ICT For Education Solutions: In Africa, By Africans, For The Global Economy

Africa’s leading forum for the technology-assisted learning industry, eLearning Africa, will on May 29th-31st be celebrating the rise of ‘Made in Africa’ tech solutions in Windhoek, Namibia, at the 2013 edition of its annual conference.
Now in its eighth year, eLearning Africa will be bringing together a wide range of perspectives on ICT for development, education and training. The conference will also be preceded by the annual eLearning Africa round table meeting of education and ICT ministers from across Africa.
“This year our focus will be on innovation and we are all really proud that some of the most exciting and innovative new solutions in education have been pioneered and developed in Africa”, says Rebecca Stromeyer, founder of eLearning Africa and Executive Director of ICWE.

Read more at: http://www.ventures-africa.com/2013/04/ict-for-education-solutions-in-africa-by-africans-for-the-global-economy/

Mobile Learning: Literacy for Rural Women in Pakistan

This United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) distance post-literacy project in Pakistan is based on mobile technology. Women are able to reinforce their newly gained literacy by accessing and sending mobile phone text messages. UNESCO implemented the "Mobile Based Post Literacy Pilot Project" in its initial phase in 2009 in partnership with Mobilink Pakistan and BUNYAD Foundation and, with additional partners, initiated a third phase in March 2012 using other information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the classrooms during the teaching cycle, including DVDs.

Read more at: http://www.comminit.com/global/content/mobile-learning-literacy-rural-women-pakistan

Why information matters for the Post-2015 framework

Information is power. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have had a dramatic impact on the services (access to healthcare, education and clean water) that the poorest people receive - but have failed to shift power to ordinary people in the fight to end poverty.

Please share this film using #post2015 so that we can make sure that the post-2015 framework makes a real difference to the fight against absolute poverty.

Read more and see video at: http://youtu.be/AeMBQ7xX3oI

Can Tech Solve African Agriculture's Four Big Problems?

A recent BBC article highlighted three of the tech-heavy startups trying to change the game in Africa's agriculture sector, including a franchise that gives farmers access to higher quality products, a crop insurance scheme that makes it easier for farmers to get credit, and an SMS service through which farmers can check market prices and coordinate with other farmers to buy supplies in bulk. As observed in the article, these tech solutions try to leapfrog over basic infrastructure problems – like bad roads and inefficient communications. Considering the fact that 80 percent of the arable land in Africa is not being used, tech has an awful lot to make up for.

Read more at: http://techpresident.com/news/wegov/23738/can-tech-solve-african-agricultures-four-big-problems
 

Elementary Education Online Degrees

Elementary education degrees prepare you for jobs in education and administration in elementary or primary education, which usually incorporates at least the first five grades of compulsory education in the US.
This page provides information on these degrees, what is studied in them, where you can study them, the prospects, and more ...

Read more at: http://onlineanddistancelearning.com/elementary-education-online-degrees

How IICD supports healthcare in Africa by using ICT

IICD supports doctors and other health workers such as community workers in Africa and Latin America to use computers, mobile phones and other Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to improve healthcare. This video tells the story of doctor Bon in Tanzania. This doctor works at a health clinic in Nyakato that is now using a Health Management Information System (HMIS) that reduces waiting time for patients and improves the overall efficiency of the clinic. The video also includes other examples and facts and figures about of IICD's effective work in 'ICT for health' in Africa.
 
Video at: http://youtu.be/3bblK35NbGU

A summary of Open Development

Why a focus on Open Development in Knowledge Societies?

Robin Mansell presented a summary of the conclusions of the event Open Development: Exploring the future of the information society in Latin America and the Caribbean in her intervention at the IV Ministerial Conference on the Information Society for Latin America and the Caribbean. Robin Mansell is a Professor of New Media and the Internet at the Department of Media and Communications of the London School of Economics, and she was the keynote speaker at Open Development with the presentation Imagining the internet: Open, Closed or In Between.

Read her summary here: http://www.info25.org/en/sum-opendev

The Power of Mobile: Saving Uganda's Banana Crop

Earlier this year, my two ICT colleagues, Merrick Schaefer and Joshua Goldstein, identified a number of innovative ICT solutions that have been developed and implemented by UNICEF’s Technology for Development (T4D) team. One of them is Ureport (www.ureport.ug), which is a network of 190,000+ volunteers across Uganda who use mobile technology to report on various issues that are of interest to UNICEF and other development partners.

Read more at: http://blogs.worldbank.org/ic4d/the-power-of-mobile-saving-ugandas-banana-crop

'#aiww: The Arrest of Ai Weiwei' Puts Digital Dissent in the Limelight

LONDON — At a theatre here, the characters and elements of a serendipitous meeting came together: A play about a dissident Chinese artist starring a British-born Chinese man and reviewed by an American whose father defected from a repressive communist nation.
Howard Brenton's #aiww: The Arrest of Ai Weiwei debuted here Thursday, with the hashtag title an homage to Twitter's significance for the Chinese artist who uses the platform and his 200,000 followers to promote digital rights and avoid censorship from the Great Wall of communism. Mr. Ai uses social media as a tool for political dissent, challenging the state's control with acts like publishing the names of 5,335 student victims who died in the magnitude 7.9 Sichuan earthquake in 2008 (which he attributes to the collapse of poorly built government housing).

Read more at: http://mashable.com/2013/04/12/arrest-of-ai-weiwei/

5 key takeaways for ICT development in the Caribbean from Silicon Savannah

Within the last seven years, Kenya, which has been dubbed “Silicon Savannah”, has become one of the leading ICT destinations in Africa, and is being increasingly recognised globally as a hotbed for tech innovation. This post highlights five takeaways from the Kenyan experience.

Read more at: http://www.ict-pulse.com/2013/04/5-key-takeaways-ict-development-caribbean-silicon-savannah/