Showing posts with label web2fordev. Show all posts
Showing posts with label web2fordev. Show all posts

Thursday, September 10, 2015

The Transformative Power of Social Media in Agriculture: Inspiring Stories

The advent of social media has revolutionised the way people communicate worldwide. But in a growing number of developing countries, these tools are being put to increasingly good effect to drive agricultural and rural development, often with dramatic results. A new publication from the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) documents the transformative power of these innovative technologies. Based on 18 case studies drawn from across African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries , Embracing Web 2.0 and Social Media: A life-changing pathway for agricultural development actors provides testimonies on how Web 2.0 and social media are contributing to better engagement of stakeholders in policy dialogue and advocacy, marketing and the provision of information services.

This booklet documents a wide range of practical applications for Web 2.0 and social media in ACP settings. Some farmers have found that Facebook can be an excellent marketing channel to promote their products. Extension agents are discovering that social media is a highly effective way of communicating with the people they serve. Agricultural organisations are using a range of social media tools to mount advocacy campaigns aimed at influencing policy-makers. Researchers are using online collaboration tools to work on joint publications, while more and more young people are using new ICT skills to blog about important rural development issues. Others are seizing opportunities to develop innovative online services and launch their own companies as agripreneurs.

“Social media has become part of everyday life for most people in the developed world. But it has created a life-changing experience for many people in rural areas who have come to use it,” said CTA Director Michael Hailu.

All the stories featured in the booklet revolve around people who have benefited from a CTA-led campaign to make Web 2.0 and social media tools more accessible to agriculture and rural development actors in ACP countries.

The figures speak volumes: more than 4,000 individuals trained, 176 face-to-face training events – known as Web 2.0 and social media learning opportunities (LOs) – held in 44 ACP countries. In 2013, the Web 2.0 and social media LOs carried off the prestigious World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Project Prize in the e-Agriculture category.

Impact assessment studies conducted by CTA have revealed that its Web 2.0 and social media capacity-building activities have led to greater inclusion and empowerment for participants, often with far-reaching repercussions for themselves and the people with whom they interact. Adoption rates are high, with young women emerging as the most likely players to adopt social media, following a training course.

In Uganda, local NGOs are using ICTs to support producers, processors and other actors in agricultural value chains. Agronomists from Madagascar are using Web 2.0 and social media to develop knowledge about apiculture. In Central Africa, a farmers’ network institutionalised social media and improved its operational effectiveness. In Samoa, a Facebook and Twitter marketing campaign is producing impressive results for women weavers of ceremonial mats. And in the Caribbean, bloggers and social media reporters are helping other young people to plan a future in farming.

“Many people have told us that the training sessions have not only changed their working behaviour, but their whole lives,” said Giacomo Rambaldi, Senior Programme Coordinator at CTA.

The official launch of the CTA publication will be held on 26 November 2015 during the International Day of Vrije University (VU) in Amsterdam.

The booklet is available for order in print form or for free download from the CTA publications catalogue

Friday, May 29, 2015

CTA programme wins top UN prize for its youth and ICT work

The Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) has been honoured in the prestigious 2015 World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Project Prizes. The Centre won the e-agriculture category for its youth and ICT programme – Agriculture, Rural Development and Youth in the Information Society (ARDYIS).  The prize was presented in Geneva, Switzerland, during the WSIS Forum 2015, the biggest international event in the ICT for Development calendar.
CTA’s ARDYIS entry was proclaimed winner of the e-agriculture category at the prize-giving ceremony on May 26, following a round of online voting and a review by a panel of experts.

The prize marks the third time that CTA has won a WSIS award.

In 2013, the Centre’s Web 2.0 and Social Media Learning Opportunities programme was also named winner of the WSIS Project Prizes contest in the e-agriculture category.

Jointly with the FLMMA network in 2007 CTA won the WSIS award in the domain of e-culture for its activities in the domain of Participatory 3D Modelling in Fiji.

Each year, a series of WSIS Project Prizes recognises initiatives that help to further the goals of bridging the global digital divide and ensuring wider distribution of the benefits that can be generated by information and communications technology (ICT). Launched by the United Nations in 2011, the awards span 18 categories and offer a platform to showcase success stories and models that can be easily replicated.

The CTA ARDYIS programme, a group of initiatives aimed at 18 to 35-year-olds living in African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries, seeks to connect young people with ICTs and promote their use for agricultural development and enterprise. Key activities include the Youth in Agriculture Blog Competition (YoBloCo Awards), which has so far attracted nearly 300 agricultural blogs, and the AgriHack Talent contest, which supports the development of ICTs, mobile apps and entrepreneurship in agriculture.

An important feature of the ARDYIS programme is the wide range of activities it uses to raise awareness among young people of the potential for ICTs in agriculture. These include e-debates, workshops, information dissemination and support in developing agricultural ICT applications and other entrepreneurial initiatives.

“ARDYIS is an incredibly dynamic project which has opened opportunities for ACP youth in agriculture through ICTs, and strengthened their capacities in using these tools,” said CTA Director Michael Hailu. “So far, the project has reached young people in more than 40 ACP countries and it has supported the development of dozens of ICT prototypes, targeting different segments of agricultural value chains.”

Receiving the award on behalf of CTA at the WSIS ceremony was Ken Lohento, Programme Coordinator, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs).

“We are very proud of this prize,” said Lohento, who is leading the ARDYIS programme. “the prize also belongs to all the youth who have been participating in the ARDYIS network and who support us with their ideas and contributions. We thank all the people who voted for us from many countries around the world and the ARDYIS Advisory Committee for its support. CTA will continue to work hard to encourage and support greater youth engagement in ICTs for agriculture.”

Thursday, April 16, 2015

Building Capacity in using social media for agricultural development in Cook Islands

Rarotonga, Cook Islands, 14 April, 2015 – From 13 to 17 April 2015 the Cook Islands Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) is hosting a Web 2.0 and social media learning opportunity workshop and training. The event held at the MoA’s headquarters in Arorangi, is jointly supported by the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), and the European-Union-funded Pacific Agriculture Policy Project (PAPP) (part of the Intra-ACP Agriculture Policy Project). The Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) is the implementing agency for the European Union funded PAPP project.

Participants in the course posing together
with the Minister of Agriculture, Kiriau Turepu
Participants were drawn from government agencies, including ministries of the environment, agriculture, education and internal affairs, the police and the Seabed Minerals Authority, from the private sector and from civil-society and non-governmental organisations, including the Red Cross, the National Youth Council, national women’s group, and two youth organisations Rotaract, and organics. All were keen to learn how to make best use of online social media tools to generate and share information to achieve both personal development and organisational goals.

The Hon Minister of Agriculture, Kiriau Turepu, delivered the keynote address to more than 25 local participants. He acknowledged the partnership of CTA, SPC and the European Union for offering the opportunity to the Cook Islands to build capacity in information and communication technologies and social media.

“I am particularly pleased for the Ministry of Agriculture to take the lead in promoting social media to generate, manage and disseminate information in this ever-more-connected world we live in. The internet offers tools we can harness for the development of our people. The outer islands may have produce to sell and using the internet they can connect to consumers and markets in Rarotonga. We will be able to share and show new innovative ideas such as growing dragon fruits for example – I can show a friend in Penrhyn steps on growing these fruits using social media.

“As the first of this kind of workshop to be held here in the Cook Islands, we are expecting this group of participants to learn, and make use of the knowledge so that our people are better informed, more articulated in the affairs of development as far as agriculture is concerned.

“Today the speed with which information travels in our work places and the changing technologies that we have at our disposal is extraordinary and important to all of us. Whether it is Facebook, blogging, Twitter, photos you share, these are all extensions of individuals and their personalities. They help portray interests, views and help show people who they are. They offer a platform for you and I to be ourselves, to be creative, to be who we want to be and most importantly, have an audience for all to debate critical innovative ideas that are good and can grow for the future.”

Mr Emil Adams, PPPP Information Communication Management Officer, thanked Permanent Secretary, Dr Matairangi Purea, and MoA Director of Policy, Planning, Mr Patrick Arioka, for the planning and coordination that went into organising the workshop. The good turnout of local participants is testimony of the planning, interest and enthusiasm of stakeholders to release their officers to attend the Web2.0 and social media training.

“Social media tools allow continuous dialogue between groups of individuals to take place on the internet. This online dialogue contributes to a knowledge society where individuals continuously pull information as well contribute content, further enriching knowledge and available to other users. People are empowered when they freely express their opinions on social media, and attain a level of gratification when they get information they want when they want it,” said Mr Adams.

“Accessing the internet allows a farmer in a remote village to directly interact and feedback on government policies affecting rural livelihoods, tweet a photo of a pest outbreak back to researchers for identification and management, or post on Facebook photos of a rural development training.”
Workshop facilitator, Ms Anju Mangal, offered words of warning about the potential of social media, noting that, while it can open up a whole new horizon of possibilities that can improve lives, it can also destroy lives and upset social norms if used wrongly by unscrupulous individuals.

Ms Mangal said that online cyber security is of major concern to individuals and to organisations that want to protect their integrity. Social media policies supported by national infrastructure need to be robust to guide the use of these tools to achieve national goals. Above all, measures are needed to prevent compromising the integrity of government machinery.

In the Cook Islands broadband connection is available to more than 95% of the population, with mobile coverage reaching more than 99% of the population. On Rarotonga only, third-generation (3G) services are available to 11,000 plus mobile connections.

Agriculture currently contributes only 3.8% to GDP, but Mr Arioka expressed his confidence that this can be increased through the use of online tools supported by an enabling policy environment. The Ministry is currently developing a new Strategic Plan to help agriculture services support income streams, food consumption and self sufficiency. Healthy soils, healthy food will underpin the strength of the new Strategic Plan.

CTA, in partnership with SPC, has embarked on a series of regional Web2.0 and social media learning opportunity workshops to strengthen national capacity in the use of social media for agricultural development and climate-change adaptation. National workshops have been completed in Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa and Vanuatu. A second national workshop for the Cook Islands is planned for September 2015.

Here is a link to follow for more information on forthcoming training events.

Follow Web2forDev on Facebook, Twitter and Vimeo and join the community on DGroups and LinkedIn


Saturday, January 3, 2015

Latest statistics about the Web 2.0 for Development Community of Practice


The Web2forDev Community of Practice was created by CTA in 2006 in anticipation of the Web2forDev International Conference which CTA organised in September 2007 in partnership with FAO, GIZ , IFAD, APC, IICD and other development organisations.

As anticipated in the article published on PLA 59 in June 2009, “The Web2forDev story: towards a community of practice” the community has been steadily growing also as a follow-up of the Web 2.0 and Social Media Learning Opportunities regularly organised by CTA, so far in 37 countries.

Here are some stats about the latest growth of the Web2forDev community on various social media platforms:

Dgroups (En) (since 2006) :
# of members on 31/12/14:      3,874  in 110 countries
Growth over the year 2014:     +46%

Dgroups (Fr) (since 2006)  :
# of members on 31/12/14:      940 in 48 countries

LinkedIn (since July 2007)  :
# of members on 31/12/14:      1,939
Growth over the year 2014:     +20%

Facebook (since July 2007)  :
Total Likes on 31/12/14:          4,060
Growth over the year 2014:      +49%

Twitter (since August 2008)  :
# of followers on 31/12/14:      2,926
Growth over the year 2014:     +18%

The main portal is found at www.web2fordev.net and is available both in English and French.


Friday, October 17, 2014

Web 2.0 and Social Media spread like wildfire in Vanuatu

Group photo of participants of the Web 2.0 and Social Media
training in Port Vila, Vanuatu 2014
Friday 17 October 2014, Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), Vanuatu – Vanuatu is a young state as far as information and communication technology (ICT) is concerned and the development of ICT is very important for the socio-economic growth of the country.'  The first Political Advisor for the Vanuatu Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Mrs Emily Tumukon, made this statement in her opening remarks at the beginning of a five-day training workshop on the use of web 2.0 and social media in Port Vila, Vanuatu on 13 October.

The Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), in collaboration with the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), promotes information and knowledge sharing, learning and communication for the agriculture and forestry sectors, using low-cost technology – Web 2.0 and Social Media.

CTA-developed curriculum is designed to help users interact and collaborate with each other in a social media dialogue. Examples of Web 2.0 applications include blogs, , Google Drive, Google +, video sharing sites, photo editing, and sharing social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. These web tools are used in the context of development work and are designed for stakeholders actively engaged in agriculture and rural development / natural resource management in the domains of ICT for development, policies and markets, publishing, communication and media.

Mr Hannington Tate, Vanuatu's Director of Forestry, believes that new ICT tools such as web 2.0 can improve agricultural and forestry information in rural and remote communities of Vanuatu. He maintains that this type of workshop also offers a platform where participants from the government line agencies and those representing different stakeholders can come together to share their experiences and eventually find out how they can collaborate by making use of each others’ networks in order to better reach and serve the people of the country.

The Vanuatu Government CIO (Chief Information Officer), Mr Fred Samuel, stated that the Vanuatu Government recognised ICT as an enabler for social and economic development in the country.  He emphasised that it is now important to create online content that users and citizens can access, and that is the reason such training is needed. He added that web 2.0 represents an important shift in the way digital information is created, shared, stored, distributed, and manipulated.

The five-day learning opportunity is currently under way in Port Vila. Twenty-three participants – fifteen men and eight women – from different organisations are attending it. The event is part of CTA’s effort to facilitate access to and dissemination of information in the fields of agriculture and rural development in 78 countries in the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP), this being the sixth to be held in the Pacific. Similar workshops have been conducted in Papua New Guinea and Fiji and a one is planned for Samoa in two weeks' time that will focus on the agriculture and forestry sectors.

Sponsored by the ACP-EU CTA, the event, titled Web 2.0 for Development and Social Media Learning Opportunity, is undertaken by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community in collaboration with the Vanuatu Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Forestry, Fisheries, and specifically the Department of Forests (DoF) and Biosecurity and the Office of the Government’s Chief Information Officer (OGCIO).

Thursday, April 17, 2014

Web 2.0 and Social Media - Share Your Story

This initiative launched by CTA is intended to gather success stories from people who’ve benefitted from interactions with CTA in the domains of Web 2.0 and Social Media and used the acquired skills and networks to accomplish something that wouldn’t have been possible before.

In case a submission will be successful you will be contacted by a journalist who will interview you in order to prepare an article.

Should the case be exceptionally inspiring and innovative, and have had measurable impact beyond your personal development, CTA may organise the production of an on-site video-documentary to capture your story and gather feedback from your beneficiaries.

Read more ....

Zack Matere: Growing Knowledge



Zack Matere, a farmer in Soy, Kenya, searched for a way to save his dying crops. What he discovered was a desire to help local farmers and businesses access information.

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Web 2.0 and Social Media Success Stories: Nawsheen Hosenally



Dubbed as the TwitterLady, Nawsheen Hosenally shares the story of her professional career and how skills acquired in mastering Web 2.0 and Social Media have played in a role in shaping it.

At present Nawsheen is working as CT4Ag Assistant at the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA) in the Netherlands.

Monday, April 7, 2014

Web 2.0 and Social Media Success Stories: New skills and lifelong changes



Husna Yagoub is from Sudan. She works at CTA as data assistant in the framework of the Knowledge Management & Communication Programme (KMC).

Likewise other CTA staff she has been following the Spring 2014 session of the online course "Innovative Collaboration for Development" run by UNITAR and co-funded by CTA. This is the first distance learning course she has ever attended.

Confronted with great challenges she has been perseverant and kept telling me that - while doing the course - she gained a lot in terms of self-confidence and that she is going to be much more effective on her work.

We decided to capture her thoughts on camera and it's worth listening to her story ...

Visit the Web2forDev Gateway for more information on face to face courses on Web 2.0 and Social Media.

Thursday, April 3, 2014

Web 2.0 and Social Media Success Stories: from disseminating agri information to supporting drafting the new constitution



Mr Simunza S. Muyangana is Director at Digital ICE Interactive Media Ltd and founder of BongoHive in Lusaka, Zambia. He is specialised in website development, new media technologies, and web 2.0 and social media training.

On 24-26 March, 2014 a 3-day write-shop took place at CTA in Wageningen in the Netherlands. The purpose of the event was to update the curriculum which is used by CTA and partner organisations to run "Web 2.0 and Social Media Learning Opportunities" in ACP countries. The participants in the write-shop agreed on the need to identify and document success stories resulting from the adoption of Web 20 and Social Media solutions.

In this short video he briefly recalls three success stories. Let's hear his story ...

To know more about Web 2.0 and Social Media Learning Opportunities visit our site www.web2fordev.net

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Web 2.0 and Social Media success stories: By-passing the middlemen



Mr Johnson Opigo is an ICT Consultant and trainer, Web Designer and Developer based in Nigeria. Among others he has been running Web 2.0 and Social Media trainings on behalf of CTA and UNITAR.

Interviewed during the 3-day write-shop (Wageningen, 24-26 March, 2014) on updating CTA's curriculum used during the Web 2.0 and Social Media Learning Opportunities Johnson summarises the power of Web 2.0 and Social Media and recalls a success story of their adoption and deployment in in the framework of the Growth Enhancement Support Scheme (GES) implemented by Nigeria’s Minister for Agriculture, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, which ended four decades of corruption in the fertilizer sector, eliminating the middlemen and scaling up food production by nine million metric tonnes in the first year.

Saturday, June 16, 2012

Digital Habitats - a book worth reading


Technology has changed what it means for communities to “be together.” Digital tools are now part of most communities’ habitats. This book develops a new literacy and language to describe the practice of stewarding technology for communities. Whether you want to ground your technology stewardship in theory and deepen your practice, whether you are a community leader or sponsor who wants to understand how communities and technology intersect, or whether you just want practical advice, this is the book for you.

Written by Etienne Wenger, Nancy White and John D. Smith, the book brings together conceptual thinking, case studies and offers a guide for understanding how technology can help a community do what it wants to do. It gives a glimpse into the future as community and technology continue to affect and influence each other.

Friday, June 15, 2012

The power of information: Map Kibera uses GIS, SMS, video and the web to gather community data

The Map Kibera project works with young people from one of Africa’s biggest slums. They use GIS, SMS, video and the web to gather data and make it available to the community, where it can be applied to influence policies related to the area.

Located just five kilometres from the capital of Kenya, Nairobi, the residents of Kibera have grown accustomed to the many foreign experts visiting their community to conduct surveys and ask questions for yet another data collection initiative. As one of the largest slum areas in Africa, it draws staff from development organisations, research institutes and NGOs from all over the world.

As all these organisations and researchers generate more and more documents and project reports about Kibera, very little of the information gathered is ever made available to the 250,000 people who live there. Access to the data would give the people of Kibera the chance to present their own view of the living conditions in the community. They would be able to influence public policy to achieve improvements to the facilities that they believe are important.

In 2009, Erica Hagen, a specialist in the use of new media for development, and Mikel Maron, a digital mapping expert, started Map Kibera to help residents use mapping technology to gather information about their community. For the initial phase of the project, they recruited 13 local young people, aged between 19 to 34, including five women and eight men, from each village in Kibera.

The participants received two days training on how to use handheld GPS receivers to gather location data, and an introduction to using the specialised software in a computer lab. The team was supported by five GIS professionals from Nairobi who had volunteered their time. The participants then spent three weeks walking along the roads, pathways and rail tracks with their GPS receivers recoding the location data. They collected more specific information on water and sewage locations, education, religious and business locations, as well as anything else the participants deemed useful.

Collaboration

Rather than create a stand-alone map, the location data gathered by the project was added to the open source project OpenStreetMap, which is a crowdsourced map made by volunteers around the world. Map Kibera contributed to filling their part of OpenStreetMap, which would also make the information available to more people, and help to raise the profile of the project.

The team also wanted to add a multimedia aspect to the maps, by including video footage of points of interest from around Kibera, and uploading them to YouTube. Three members of Carolina for Kibera (CFK), affiliated with the University of North Carolina, assisted with the filming and helped to document the map making process using small camcorders.

The young people involved in the project developed a sense of achievement as they learned the new skills, and gained confidence in using new technologies. They also began to see the value of the information they were collecting and to understand the impact it could have on their community. However, it was not so easy to convince other residents.

There was a lot of cynicism in the local community caused by the NGOs who had previously come to Kibera but never shared their information. People were, therefore, reluctant to be filmed and photographed. Although the GPS data gathering was less intrusive, the technology presented other difficulties.

The lack of reliable power and inadequate internet access in Kibera were major challenges, especially when it came to uploading large video files to the web, which can take a long time. The slow internet connection also made it difficult to update security software on the computers, leaving them vulnerable to damaging viruses.

These were challenges that could be overcome in time, but for the project to be a real success, it would have to show that it could provide useful information to the community. The mapping project was, therefore, expanded to incorporate public participation geographic information systems (PPGIS) to gather information on specific issues affecting the residents of Kibera.

The group focused on collecting detailed data on four sectors: health, security, education, and water and sanitation. In February 2010, Map Kibera developed a partnership with UNICEF and added a fifth topic: mapping girls’ security. The aim here was to get the girls’ views on possible threats to their security, along with location information, for use in compiling data on their vulnerability to HIV/Aids.

Nine mappers collected data on the five topics using paper forms, gathering, for example, details of the costs and services offered at clinics and chemists in the area. To further encourage community involvement and get feedback on the information gathered, the team produced printed versions of maps for each area and placed transparencies on top so that residents could make changes and additions as necessary. Map Kibera also involved other interested organisations working in the health and security sectors in the area, including African Medical and Research Foundation and a women's group called Kibera Power Women.

Positive picture

As well as making the maps and multimedia available online, Map Kibera looked for other ways for the community to use the information gathered. For instance, the video material filmed as part of the mapping exercises could also be used to present news stories of the area. This idea expanded and the team worked with two youth from Kibera, who already had film-making experience.

They trained 18 young people to use small ‘ultra-portable’ Flip video cameras and the software to help them share their efforts on the web. This led to Kibera News Network (KNN), a citizen journalism initiative to present features and news stories affecting Kibera, showing positive aspects of the area and providing accurate coverage of negative events.

Mainstream media often focused on the misery and negativity in Kibera. The only events certain to attract mainstream media attention were clashes with the police or when the trains that run along the area’s peripheries were disrupted. Map Kibera attempts to change the perception of Kibera by allowing people to create and share their own stories.

The KNN teams edit the videos themselves and post them on YouTube – giving them a direct and immediate link to a global audience. The videos are also available on the Voice of Kibera, a community news website that also hosts the digital map. Residents can even post their own geo-located stories to the map using SMS.

Map Kibera used the open source tool, Ushahidi, to make the contributions via SMS possible. Ushahidi was initially developed after the 2008 Kenyan elections, to track reports of violence. It is a tool for crowdsourcing information using, e-mail, Twitter and the web as well as SMS. When someone in Kibera contributes an article, an SMS gateway filters the incoming texts according to keywords. Messages with the keyword ‘Kibera’ are fed into the Voice of Kibera website, where they are mapped using GPS coordinates, and approved by the editor before finally appearing on the site.

In 2010, the team founded the GroundTruth Initiative to support Map Kibera and other future projects. In the same year, UN Habitat awarded Map Kibera with a youth fund grant to expand its work to other parts of Nairobi, leading to co-operation with the community in another slum, Mukuru. A group in Mathare Valley, the second-largest slum in Nairobi, was also interested in creating a similar project, and, through funding from Plan International, a team is now collaborating on a participatory development programme there.

The Map Kibera Trust, which has a core membership of 30 young people, is working with similar communities in other parts of Kenya, and in Tanzania. A core aim of the Trust is to not only make people aware of openly available technology and information, but also to train local people to use them to benefit the community. The information now available to the residents of Kibera has caused a shift in power, providing them with reliable data to present their own case, and enabling to directly influence the policies that affect their lives.

By Erica Hagen and Mikel Maron
Article re-published with permission from ICT Update

Erica Hagen is a freelance writer, photographer, videographer and specialist on new media for development.
Mikel Maron is co-director of GroundTruth Initiative, and board member of OpenStreetMap Foundation

Related links



Saturday, June 9, 2012

Accelerating Development Using the Web: Empowering Poor and Marginalized Populations


The World Wide Web Foundation has published Accelerating Development Using the Web: Empowering Poor and Marginalized Populations. Supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, the book is a compendium of articles by recognized experts describing the real and potential effects of the World Wide Web in all major aspects of economic and social development.

The book fills a gap in the current store of knowledge by taking a broad view, offering detailed commentary from fourteen experts who are deeply engaged in the field of ICTs for development, many with extensive experience in developing countries, and each able to emphasize the key questions, challenges, and successes unique to their field.

The research unites themes of technological innovation, international development, economic growth, gender equality, linguistic and cultural diversity and community action, with special attention paid to the circumstances surrounding the poor and vulnerable members of the Global Information Society.

Readers will be able to draw parallels across each field and see where similarities in the deployment of ICTs for development exist and where there are divergences.

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Web 2.0 in Africa - Agriculture and New Technologies - Web2forDev



An eight minute Business Africa/CTA video production documenting actual cases on the use of Web 2.0 applications in the development sector, specifically among farmers in Africa.