Free and open source software - software that any developer can modify and improve - is an obvious way to go for developing countries - and the idea and its use are certainly gaining ground in Africa. One of the interviewees in this video captures the spirit nicely. As a child he would take his new toys apart to see how they worked - he never could accept the principle that things were closed to prevent understanding and improvement.

But there are obstacles - and they are within the very institutions that stand to gain so much. As another interviewee so rightly says - there is resistance within the administration of universities (even within the IT divisions) to adopt open source software. Watch the video - it's good.



The two projects profiled here, AVOIR and POLLES, are providing both the software to encourage eLearning and university administration in sub-Saharan and North Africa respectively, along with providing a platform for post secondary institutions to get applied training in software development. Connectivity Africa has been supporting these initiatives since 2004.

For more information:
http://avoir.uwc.ac.za
http://www.sakaiquebec.org/en/projets/polles.html
http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-87736-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html

How technology influences and is influenced by Human Capital Management - This video presents amazing research on the development and evolution from the industrial age to the information age and globalization. The figures will, of course, be out of date by the time you view this video.



This movie was intended to answer some of the questions left by the original shift happens production of "Did you know?"

Movie developed and researched by Lyle Potgieter, Mark Middleton, Fabrice Ho Fi and Renee Thorn. Enquire at http://www.PeopleStreme.com for a Facts Sheet.

Shift Happens: Education 3.0 - a newly revised edition for 2009 of the video originally created by Karl Fisch, modified by XPLANE and Campus Management. It answers the question, "What are we doing about the shift?" and covers innovations by Ashford University, Bridgepoint Education, Huntington Junior College, Jones International University, Mercer University, University of the Rockies, and The University System of Georgia.



This video gives an interesting perspective on how fast developments are taking place and emphasises how important it is for us to ensure that no country or community is further disadvantaged by being left behind.

I was having a conversation with someone the other day about "historically defining technologies", i.e., technologies which define a period in history. The printing press and the telephone could be said to be two such "defining technologies". The conversation was about whether or not we can know at the time which technologies will be "defining" when viewed historically at some point in the future. It seems to me that Web 2.0 tools are prime candidates to be seen as "defining technologies". Web 2.0 will be seen as defining that period in history when radical changes in society were made possible by the abilitity to create, share, collaborate and publish digital information through the Internet.

So what is Web 2.0 and what are these changes?

The book/report "Change at hand: Web 2.0 for development" covers these topics. It is special issue of the series: Participatory Learning and Action that is guest-edited by Holly Ashley, Jon Corbett, Ben Garside and Giacomo Rambaldi, published in June 2009 by IIED and CTA.

It shares learning and reflections from practice and considers the ways forward for using Web 2.0 for development. A multimedia CD Rom with articles in English and French (and some in Spanish) is forthcoming later in 2009.

PART I: OVERVIEW
1. Change at hand: Web 2.0 for development
Holly Ashley, Jon Corbett, Ben Garside, Dave Jones and Giacomo Rambaldi
2. The two hands of Web2forDev: a conference summary
Chris Addison
PART II: STUDIES OF WEB 2.0 TOOLS
3. Exploring the potentials of blogging for development
Christian Kreutz
4. Web 2.0 tools to promote social networking for the Forest Connect alliance
Duncan Macqueen
5. Promoting information-sharing in Ghana using video blogging
Prince Deh
6. Mobile phones: the silver bullet to bridge the digital divide?
Roxanna Samii

PART III: ISSUE-BASED STUDIES
7. Anti social-computing: indigenous language, digital video and intellectual property
Jon Corbett and Tim Kulchyski
8. Tools for enhancing knowledge-sharing in agriculture: improving rural livelihoods in Uganda
Ednah Akiiki Karamagi and Mary Nakirya
9. Ushahidi or ‘testimony’: Web 2.0 tools for crowdsourcing crisis information
Ory Okolloh
10. Web 2.0 for Aboriginal cultural survival: a new Australian outback movement
Jon Corbett, Guy Singleton and Kado Muir

PART IV: THEORY AND REFLECTION ON PRACTICE
11. Circling the point: from ICT4D to Web 2.0 and back again
Anriette Esterhuysen
12. Web 2.0 tools for development: simple tools for smart people
Ethan Zuckerman
13. The Web2forDev story: towards a community of practice
Anja Barth and Giacomo Rambaldi
PART V: TIPS FOR TRAINERS
Web 2.0 tools: a series of short introductions
Holly Ashley, Dave Jones and Luigi Assom with Jon Corbett, Ben Garside, Christian Kreutz, Kevin Painting, Duncan Macqueen and Giacomo Rambaldi

Each introductory guide provides a brief description of the Web 2.0 tool and how it can be used for development purposes, along with links to further information and where applications can be downloaded online (more information also in e-participation):

• Blogging
• Micro-blogging and Twitter
• Wikis
• Online social networking
• RSS feeds
• Tagging
• Social bookmarking
• Glossary of Web 2.0 terms

This special issue is co-published with the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

Download "Change at hand: Web 2.0 for development" (PDF 6 Mb)

Chawama Township in Zambia is like so many other urban centres in Africa and the Caribbean - it is facing major problems with the young people, especially males. It has a population of 37,500 of which 65% is 25 years old or younger. Most of the youths (between 15 and 25 years old) are unemployed and lack skills to generate their own sustainable livelihoods. One of the main factors is the low level of education. Many youths do not finish their school, and most of these school drop outs are unskilled and unproductive, which in turn negatively affects their self-esteem and leads to increased levels of loitering, alcohol abuse and criminal activity. The story is a familiar one.

But Chawama Township has tackled the problem in a way that deserves attention.
“We realized that there is a rampant employment among youth of Chawama Township. So we decided to come up with a skills training centre to give them life skills. This would help them to get employment or be self employed” said Rodgers Mulenga (Secretary General of the Chawama Youth Project).
Here is a video about the award-winning Project.



The Chawama Youth Project (CYP) is a community-based non-governmental organisation established in 2001 and registered with the Technical Education, Vocational and Entrepreneurship Training Authority (TEVETA). It offers ‘life skills’ courses in subjects such as Auto Mechanics, Tailoring, Carpentry, and ICT, to improve the young people’s chances of finding work. Teachers are using the internet to enhance content (e.g. by accessing diagrams of engines using Google Images instead of drawing on the blackboard); hand-outs are being produced quickly; existing lesson plans are now being stored and re-used.

You can download an IICD briefing on the project here.

This is Day 5 and a bit of Open Access Week.

Okay - so I know that strictly speaking Open Access Week runs 5 days - from October 19 to October 23 - so today's blog is an extra free one :-)

But I really did want to squeeze in this second part of the special two-part issue of IJEDICT dedicated to Open Access Week and designed to deepen the flow of academic knowledge between the Caribbean and Africa.

Vol. 5, No. 5 (2009) of International Journal of Education and Development using ICT has now been published online at:
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewissue.php?id=23.


As usual, the articles are available for anyone to read and download free of charge. This issues has nine articles and a couple of editorials:

Editorial

Editorial: Special Issue - e/merge in Africa
Stewart Marshall, The University of the West Indies, Barbados, West Indies
Wal Taylor, TISI, Cape Town, South Africa
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=898

e/merge in Africa
Tony Carr and Laura Czerniewicz, University of Cape Town
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=879


Refereed Articles

Scarce resources: Conflict and sharing in discourse around primary school email use
Nicola Pallitt, University of Cape Town, South Africa
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=865

Educators and the Cape Town Open Learning Declaration: Rhetorically reducing distance
Andrew Deacon and Catherine Wynsculley, University of Cape Town, South Africa
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=878

Degrees of Openness: The emergence of Open Educational Resources at the University of Cape Town
Cheryl Hodgkinson-Williams and Eve Gray, University of Cape Town, South Africa
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=864

Creating an online learning ecology in support of mathematical literacy teachers
Maggie Verster, ICT4Champions, Johannesburg, South Africa
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=863

Assessing Cell Phone Usage in a South African Township School
Tino Kreutzer, United Nations Development Programme
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=862

Investigating popular Internet applications as supporting e-learning technologies for teaching and learning with Generation Y
Mici Halse and Brenda Mallinson, Rhodes University, South Africa
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=861

Using ICTs in Teaching and Learning: Reflections on Professional Development of Academic Staff
Markus Mostert and Lynn Quinn, Rhodes University, South Africa
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=860

Increasing education access through open and distance learning in Tanzania: A critical review of approaches and practices
Willy Lazaro Komba, Mkwawa University College of Education
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=859

“Him and Her” - gender differentials in ICT uptake: A critical literature review and research agenda
Ruth Nsibirano, Makarere University, Uganda
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=858

This is Day 5 of Open Access Week. This blog is about a really valuable source of open educational material and associted resources - DG Communties. It isn't new. I've been a member for a couple of years. But it has had a name change to "Zunia" and the website has had a face-lift.

dgCommunities is a place to find knowledge resources focused on development issues and also an interactive space where you can share your own work, participate in discussions, find people with similar interests and more. They have more than 40,000 members worldwide - and over half are in developing countries.



The revamped site comprises, amongst other things, a knowledge exchange, country guides and also several overlapping interest groups, e.g., open educational resources, eLearning.

dgCommunities is a collaborative space for professionals working in more than 200 countries to share knowledge resources, tools, contact information, and more. Each online community is centered on specific themes and guided by experts in the field. Their role is to coordinate topic highlights, prepare community newsletters and monitor content submissions for relevance and value to the topic at hand. All guides, volunteer advisors and community coordinators are committed to ensuring an open forum where all ideas are welcome.

International collaboration is at the heart of dgCommunities. More than 500 individuals and organizations working as volunteer guides and advisors, or cooperating with the Development Gateway Foundation team in other ways. If you or your organization want to get involved, please read our Get Involved page and then contact us. We want to hear from you.

Use of dgCommunities is open to all and has a global membership. They are committed to the values of tolerance and respect for all views, with no preference or bias as to the source of any content submitted by a community member or partner organization. The dominant language of most individual communities and their content is English. Navigation is also available in Arabic, French, and Spanish. They encourage members to submit content in French and Spanish. Currently, only the Arab reform community accepts content in Arabic. Most guides, advisors, and other participants speak more than one language, in some cases, many languages. Feel free to contact them.

dgCommunities is provided by Development Gateway Foundation (DGF) as part of its mission to reduce poverty and enable change in developing nations through information technology.

This is Day 4 of Open Access Week and today's blog is about the first of two special joint issues of the International Journal of Education and Development using Information and Communication Technology (IJEDICT) about opening access the Atlantic.

IJEDICT is an e-journal about ICT in development that provides free and open access to all of its content. It fully supports the open access movement and has dedicated these two special joint issues of the journal to the movement by deepening the flow of academic knowledge between the Caribbean and Africa.

IJEDICT has always had a special relationship with Africa. One of the Chief Editors was working at Cape Town University of Technology when the journal was first started and is now the Director of TISI, an NGO headquartered in Cape Town. And of course, IJEDICT continues to have a very special relationship with the Caribbean because it is published by The University of the West Indies, and the Founding and Managing Editor (me) is located there as a Director in the Open Campus of the University.

So what better tribute to Open Access Week than to have two special joint issues of IJEDICT dedicated to the Caribbean and to Africa.

The first of these two issues - Vol. 5, No. 4 (2009) - has now been published online at:
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewissue.php?id=22

Here are the contents:

Editorial

"Editorial: Special Issue on eLearning in the Caribbean"
Stewart Marshall, Open Campus, The University of the West Indies, Barbados
Wal Taylor, TISI, Cape Town, South Africa
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=893

"Guest Editorial: eLearning in the Caribbean"
Dianne Thurab-Nkhosi, Open Campus, The University of the West Indies, Trinidad & Tobago
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=873


Refereed Articles

"Burrokeet, an Application for Creating and Publishing Content Packages with support for Multiple Input and Output Formats"
Margaret Ann Bernard, The University of the West Indies, Trinidad & Tobago
Anil Ramnarine, Open Campus, The University of the West Indies, Trinidad & Tobago
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=853

"E-learning at the Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business - A Survey of Faculty Members"
Balraj Kistow, Lok Jack GSB, Trinidad & Tobago
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=845

"myDR: Improving the Self-Care Process for Caribbean Patients with Type II Diabetes through Mobile Learning"
Salys Sarah Sultan and Permanand Mohan,
The University of The West Indies, Trinidad & Tobago
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=850

"MyeLearning as a tool to enhance the writing process in Spanish as a foreign language"
Diego Mideros, The University of the West Indies, Trinidad & Tobago
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=851

"Creating Reusable Lesson Plans for E-learning using the IMS Learning Design Specification"
Diana M Ragbir and Permanand Mohan,
The University of the West Indies, Trinidad & Tobago
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=852

"One Size Fits All? – The Case of ECNG 3020 – Special Project Portal"
Wayne Sarjusingh, Crista Mohammed, and Fernando Castellanos
The University of the West Indies, Trinidad & Tobago
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=866

"Technology-oriented or Learning-driven?"
Lisle Waldron, The University of the West Indies, Trinidad & Tobago
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=870

This is Day 3 of Open Access Week and today's blog is about an open access book on another favourite topic of mine - telecentres for development.

The book - Making the Connection: Scaling Telecenters for Development – identifies and discusses the most pressing issues facing the global telecenter movement, presents a condensed view of the current state of knowledge with regard to telecenters, and highlights possible paths forward.

The book was developed through a partnership between the Academy for Educational Development, Microsoft® and IDRC's telecenter.org. Two AED staff, Barbara Fillip and Dennis Foote, were the principal authors of the book.

As C.K. Prahalad says in the Forword -
"We know that the Internet has brought the potential for empowering even the most marginalized groups in our societies. We know that it will benefit all of us if we can unleash their entrepreneurial energy and creativity. Among the first steps is surely the challenge of how to achieve access to the Internet for the groups at the bottom of the pyramid, so they can participate fully in shaping their own future."

In developed countries we tend to think of "universal access" as meaning having Internet access in the home. But in so many developing c0untries we have to think differently about this concept. Instead, we need to think of strategies for providing universal communal access. Hence the need to "scale telecenters for development". The primary goal of this book is help people move forward, to inspire them and whenever possible, to guide the growth of this movement.

The book is in three main parts. Part 1 reviews the past and the evolving vision of telecenters for development. Part 2 seeks to identify appropriate organizational models and appropriate technologies for sustainability and scaling. Part 3 looks at scaling up at the national level.

The book uses case studies to illustrate the main themes. Many of these case studies are from projects that AED’s Information Technology Applications Center has carried out over the last two decades, some are from Microsoft® and some from IDRC’s telecentre.org program.

This is Day 2 of Open Access Week and today's blog is about this goldmine of resources I found a little while ago. It has video programs and supporting resources on a whole range of topics for K-12 teachers courtesy of Annenberg Media. Go to their website http://www.learner.org to see what is available.

Utilising these resources will certainly create interesting classes. And of course, the whole idea of the project is to create interesting, creative educational K-12 classes. Annenberg Media uses media and telecommunications to advance excellent teaching in American schools. This mandate is carried out chiefly by the funding and broad distribution of educational video programs with coordinated Web and print materials to assist K-12 teachers improve their classes and also for their professional development.

They have a brochure available to assist people to find material on their website.

Annenberg Media is part of The Annenberg Foundation and advances the Foundation's goal of encouraging the development of more effective ways to share ideas and knowledge.

For the whole of Open Access Week, October 19 – 23, 2009, each day's blog will be devoted to ... you've guessed it - open access.

This is Day 1 and this first blog of the week is about the timeline of the open access movement.

Peter Suber used to maintain a Timeline of the Open Access Movement (formerly called the Timeline of the Free Online Scholarship Movement) but since February this year it has moved to be a sub-component of a wiki called the Open Access Directory. Moving it to a wiki is, of course, an excellent idea. It means that the OA community can update, edit and maintain the content, rather than all this falling on one person.

I found the timeline very informative. Although I have been a supporter of the OA movement and an editor/publisher of an OA journal IJEDICT for several years, I hadn't realised that one of the very early OA journals is New Horizons in Adult Education and Human Resource Development which started as an OA journal in 1987. There's lots of other interesting facts included in the comprehensive timeline.

Whilst browsing the timeline, I decided to look at the "containing" wiki - the Open Access Directory (OAD).

The OAD collects together lists of sources and resources about open access (OA) to science and scholarship. It is maintained by the OA community so is continually being added to, edited and refined. The easier they are to maintain and discover, the more effectively they can spread useful, accurate information about OA. By bringing many OA-related lists together in one place, OAD makes it easier for everyone to discover them and use them for reference. Thus, for example, there is one page on "Free and open-source journal management software" - very useful to institutions thinking of starting journals.

I just want to remind everyone that Open Access Week starts in a week's time - so you've just got time to organize something.

This event, which takes place October 19 – 23, is an annual event to broaden awareness and understanding of open access to research, including access policies from all types of research funders, within the international higher education community and the general public. As you all know, open access is a topic close to my heart, so I hope you'll all participate in some way.

Open Access Week builds on the momentum generated by the 120 campuses in 27 countries that celebrated Open Access Day in 2008. Event organizers SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition), the Public Library of Science (PLoS), and Students for FreeCulture welcome key new contributors, who will help to enhance and expand the global reach of this popular event in 2009: eIFL.net (Electronic Information for Libraries), OASIS (the Open Access Scholarly Information Sourcebook); and the Open Access Directory (OAD).

This year’s program will highlight educational resources on Open Access that local hosts can use to customize their own programs to suit local audiences and time zones. OASIS will serve as the centerpiece of the 2009 program, delivering resources for every constituency and every awareness level. The Open Access Directory will again provide an index of participants on five continents, as well as their growing clearinghouse for all OA resources. Through the collaborative functionality of the two initiatives, OA videos, briefing papers, podcasts, slideshows, posters and other informative tools will be drawn from all over the Web to be highlighted during Open Access Week.

The organizers will also work with registrants to develop a variety of sample program tracks, such as “Administrators’ introduction to campus open-access policies and funds,” “OA 101,” and “Complying with the NIH public access policy” that take full advantage of available tools. Participants are invited to adapt these resources for local use, and to mark Open Access Week by hosting an event, distributing literature, blogging — or even just wearing an Open Access t-shirt.

For more information about Open Access Week and to register, visit http://www.openaccessweek.org.

It is rather ironic that ICT is the most powerful tool we have for sharing knowledge and yet we are not sharing experiences and knowledge about ICT project implementation effectively. Initiatives spring up everywhere, seemingly with little awareness of what is going on elsewhere.

One way to tackle this problem is to have country-based or regional information and knowledge sharing networks. The Ghana Information and Knowledge Sharing Network (GINKS) is a good example of this approach. It streamline all disjointed ICT projects, initiatives and programs in a way that provides solutions to challenges and problems in the Ghana ICT environment.



The whole purpose of GINKS is to create a structure through which all relevant Ghana ICT initiatives will be facilitated. As a network, it will:

• Commission research on ICTs and development;
• Publish an influential on-line and off-line quarterly newsletter;
• Organise and participate in workshops, seminars and fora on ICT4D related themes;
• Undertake activities and programmes to generate and source for funds in aid of the network;
• Form strategic partnerships and build networks with organisations and institutions;
• Provide a united front for advocacy on ICTs for development themes and issues.

So far the activities of GINKS include:

• Interactions with rural communities to identify development partners who will work with GINKS to address the information needs of local communities;
• Co-organising monthly seminars on ICT4D issues with BusyInternet called the cyberseries
• An online space for networking through the GINKS mailing list and GINKS portal;
• Co–organising information exchange events with development partners for members of the network with other stakeholder participation;
• Working with organisations such as ITAfrica.org to generate and disseminate local ICT4D content.

Just came across this useful open access resource from an EC/FAO Programme. Their website "Food Security Information for Decision Making" has lots of information, news and self-access e-learning courses.



The website offers self-paced e-learning, developed by international experts to support capacity building and on-the-job Training and Workshops at national and local food security information systems and networks.

You can try the sample lesson without registering - "What is Food Security?" I had a look at it. The presentation is clean and colourful, with easily manageable amounts of information presented on each page. I found it to be a well developed self-access course.




The following courses are also available (free of charge) just by registering:
- Food Security Information Systems and Networks
- Reporting Food Security Information
- Availability Assessment and Analysis
- Baseline Food Security Assessments
- Food Security Concepts and Frameworks
- Collaboration and Advocacy Techniques
- Livelihoods Assessment and Analysis
- Markets Assessment and Analysis
- Nutritional Status Assessment and Analysis
- Food Security Policies - Formulation and Implementation
- Targeting
- Vulnerability Assessment and Analysis

Well worth exploring.

The infoDev Incubator Support Center - iDISC - provides hands-on and practical information for incubators and other business development organizations using ICT to facilitate entrepreneurship and new business creation in the developing world. It is also a place where members of the Network can tell their stories and link up with similar organizations.



On iDISC you can find:

• A “How to” section with guidelines for starting an incubator, selecting clients, managing and financing an incubator, monitoring and evaluation, and engaging partners.
• An overview of our 5 regional networks and activities across Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe & Central Asia, Latin America & the Caribbean, and Middle East & Northern Africa.
• An iDisc Network Member Directory that allows you to search and locate incubators across the regions, and to search facts & figures within the global network.
• Network members' Success Stories and Tools that tell us about the impact of business incubation on business start-ups and tools that can be shared among network members to implement best practices.
• Presentations and documents from workshops and specific research themes.
• Information on upcoming events, such as infoDev regional workshops as well as local seminars and symposiums.

This virtual networking and knowledge-sharing platform has its origins in infoDev’s Incubator Initiative, which started in 2002 to support organizations promoting ICT-enabled innovation and entrepreneurship in developing countries.

I'm fortunate. I live next to the beach, which is obviously very enjoyable. And just occasionally it throws in a few surprises.

At about 7.00pm last night I was walking back from the supermarket with two plastic bags (yes - we still use those here) filled with groceries, got into the parking lot of the flats where I live and I noticed all these baby turtles going the wrong way - away from the sea towards the road. So I put all my groceries in one plastic bag to empty the other one, then used it to put the baby turtles in as I caught them. I must have collected about 50 of them and thought I had got the lot. So I walked the 20 metres on the path alongside the flats to the beach and the sea, waded in a bit and released them all.

Then I came back to collect my other bag to go upstairs to my flat. But the baby turtles had other ideas. There were more of them, all scuttling across the car park in the wrong direction. So I collected that lot, probably about 30 to 40 of them, and then took those down to the sea. Came back and - guess what - there were more of them - so I gathered those up and took them down to the sea to join their brothers and sisters.

On my last trip back I couldn't see any more, so I dashed upstairs to take the groceries in and change into something more suitable for turtle catching (though I'm not sure that turtles are very fashion conscious). Then back down to see if there were any more.


How many eggs do these things lay And the mother just left them all for me to look after. Phew!!! Pretty irresponsible parenting if you ask me.

Apparently, after hatching, the turtles are confused by the lights and head towards them instead of down the beach to the sea. An understandable mistake.

Well, on my return I found that a neighbour had noticed the turtles' plight and decided to join me in scooping them up. But now we were only catching a few late developers or stragglers. So two more trips with about 10 turtles and we reckoned we'd got the lot. So we decided to call it a night. And what a night!!

What's all this got to do with ICT? Absolutely nothing. But it explains why I'm not writing the usual blog tonight

South Africa has more HIV positive citizens than any country in the world. In some provinces, more than 40% of the population is infected. Yet only 2% of South Africans have ever been tested for HIV. Testing and anti-retrovirals are now available in all parts of the country. And yet, of those who are HIV positive, a mere 10% are receiving anti-retroviral therapy – leaving 90% untreated, infectious and likely to die.

HIV/AIDS carries a huge social stigma in South Africa, preventing many from getting tested or pursuing treatment, and there is wide-spread misinformation about how the disease is contracted.

Project Masiluleke seeks to harnesses the power of mobile technology to address these issues. Here is a video about the Project.



Meaning ‘hope’ and ‘warm counsel’ in Zulu, Project Masiluleke brings together a coalition of world-class partners – including iTeach, the Praekelt Foundation, frog design, Nokia Siemens Networks and the National Geographic Society. The first phase was launched on October 1, 2008, when a text message was sent to 1 million phones – the largest-ever use of mobile messaging to address HIV.

The key elements and stages of Project Masiluleke include:

“Please Call Me” x 1 Million x 365 - messages broadcast in the unused space of “Please Call Me” (PCM) text messages – a special, free form of SMS text widely used in South Africa and across the continent. Trained operators provide callers with accurate healthcare information, counseling and referrals to local testing clinics.

TxtAlert - a system of text messaging to remind patients of scheduled clinic visits to help ensure they adhere to ARV regimens.

HIV Self-Testing with Mobile Support - The project partners are actively exploring a low cost HIV self-testing with mobile counseling support. Analogous to a pregnancy test, these distributed diagnostics would provide a free, private and reliable way for anyone to take the critical first step of knowing his or her status, with high-quality information provided via mobile device.

This blog constantly refers to Web2.0 software and tools, and how important they are for sharing, publishing, collaborating and communicating. If you are thinking of using Web2.0 software and tools. JISC provides a quick start with their JISC Web2Practice Guides.

Each guide consists of a short animated video explaining the key concepts, supported by a more in-depth printable overview of the topic, covering the potential uses, risks and how to get started.

The guides and the resources used to create them can be downloaded, modified and shared for teaching, staff development or other purposes permitted by the creative commons licence. More details are on the downloads page.

The web2practice project aims to help people enhance their working practice by understanding the potential of web2.0 tools. Rather than providing a HowTo guide to using these tools, the project seeks to motivate people to explore the tools for themselves.

Web2practice guides have been created for the following topics:

• Social Media
• RSS
• Collaborative Writing
• Podcasting
• Microblogging

Further topics are planned, including Social Bookmarking and Digital Identity.

Here is a slidecast that introduces the web2practice project. It was originally presented at the "JISC conference 09: Opening Digital Doors".

The wonderful thing about social software is that it enables everyone to have a voice, to publish, and everyone to participate. As researchers and educators, our participation in the processes of change enables us to shape, share and collaboratively build development knowledge. And it is incredibly important that this knowledge is open and freely available to researchers everywhere so that everyone can use it and build on it.

The aim of the PanAf Observatory is to better understand how the integration of ICT can enhance the quality of teaching and learning in Africa. In its initial phase, energy and investment will be focused on the development of an open Observatory for researchers and practitioners in the field to collect and share data. Whilst not wanting to distract energy from this excellent aim, I do feel that the site could be improved by providing a more interesting landing page.


The PanAf Observatory is an open knowledge-sharing resource for research on the pedagogical integration of ICT. Three search functions are available: Simple Search — which allows you to view indicators from institutions in a single country, Advanced Search — which allows you to compare indicators in different institutions and countries, and Summary Search — which allows you to browse a mapping of ICT in education summaries from the institutions and countries participating in the project.

You are highly encouraged to leave a comment, or suggest modifications to any indicator by clicking on the associated icons throughout the Observatory.

The site says that it is also easy to add and modify data on the Observatory - all you need is an identifier and password to log in. To sign up, you contact info@observatoiretic.org. I guess this is to try to avoid spammers, but an online form would have been better.

This PanAf Observatory project is grounded in multi-institutional partnership, with a focus on tertiary level research institutions, attached to universities, in the participating countries. The partner countries will work under the scientific and technical coordination of ERNWACA (Educational Research Network for West And Central Africa), and the Université de Montréal. Consult ERNWACA's PanAfrican Research Agenda on the Pedagogical Integration of ICTs web portal for more details. The PanAf Observatory has external partner organisations including infoDev and the UNESCO Institute for Statistics.

Written by Christian Kreutz and originally published on Web2forDev Gateway on Friday, 11 September 2009 14:39

Social network websites in the Internet are growing at a breathtaking speed and development organizations or projects need to keep up with these networks and use them in their work. How can this happen and what are the different technical options? This post provides you with a quick overview explaining the main options and different ways to go about social networking for campaigning, fundraising, stakeholder dialogue, knowledge sharing and collaboration.

Two years ago, Dan McQuillan wrote about social networking and social change: "There's some uncertainty about how non-profits should approach social networks, and especially how to get an effective return for the time that has to be invested in these relationship-spaces." Tool choice: Own or known networks

An important question before engaging with social networks is whether you want to custom-build your own platform or work with an existing solution. Here are the different options:

A) Develop a complete social network website. There are incredible solutions available such as Drupal, Joomla or Elgg, which allow all kinds of customization.

Pros: You can fully tailor the platform to meet your own needs
Cons: This can be an expensive option. Adequqate time is needed for development, customization, maintenance, patching and updating, and this can eat into your resources.

B) Use external solutions, which are readily available and offer a wide range of features.

Pros: Very quick to start and is not as costly as 'development from scratch'. Have all essential features such as forums, blogs and email alerts. Such a solution is Ning, which is easy to administer even by non-technical persons.

Cons: Although platforms like ning.com offer many features, some essential features may be missing. Your data are “fixed” on an external server. Equally to option (A), this approach needs mobilization for members.

C) Establish your organization in one or more social networks. Create organizational profiles, groups or fan-pages and interact with millions of potential members. These social network websites include Myspace (www.myspace.com ), Facebook (www.facebook.com ), Orkut (http://www.orkut.com ), Hi5 (http://hi5.com ), Linkedin (http://www.linkedin.com ) or Twitter (http://www.twitter.com ).

Pros: Very quick to start and good for mobilization and awareness. The implementation normally involves no costs.

Cons: All data and your members are bound to the website application. The profile or group pages only offer a limited number of features. Possible further collaboration might not be possible in such a “walled garden”.

Known communities on LinkedIn include the following:

• Web2forDev Web 2.0 for Development
• Video4Dev - Video for development
• PPGIS - Public Participation GIS / Participatory GIS
• Africa ICT Network
• E-development Network

What do you want to achieve?

Before starting a platform, it is important to consider what you intend to achieve and tackle with an online social network. If, for example, you want to exchange information in a given group and want to trigger discussions, a simple mailing list (e.g. www.dgroups.org) may be the best choice. But what if you want to do more than that?

A possible approach would be to look at what your organization would like to achieve through such a network. Here are some categories, which are not comprehensive, but will help you find a viable choice of network application:

1) Campaign /Fundraising

For awareness raising, a single website rarely creates enough impact. Instead, it is helpful to use different channels to reach your target audience. You could have an own website, which keeps all the channels together, but a Facebook fan page or Twitter profile could be extras that could attract more people and save you time. Mobilization needs to work over many channels and particularly through email. For campaigning and fundraising you may want to reach a great audience and therefore you would need to send your message across networks. Global voices advocacy has a helpful guide. So option C is the most helpful. Check these nonprofits on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/nonprofitorgs

2) Stakeholder dialogue

One other purpose for establishing a social network could be to interact, on a regular basis, with certain stakeholders or the broader public. Like above, you can set up different profiles on social network sites and engage with many stakeholders, but your interlocutors might not be the ones you want to reach. So you either build your own platform or use a readily available one such as Ning. Here you can invite your stakeholders and exchange about projects. Such dialogues can enhance the “listening skills” of an organization, as discussed here.

3) Information sharing

Depending on how open you want your information sharing initiative to be, say to potentially flourish across networks, you should choose your approach. In recent years many topic-orientated platforms have been established, the majority however are struggling to achieve widespread proactive participation. But these platforms offer a valuable space for exchange and invite a broader public to join the discussions.
Also, on Twitter you can exchange interesting information and engage with your followers, but you do not have a space for collaboration. So it can be integrated as part of an existing website to bond more closely with people. It really depends who you want to reach, and what kind of space and exchange you want to offer.

4) Collaboration

The difference to the category above is that this form includes deeper collaboration forms such as writing content together. It might need a further set of tools such as Wikis. Here you can either use third party tools, such as Google Docs, or choose to develop your own platform to offer more specific features for collaboration than just blogs and forums. Such collaboration within a social network is, however, quite tricky to achieve and needs highly motivated members. It might be helpful to develop your own platform or mobilize people around a wiki.

Of course, these brief insights cannot supply a full social network elaboration, but hopefully illustrate the differences and provide some stepping stones . There are many ways to use social network sites and in all cases engagement and follow-up depend a lot on the type of audience. As contributions are usually voluntarily, a motivation to engage has to be there. So, at the end of the day the platform is less important.

We are sure there are many more ways to use social networks - please feel free to contribute to this reflection.