practically knew it all backwards and forwards. Soon, I started to see a pattern and the pattern that was coming to light was rather surprising.
What I saw was that this program, though they referred to the MDGs routinely, didn't seem to have really thought the MDGs through and the way they were presented in the documentary evidence was very inconsistent across the themes. Nevertheless, in their work program, they claimed to be committed to the MDGs and that they specifically seek to promote coherence across their three main themes. So, they want to make educational projects relevant to entrepeneurship projects and vice versa. One would think that, since the MDGs address these issues within a single framework, they would be an ideal framework for promoting coherence within a program that is so deeply committed to them. The reality was that the MDGs were routinely mentioned in documentation on educational projects, but only referring specifically to MDGs 2, universal primary education, and 3, gender equality in primary and secondary education. The MDGs were not mentioned at all in the small selection of documentary evidence related to other themes.
So I thought, I'll give them some flexibility and look for other indicators related to the MDGs, ex. globalization, knowledge-based economy, etc. As with the MDGs, these things popped up every now and then but not in a consistent manner. Certainly not consistent enough to reveal any clear cross-cutting benefits.
I started getting apprehensive again and thought, so what? Why does this matter? They still have an integrated program with themes that can benefit from each other. Isn't the coherence and complimentarity just built into the program as a whole then? That's when I got to the analysis of the output of some of the projects. Most revealing was a project that aims to collect comparative data on educational ICT projects in various countries. I had already analyzed the requests for proposals related to the project and noted the lack of, or limited, mention of the MDGs and relation to the core processes of globalization and the knowledge-based economy. What was so revealing about these documents was that the authors of the reports clearly wanted to relate their initiatives to the MDGs, globalization and the knowledge-based economy but the project gave them limited opportunity to do so. Therefore, these elements were sort of squeezed into the reports in several awkward ways and places that made them virtually inaccessible for any comparative analysis. Furthermore, if anyone wanted to use these reports to relate educational initiatives to other themes, ex. entrepeneurship and innovation, they would have to navigate through each and every different structure and expression of these cross-cutting elements.
So, what does this tell us? First and foremost, that the document reality that an organization or program constructs is relevant to the outcomes of its projects. The social reality within the organization may be very different than the document reality. In this case, the program studied does not have an exceptionally large staff and they must talk to each other at least every now and then - passing information along on what is going on within their own thematic areas. But, the social reality is not what most outsiders, which would usually include prospective project promoters, have immediate access to. For most of them, it is the document reality that defines the program and constitutes the structure that they will function in as recipients of grants.
For the ICT4D community, as with the bulk of the international development community, the MDGs frame and orient the current development agenda. It is important that these communities have a deep understanding of the MDGs and how they relate to development policy to be able to effectively contribute to the attainment of those goals. In the policy context it is not enough to refer to specific goals that can be related to narrowly defined themes. This goes against what the MDGs are intended to achieve, i.e. complimentarity and coherence of a diverse range of approaches. It is enough to point out the organization of the MDGs to make this clear. They are organized in a hierarchy in terms of their relevance as indicators related to other targets. The first target is poverty reduction because that is the primary goal of the development community. The subsequent targets, although no less important, are all intended to help achieve that first target, each in their own way. This is not to say that ICTs are least relevant since they fall under the last target. It merely means that in terms of measurable progress, they are in and of themselves the most intangible. This is why target 18 is so vague - it needs to have room to be applied to a wide range of issues, some of which may not yet have been identified.
We might ask, is it perhaps overly presumptious to think of the MDGs as a policy instrument at all? I mean, aren't they just a set of indicators to measure development progress? Indeed, the MDGs do not constitute a policy because they do not attempt to say anything about how the goals are to be achieved, only what measures are considered to be evidence of progress. However, the fact that they emerge from and continue to contribute to broad discourse about development should compell us to relate policy to them in the context of current discourse. But, to do so, we have to view them holistically to be able to relate them to processes that can inform policy in such a way that it aims to address the entire hierarchy of targets. A policy may focus on health related issues, but if it does not attempt to also address educational, environmental and other health related issues in its general framework, its contribution to the overall goal of poverty reduction is undermined. The same goes for the ICT4D agenda. If ICT4D initiatives do not clearly promote bridging between goals, their contribution will be questionable. Current discourse on development and ICTs makes it quite clear that the bridging capacity of ICTs and the context in which poverty is measured are related to globalization and the knowledge-based economy (with an emphasis on learning and innovation). ICTs are the drivers of globalization and the essential tools of the knowledge-based economy. Therefore, the MDGs can be regarded as a policy instrument, but, to be effective as such within the ICT4D community, they need to be holistically related to globalization and the knowledge-based economy, rather than merely to narrowly defined specific development goals.
The folks at the MIT Media Lab stay true to their constructionist/constructivist roots with SCRATCH, a nifty application to introduce the rudimentary concepts of programming and have fun while doing it! An interesting approach. It'll be exciting to see what happens.
The BBC news website has a collection of brief reports about ways that ICT use is being spread and used in poverty stricken areas in South Africa. Everything from mesh networking with tin cans to free open source software.
While you're on BBC's site you may want to check out Bill Thompson's recent article about computer use in exams (or lack thereof). I couldn't agree with him more.
I had an interesting phone call this evening. It was from someone in the US who was preparing a piece for a morning radio show on the impact of Skype in China and was interested in the "leapfrogging" aspect. As I'm sure will always be the case, one comes up with the best responses after the actual interview. That, and I was thawing some chicken at the time and thinking about what I was going to do with it for dinner. Things like that can be a little distracting.
My response was along the lines that I don't see Skype as such being a major leapfrogging development for a few reasons. Firstly, the old criticism against the technocentric view of leapfrogging applies. Adopting Skype, or any other such ICT for that matter, doesn't really constitute leapfrogging in and of itself because it merely entails adopting current technology. That isn't a step beyond anything, as the leapfrogging concept suggests. Secondly, to function acceptably, Skype requires a fairly stable and up-to-date ICT infrastructure. So, Skype functionality is more a result of ICT adoption rather than a major step forward.
The big question then is how would Skype be used once it achieves widespread adoption in China? This is a question that I cannot answer and I would be surprised if anyone could at this point. But, judging from the way it's been used in places where there already is widespread adoption, I wouldn't expect anything too remarkable. As far as I'm concerned, Skype just makes it cheaper and easier to do things that we already do, i.e. communicate. Obviously that does impact the potential level of integration between regions with all the benefits that may have, but so do a lot of other things and any assumption in this regard would be highly speculative.
On top of this is the issue of Internet censorship in China. I don't know how things stand today but I do know that Skype was initially blocked in China. Given Chinese authorities' track record in these matters I would be quite surprised to learn that Skype can currently be freely used in China to facilitate communications with other Skype users or traditional telephones outside of China. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
The thing that came to me after the interview, that I should have said about leapfrogging (although I got the impression that the focus was more on China) actually regards Skype itself. Skype has had a significant impact on Estonia, where the program was initially developed although the idea was brought over by a Swede and a Dane, and this may be regarded as far more illustrative of the leapfrogging concept than the diffusion of the application. Skype (and Kazaa which came from the same place) have given Estonia a lot of credibility in a new IT sector that is exceptionally innovative. This example underlines the fact that leapfrogging doesn't necessarily entail a move forward ("leapfrogging" might be a bit of a misnomer). In fact, it's far more effective when it moves to the side, so to speak. Estonia is creating a market that is unique and where it is an undisputed leader. This has contributed considerably to Estonia's being the dynamic EU hotspot that it is at the moment. That's leapfrogging!
Another draft related to my thesis. This one follows the previously posted drafts and discusses the theoretical foundations of the concepts of "knowledge" and "learning" in a globalized knowledge-based economy with special emphasis on ICTs. Links to the previous chapters are at the top of the left navigation column on the front page of the blog under the heading "The Millennium Declaration analysis series: drafts & excerpts from my thesis."
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Knowledge and learning
The preceeding analysis clearly suggests that what is referred to by “knowledge� in the context of the KBE is not an objective entity that can exist separated from an individual. Knowledge is not a book or even a statement delivered by one individual to another. Perhaps it is best to consider knowledge as a property of individuals and as such something that can not quite be seperated from them because once separated it loses its context and relevance. Furthermore, knowledge can not be allowed to stagnate. An individual’s knowledge is constantly challenged by new experiences, reflection and reevaluation and is therefore always changing. Even the act of articulating knowledge is in itself a reflection and likely to have an impact on an individual’s knowledge. So, it is more appropriate to consider books and other products of a knowing individual as snapshots of the individual’s knowledge in a given space, time and context. Knowledge itself is inseparable from the processes that feed it, i.e. learning, and the individual that holds it. That being said, knowledge and learning are quite distinct. We use knowledge to produce things and to make judgments, whereas we use learning to develop our knowledge.
Knowledge
The notion of the KBE as a learning economy reflects several assumption about the nature of knowledge. Value is placed on the capacity and willingness to learn instead of the ability to articulate established “facts�. This line of thinking may be associated with several epistemological theories, but it is best expressed by advocates of “naturalized epistemology�.
Naturalized epistemology rejects traditional epistemological concerns about truth and knowledge for a more scientific approach to epistemological questions relying heavily on the cognitive sciences (Kim, 1988 - Kim, Jaegwon (1988) "What is Naturalized Epistemology?" Philosophical Perspectives 2 edited by James E. Tomberlin, Asascadero, CA: Ridgeview Publishing Co: 381-406). The resulting epistemological theories focus on the way individuals actually think, learn and share ideas.
While the traditional view of knowledge sees knowledge as consisting of many seperable components, i.e. “facts�, naturalized epistemology takes a more holistic view. An individual’s body of knowledge is considered to consist of a logically connected “web of beliefs� (Quine 1969). Some beliefs are more fundamental than others, reinforced either by fundamental assumptions, ex. religious beliefs, or by repeated empirical reinforcement. Despite the different nature and source of these beliefs, the entire body of beliefs acts as a whole, constantly being reevaluated in reaction to new experiences and information. There is therefore an emphasis on senses and individual experiences, (as sources of beliefs), the links between beliefs, and the language used to express beliefs and relay them to others.
Because knowledge in the naturalistic view is very individualized, in a societal context it is then best understood as an expression of the relationship between one’s beliefs (theory), what one actually experiences (observations) and how things are experienced. Therefore, knowledge is not simply beliefs about the world around us, it is an expression of how we sense the world around us in a particular context. For example, it has been claimed that the Piraha, a very small Amazonian tribe, have a very limited counting vocabulary (The Piraha challenge: an Amazonian tribe takes grammar to a strange place Science News, December 10, 2005). The Piraha are said to have words for one, two and many, with the word one often referring to “small�. One might assume that 4 simply does not exist to them. But, it would be absurd to assume that a Piraha, when presented with 4 occurences of an object, does not perceive 4 of objects. But, the Piraha appears to lack the means to express that in a manner that would distinguish it from, say, 5 occurences. An individual from a different societal context may refer to a an object in a very different way than I but both are referring to the same object. So we might say that knowledge is clearly defined and confined by individual experiences and the experiences of those in an individuals immediate environment.
Given this view of knowledge what is significant about the global KBE is that the “immediate environment�, i.e. knowledge cultures that an individual potentially experiences is greatly expanded. The global KBE therefore exposes assumptions that may be deeply rooted in societal contexts. On the one hand this may cause considerable friction between cultures that have previously had limited exposure to each other. On the other hand this may also provide an ideal opportunity for individuals and cultures to expand their knowledgebase by learning from these individuals and cultures that they have gained access to. This is the essence of knowledge in the context of the global KBE - The blurring of cultural (and knowledge) borders reveals deeply embedded assumptions to reveal inequalities in our conceptualization of concepts such as “globalization� thereby providing us the opportunity to reevaluate them given a broader understanding of the impact it has on others. It is this, at least in the context of globalization, that is the learning element in the global KBE as a learning economy.
Learning
Advocates of naturalized epistemology are primarily concerned with the nature of knowledge and epistemological questions concerning truth and validity. They lay little emphasis on learning except as it pertains to these questions. Obviously, since there is an emphasis on cognitive processes, learning does enter into the dialogue but it is not a specific focus in and of itself. The naturalistic notion of knowledge and the processes associated with knowledge development are More focused on learning and quite consistent with naturalized epistemology are constructivist theories of learning.
Much like naturalized epistemology, constructivism rejects objectivist notions that knowledge aims to accurately reflect an objective reality outside of the knower, the validity of which is empirically verifiable. The primary claim of constructivism is that the process of learning aims to develop knowledge that is constructed by individuals for the purpose of organizing that individual’s experiences (Glasersfeld, 1996). So where constructivism departs from traditional conceptions of knowledge is in the claim that our knowledge is not dictated by an ontological reality, rather how we relate to the objects we experience. Constructivism does not reject an ontological reality, it merely asserts that while the objects of our knowledge may be the same, the way we relate to them is different. This is important to note because if we reject an ontological reality, we reject the possibility of different ways of knowing having any impact on each other. One way of knowing will simply have no meaning to anyone but that knower, or those knowers, i.e. we are stuck in the throes of solipsism. New contexts, created on the basis of local knowledge, will be meaningless to anyone outside of that locality. The solipsistic view leaves only one path open for creating a level playing field in the global KBE – everyone conforms to the same rules. On the other hand, by accepting an ontological reality, but rejecting its relevance, constructivists acknowledge that there are different ways of knowing and that, through recontextualization, they can be made meaningful for each other.
Knowledge and learning for equitable globalization
Whereas naturalized epistemology is concerned with how the world is seen, constructivism is concerned with how the world is defined. So for the constructivist the primary interest is in how subjective conceptualizations are formed and what they say about the world. Learning is therefore a process of defining concepts that may go through many iterations in a constant attempt to accurately portray that which is experienced. These two theories come together in the notion of a global KBE. The process of formulating an equitable definition of globalization is clearly a constructivist activity. The KBE is firmly grounded in the naturalistic notion of knowledge as a dynamic and holistic web of beliefs that is constantly being refined and expanded. From the two together emerges a notion of the global KBE as a learning economy that thrives on differences made all the more accessible by the diffusion of ICTs. The potential of the global KBE as a positive force is dependent on the spread of ICTs and that they provide real opportunities to all to actively participate in the global flow of information as both receivers and providers of information.
The European Commission (DG Enterprise and Industry, I suppose) has made available a comprehensive report on the significance of free/libre and open source (FLOSS) applications for economic and innovation development. The report is titled "Economic impact of open source software on innovation and the competitiveness of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) sector in the EU" and the principle author is Rishab Aiyer Ghosh, founder of the online journal, FirstMonday, and a prolific researcher on FLOSS.
The report is HUGE, nearly 300 pages, and, as I mentioned, quite comprehensive. I actually wonder whether it would have made sense to divvy it up but a case can also be made for presenting it in one piece.
What's most interesting to me is Ghosh's focus on FLOSS communities as learning communities and their significance for development. He's done a lot of work in this area in the past. See especially pg. 171, in the conclusions to chapter 8.5, Modeling the economic impact of FLOSS on innovation and growth. There the authors say (take a deep breath, looong sentence),
"Our results are suggestive of the overriding importance of human capital formation in this set-up, and especially the way in which FLOSS can directly and positively influence the speed at which contributors to FLOSS communities can pick-up new knowledge and put that to good learning use, for themselves but also for the more down to earth users of FLOSS software, certainly if the latter would be geared at the design of free access ICT-based learning environments."
Same thing I was trying to get across here, where I do indeed refer to Ghosh's past work. Not as sophisticated as in this new report, but we're thinking along the same lines.
Apple finally announced its long awaited "iPhone" today. To tell the truth it's a pretty snazzy gadget. Although many have attempted to accomplish similar technological convergence, Apple, as so often before, seem to have anticipated users' needs and wishes to create something that is new, usable and desirable, and in so doing they may be once again leading a pardigm shift in how we use technology. This last point is what I think is most significant about the iPhone. It reminds us that we have not, nor should we assume to have, come up with the ultimate design for technology and the way we use it. Yet, there's always a persistent group that considers divergence from current computing paradigms, such as Microsoft's Office suite, a valid criticism against new technology. As delivery of the OLPC's (One Laptop Per Child) "$100 laptop" nears, the project has received a lot of criticism on exactly this point, ex. "It doesn't look like anything that's being used in the business or computing world today, therefore it's misleading, and at worst, useless." I have a few responses to such criticisms and Apple's bold new venture proves my point(s) in so many ways:
1. Given that the OLPC laptop is intended for young children, how do these critics know what computer use in computing and business is going to look like when the laptop users enter these fields? I've been using computers for over 25 years and have not witnessed the kind of consistency that these critics seem to expect from computers in the future.
2. The OLPC laptop is to be delivered to young people in many areas where computing is relatively new. Is it unreasonable that these new users, coming from a very different background, will be able to point out to more complacent longtime computer users different and better ways to accomplish tasks? Remember, it was Heddy Lamarr (actress) and George Antheil (musician) who came up with the idea of "frequency hopping", on which modern mobile telephone technology is based. They didn't hook up with experienced engineers until they started going through the patenting process.
3. Why do these critics think that OLPC laptop users will want to use the technology to do what they themselves have done with it for the past half century? Computers are not collections of software, even though that's how most of us use them today. Computers are essentially workbenches for creating tools to do whatever a creative mind can come up with and young people tend to have very creative minds.
The story about Microsoft's translation of its software into Mapuzugun, a language spoken by about 400,000 indiginous Mapuche Indians in Chile, has been raising a lot of attention on the net. The Mapuche Indians want to take Microsoft to court for using their language without having consulted them to get their permission. The big question being raised concerns ownership of a language, i.e. can Mapuzugun be considered the intellectual property of the Mapuche Indians, and this is what the Mapuche Indians would like the courts to decide.
I suspect that the Microsoft translation project is related to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's plan to increase accessibility to ICTs in several developing countries, Chile being among them, by supplying public libraries with free computers and Internet connections. Of course, for such a project to be successful, they can hardly set up a bunch of computers with interfaces in English or other common languages, that are not commonly spoken by the anticipated beneficiaries of the project. But, and here is the other issue in this and the more serious one in my opinion, that computer software would be translated and localised without consulting the people concerned borders on the outrageous. It's like if Microsoft would suddenly tell francophones that the French word for a computer will henceforth be "le computer". Imagine the ruckus that that would cause!
The problem here is that the IT lingo, which I assume was lacking in the Mapuzugun language, is not being allowed to emerge from the cultural consciousness of the Mapuche, but is rather being imposed on them. This becomes a question of equity, meaning that if the language comes from the outside it is reflecting the knowledge and understanding of a foreign culture, and thereby, limiting the sense of ownership in the concept(s) being promoted, in this case of the Mapuche Indians and ICTs. Hence, ICTs are presented as a concept of outside origin to which the Mapuche Indians have to adapt rather than as a tool which the Mapuche Indians can adapt to their own needs. This simply goes against everything that ICTs are intended to promote in the context of development for a globalised knowledge-based economy.
People over at the UNDP's Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme (UNDP-APDIP) have caught on to the brilliance of Wikis. They've released a bunch of their "e-Primers" under a GFDL license onto Wikibooks. What this means is that they are free to be edited by YOU, me and everyone else.
Somewhere I read that 1 ICT year is roughly equal to 3 real years. So, if an e-Primer was published 3 years ago, that means it's at least 9 years outdated! But, now we can all go and update them to our hearts' content with examples of good/bad practice, new developments, etc., and, of course, I expect us all to do exactly that. Obviously, you'll most likely find me hangin' out around the ICTs in Education primer, although I'm sure I can find some other topics of interest in the vast amount of material available.
It would be great to see some other organisations do this.
There seem to be so many things going on these days. Maybe it's just that time of year or maybe I'm finally awaking from semi-hiatus. Either way, I'm probably going to cover a lot of news in this post.
Two of the more promintent items "du jour" are, of course, the China-Africa Summit and the Internet Governance Forum. Intriguing happenings on both fronts. Both of these, along with other not-as-visible things, underline the types of changes we are seeing, and will continue to see in the near future.
The China-Africa Summit is one more embodiment of what has been talked about for some time now, i.e. the changing relations in the global sphere being brought about by the rise of "new" economic powers, especially China and India. This summit makes it quite clear that China is looking to build economic ties with African countries to strengthen their position (although not only - I was recently at a meeting here in Iceland with a delegation of 30-35 people from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Education that were on a world tour stretching right around the globe to build educational and business ties. Talk about thinking big!). Hopefully this is good news for Africa, but there is a justified measure of scepticism concerning the reputation of the benefactor. For instance, it would be great of the budding relationship between Africa and China would result in better telecommunications connections for Africa, but hopefully their use would not be managed the same way China manages its own communications infrastructure.
The Internet Governance Forum is in my opinion very confused. Governance involves the the exercise of authority to manage a consistent societal structure. I don't see this as being applicable to the Internet as such. The issues that are increasingly being raised under the auspices of "Internet governance", eg. access,
diversity and basic rights, are not exclusive to the Internet. These are issues that need to be addressed outside of cyberspace. We are not nearly "virtual" yet. Therefore there is no sense in trying to govern a space that is not inhabited, per se. For the time being, Internet governance should focus on the things that we can hope to govern, i.e. technical issues such as interoperability and domain management.
Several different points of view on the Internet Governance Forum's inaugural meeting.
Another interesting thing worth mentioning:
Potential car of the future?
This is so cool! The sad thing is that it seems that each time one of these breakthrough ideas that will radically change energy consumption emerges, it seems to quietly disappear and things go on as before... (I remember reading about a revolutionary alternative to washing machines many years ago that was said to be on its way to the market shortly - never happened.) They can't all be bad ideas, can they?
An "Internet Bill of Rights" has been proposed at the inaugural meeting of the Internet Governance Forum. While I can see the rationality behind wanting to ensure some basic rights for Internet users, I just don't see what sort of impact a bill of rights is expected to have. And furthermore, introducing this under the auspices of "Internet governance" underlines how weird (in my opinion) the whole "Internet governance" thing has become.
If my memory serves me right, "Internet governance" became a prominent issue (i.e. if it was around before, not many people were aware of it) around the debate concerning the ICANN's management of top-level domains and a handful of other fairly obscure technical issues. Most of these issues remain unresolved. Meanwhile, the notion of "Internet governance" seems to have taken on the elasticity of a well chewed wad of bubble gum. All of a sudden "governance" is taken to refer to everything from freedom of speech to basic issues concerning access and multilingualism.
These certainly are real issues worthy of attention, but grouping them with the technical issues that "Internet governance" used to refer to is confusing. At least there are real forseeable ways to resolve the old "Internet governance" issues, i.e. management of top-level domains etc., but these new issues seem to require something of the Internet that just isn't there.
For example, let's say that we do draft an Internet Bill of Rights. It's not difficult to imagine what would be in it, basically the same stuff that's in the universal declaration of human rights. Maybe in slightly more techy language, or what? Then, who is going to monitor and/or enforce the protection of those rights? And how?
The thing is that, as yet, Internet societies (that's another problem, there's not just one) are not separate from terrestrial societies. Yes, individuals may be able to distance themselves to some extent from their terrestrial existence by going on the Internet. But, at the end of the day, they remain tethered to their terrestrial roots and are ultimately subject to the rules and regulations set by the relevant territorial authorities. If those authorities are not willing to acknowledge the political supremacy of an "Internet governance" body, an Internet Bill of Rights is likely to be little more than a noteworthy statement on a piece of paper (or a webpage).
As Negroponte, the "granddaddy" of the project, has said, the project is not a technology project, it is an educational project. The examples illustrated in the article show that, as an educational project, it extends not only to the children that are eventually destined to work with the laptops, but also to developers all over the world, to help them better understand the needs of computer users in developing countries - an important aspect that I've hinted at before.
The United Nations University (UNU), a network of specialised research and knowledge sharing programs, has announced that it has joined the OpenCourseWare Consortium (OCW Consortium). The OCW Consortium is an initiative which I believe was launched by MIT after they started offering free access to MIT course descriptions, syllabi, reading lists, lecture notes, etc.. Opencourseware is based partly on the notion of open source software, i.e. making courseware freely available for anyone to use for their own learning, as a model for their own courses, etc.. The limitation that MIT has set is that opencourseware does not provide access to MIT teaching staff and can not be used to receive any recognition or qualifications from MIT.
I think it's great that the UNU is doing this. It is certainly in the spirit of the UN and the ideal of an "information society open to all". The UNU's involvement in this initiative may certainly produce an important resource for individuals and organisations the world over. But, I think there is a slight flaw in the current thinking about opencourseware which limits somewhat its potential.
Open source software is based on complex communities that involve themselves in projects for many different reasons. Most importantly, although open source initiatives form around the production of specific artifacts, i.e. the software source code, they are process based, with the primary focus on two processes; knowledge development and making something better (Raymond's "bazaar" analogy). Not everyone agrees to this description of open source communities (some focus more on the concept of "free/libre"), but I think that this description is the one that has the most significance for other communities interested in integrating elements of open source communities. What is important about open source communities in this regard is the way they work and the tools they use. What I feel is missing from the opencourseware initiative, when I look at the matter from this perspective is, the dynamic change in open source and the tools that make it possible to track changes, what prompted them, who made them, how they were made,. etc.. Imagine if one could track the evolution of a single course over years and across circumstances and read about why one text was replace with another over the years, etc.. I think this would be far more informative than the simple static descriptive resources being made available through opencourseware initiatives.
So, while I applaud the OCW Consortium and the UNU for its commitment to the initiative, I think a lot more could be done with the basic idea to make it even more useful. Things to consider:
Standardised means of describing courseware (open metadata model)
Concurrent versioning systems (CVS) for courseware
Promote change and encourage sharing (gpl-type license)
Now here's an interesting development (in Icelandic). A player in the game Eve Online, which has a very economical bent, opened a bank and convinced players that they would receive interest on their virtual savings with the bank. After a few months the banker stole all of the money and took off. The amount stolen is 790 billion ISK (the currency in the game - happens to be the international abbreviation for the Icelandic Krona as well - needless to say the game is made by Icelandic company CCP), a very sizable sum of virtual cash.
I recently posted a lengthy blurb about globalization where I wrote about Scholte's notion of globalization as "supraterritoriality" and how it remains tied to traditional territoriality. But, I also suggested that this may be changing as we see more and more virtual valuables being exchanged. The interesting thing about the Eve Online case is that ISK's and other virtual valuables are exchanged in the real world. It has been estimated that the money stolen in the game may be worth up to 12 million real ISK (ca. US$175,000). Will the fraudulent banker try to cash in on the crime in the real world or will he/she keep the cash in its more valuable virtual form? If the latter, is there anything territorial about this supraterritoriality?
Update: I guess this news has been circulating on the web for a few days. For versions in english - Slashdot has something on it, as does ArsTechnica.
I came across an entry on the APC.ORG blog site the other day about the lack of submarine fibre cables to and from the African continent. They point to an interesting map of submarine cables throughout the world and point out the difference between the African continent and other parts of the world. While the difference is quite dramatic, I'm afraid the problem is more complex and serious than is implied.
Obviously, the map being referred to is very stylistic and perhaps not the most informative representation of the data. For instance, one thing that is not at all clear from this map is that Northern Africa, on the Mediterranean Sea, is probably the best connected part of the continent. But, more seriously, the map fails to show that the problem is not merely the lack of connections to and from the continent, it is in how those connections are managed inside and outside the continent. For instance, let's consider Australia. On the map we can see that Australia does not appear to be significantly better connected than Africa (if we accept that the map is not accurately portraying submarine cables linking to Northern Africa). Yet, Australia is number 11 on the Network Readiness Index, far higher than any African country (Tunis is number 31).
For a more complete picture of the connectivity issues in Africa see the two articles linked to in this post.
Many visitors to my blog end up here in their quest for simple definitions of key terms related to the ICT for development agenda. So I've decided to start compiling a glossary of ICT4D terms. I am going to place a link or menu over here on the left to provide easy access to this glossary. Of course, any and all assistance will be much appreciated in the form of comments, suggestions, etc.. Anyone interested in contributing can leave a comment to this post or email me at tryggvi_bt@yahoo.com.
Time for another installment related to my quest to unravel the deep hidden meanings of the Millennium Declaration (UNMD), the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), globalization, ICTs, etc.. If the UNMD is about globalization, which it largely is, the referenced document concerning ICTs, the ECOSOC 2000 Ministerial Declaration (ECOSOC2K) is primarily about the knowledge-based economy (KBE). In the following essay I discuss what the knowledge-based economy is and how it relates to globalization, ICTs and development education. This is meant to be read as a continuation of my previous posting about globalization in the context of the UNMD and the MDGs. Click below to read on...
The UN Millennium Declaration (UNMD) doesn't say much about ICTs, other than that they should be available to all. Yet, the ICT4D agenda is largely based on the UNMD and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) derived from the UNMD. Luckily for us, the UNMD does indicate that what is referred to as "the benefits" of ICTs is explained in the ECOSOC 2000 Ministerial Declaration (ECOSOC2K). Looking at the ECOSOC2K, we find that, according to ECOSOC, the primary justification for promoting ICTs is the emergence of the knowledge-based economy (KBE). The ECOSOC2K does not define the "knowledge-based economy", other than stating that (ECOSOC2K, pg. 2):
"The emerging new economy, characterized by a rapidly increasing reliance of value creation on information and knowledge, still remains concentrated in the developed countries. Unless access to and use of ICT is broadened, the majority of people particularly in the developing countries will not enjoy the benefits of the new knowledge-based economy."
While this doesn't exactly provide us with a useful definition of the concept, it does indicate that ICTs are necessary for the KBE and that this new economy can, and should, be beneficial to all. On the other hand, while at least providing a hint of what a KBE is meant to be, the use of language similar to the UNMD blurs the distinction, if there was one to begin with, between globalization, as discussed in the UNMD, and the KBE. This raises the question whether globalization and the KBE are intended to be understood as one and the same, entirely separate, or inextricably linked?
According to Godin (2006) the current concept of a knowledge-based economy (KBE) can be traced back to the beginning of the OECD's "National Innovation Systems" (NSI) project. The project was launched in the early 1990's to encourage member states to formulate policies that "... maximise performance and well-being in “knowledge-based economies� – economies which are directly based on the production, distribution and use of knowledge and information." (OECD, 1996).
Godin (2006) identifies two distinct focuses in NSI related literature:
- Institutional focus - Emphasis is on the importance of formal institutions within member states, as producers of knowledge and innovation, and the regulations that govern those institutions.
- Theoretical focus - Emphasis is on the nature of knowledge and learning as a process that contributes to the flow of information and knowledge.
Godin goes on to claim that the concept of a KBE, as it is currently understood, emerged from the theoretically focused discourse (pg. 18), which was led by B. A. Lundvall, former deputy director of the OECD Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry. Instead of focusing on the institutional infrastructure with it's traditional notion of R&D departments as the centers of innovation and knowledge creation, Lundvall heralded the emergence of a "learning society" in which everyone is, by virtue of their inherent capacity for renewing existing knowledge, a potential source of innovation (Lundvall, 1992; Lundvall and Johnson, 1994). Hence, for an economy that seeks to capitalize on innovative ideas, knowledge becomes the primary resource and learning the primary process for generating useable resources. But, Lundvall's notion of a "learning society" (or "learning economy" (Johnson and Lundvall, 2001)), is meant to address more than just the need for innovation in a KBE. The rise of the KBE, as a learning economy, is a reaction to globalization with its increasingly rapid changes in global relations, global markets, and the way we conduct our lives. In Lundvall's conceptualization of the KBE, the way to deal with such rapid change is to prepare individuals for a lifetime of continuous learning. But, in recent literature, the KBE has more commonly been defined in terms of the economic returns that can be expected from existing and new knowledge (Harris, 2001; Godin, 2006). In this discourse, that is increasingly focused on devising means to account for knowledge (like traditional bookkeeping), Lundvall's emphasis on the "learning process" is pushed to the background. The resulting conceptualization of knowledge as a pseudo-tangible resource that can be collected and passed around fuels the blurring of the distinction between globalization and the KBE, because globalization is often associated with the transfer of knowledge and culture.
The notion of the KBE presented in the ECOSOC2K leans more toward Lundvall's "theoretical" conceptualization. Section 14. (pg. 4) includes a lengthy list of recommendations for national programs intended to promote development with the aid of ICTs in the context of the KBE. These recommendations can be characterized in terms of four general processes related to the shift toward thinking in terms of knowledge products:
- Production - generate knowledge and use it.
- Acquisition - access to information that reflects various perspectives.
- Absorption - learning from others.
- Dissemination - teaching others.
All of these clearly relate to the theoretical conceptualization of the KBE, emphasizing learning and information/knowledge sharing and use. Nevertheless, the ECOSOC2K states these in terms of both human resource development, i.e. the theoretical aspect, and institutions and networks, i.e. the institutional aspect. Potential conflict between these two aspects is avoided by presenting the institutional aspect as a means of providing "a conducive environment for the rapid diffusion, development and use of information technology" (pg. 4) whereas "Investment in education, including basic and digital literacy, remains the fundamental way of developing human capacity and should be at the heart of any national, regional and international information technology strategy." (pg. 3). So, clearly, the institutional aspect of the KBE is seen as an infrastructural issue meant to be addressed in a manner that will facilitate and promote the theoretical notion of a "learning economy".
Previously, I posed a question about the nature of the relationship between globalization and the KBE. The current conceptualization of globalization owes a lot to the spread of neo-liberal policies that have influenced institutional and organizational regulations, giving rise to the creation of a supraterritorial space in which these entities function. The institutional view of the KBE equates it with the regulatory mechanisms that make globalization possible. Hence, if we accept the institutional view of the KBE the distinction between the two is very unclear. On the other hand, if we take the theoretical view of the KBE, as a market based on "knowledge products", i.e. products based on the knowledge of individuals, the two are quite distinct and not even necessarily connected. We can easily imagine such a KBE without the global supraterritorial space, ex. as increased mobility of knowledgeable workers within a traditional territorial space. A concrete example would be the proliferation of information technology consultants. This is a profession that has seen a dramatic increase in numbers over the past few decades. Nevertheless, in the case of software-based problem-solvers (i.e. that do not work with hardware or create software), they do not necessarily market any specific tangible products or skills. Their business may be entirely based on what they know and their work may have little or nothing to do with globalization (as long as we allow ourselves to disregard the business concerns of their clients).
The views of the relationship between globalization and the KBE as the one and the same or as entirely distinct are not likely to produce any helpful long-term development benefits. Both fail to address what we actually see happening in the world as a result of what these concepts claim to describe, i.e. the increasingly rapid rate of change on a global scale. Thomas Friedman (2004)documents several examples of currently ongoing changes in his book, The World is Flat. Perhaps the most dramatic of these are the changes taking place as a result of the rise of the ICT-based service-sector in India. "Services" in this context basically applies to any process that can be facilitated through the transfer of information, including support services, accounting, industrial design, software programming, etc.. This market is largely based on the outsourcing of knowledge intensive services from countries geographically located far from India. The results of the changes that this entails are not obvious to everyone (especially consumers of these services), but within specific professions they are painfully obvious. Since certain knowledge intensive and specific services can now be obtained very cheaply from far away from where they are actually needed, professionals within the locales from where these services were traditionally obtained have had to redefine the nature of their business. This has meant that individuals have had to re-educate themselves just to be able to make effective use of their previous knowledge and stay relevant within their fields. And, as the traditional service providers continue to expand their knowledge, so do the outsourcees, creating a global flow of knowledge needs and development.
This then brings us back to Lundvall's theoretical conceptualization of the KBE as a learning economy. The notion of the KBE as a learning economy captures the needs associated with the increased global dispersion of services and production processes. Because these are increasingly subject to rapid change, individuals need to be able to educate and re-educate themselves constantly based on developments that may be going on anywhere in the world. Furthermore, to be able to adequately evaluate their changing knowledge needs, they need to be able to stay abreast of local and distant developments. Hence, the KBE emerges not as a result of the marketability of specific "knowledge products", but the marketability of the ability to adapt and change through continuous learning. What ties the KBE to globalization is that both are based on and rely on ICTs (Thurow, 2000; Harris, 2001). Without ICTs, global supraterritoriality, i.e. the space in which transactions increasingly take place, would be hindered by the need to deal with traditional territorial concerns, such as transportation, monetary exchange, regulatory issues, etc.. In the context of the KBE, ICTs are necessary to access, generate and share knowledge and information needed to enter and maintain relevance within the global supraterritoriality. The ECOSOC2K clearly makes these connections between ICTs, continuous learning and the KBE. But, it also recognizes the difficulties faced by many developing regions of the world, primarily the lack of infrastructure needed to implement ICTs in a useful manner. The UNMD, on the other hand, integrates the ECOSOC2K concerns about the KBE into a broader agenda concerned with globalization. Together these form the type of whole consistent with Lundvall's conceptualization of the KBE as a learning economy for maximizing the potential benefits of globalization.
The ECOSOC2K is crucial to defining and understanding the ICT4D agenda in the context of the UNMD and the MDGs. Because ECOSOC2K relates the goals of ICTs in development work to the KBE understood primarily as a "learning economy", learning becomes an inherent overarching concept throughout the ICT4D agenda. The concept of lifelong learning, in the sense of the "Delors Report" (The UNESCO Delors Report: Learning: The Treasure Within), i.e. "lifelong, lifewide and lifedeep", is central to the view of the KBE, as an open and democratic environment where knowledge is generated, shared and utilized, that is presented in ECOSOC2K. Therefore, when considering the impact of ICT4D initiatives, we should also consider their potential to foster learning environments consistent with the concept of lifelong learning. This would include the ability to critically analyze and utilize existing inf