As a technology company (though on a different planet than the one occupied by the companies found in this report ;)), we are somewhat religious about Mary Meeker’s annual internet trends report. A few thoughts on the 2014 version:
Fastest internet and smartphone growths are in “more difficult to monetize developing markets” such as India, Indonesia, Nigeria.
The “future of education” – that fancy-sounding terminology is always on the top of our minds here at AIDA. Like many other sectors of society today, education sector is in the middle of a massive transition. There is general consensus that we need to rethink everything about education – people, processes, output, outcome, impact – from the ground up. (see RSA Animate video of Sir …
Guardian has an interesting article on Youth unemployment: can mobile technology improve employability? by Linda Raftree (@meowtree) and Nick Martin (@ncmart). Excerpts:
The ILO reported that 74.8 million youth between 15 and 24 years were unemployed in 2011, an increase of more than 4 million since 2007. Globally, the youth unemployment rate is almost 13%, and youth are nearly three times …
Empathy plays a critical role in AIDA’s learning program. And, we are constantly looking for new ways to incorporate it into our curriculum.
Here is one such example from Resilience: Why Things Bounce Back (great book by the way, highly recommended)
Arthur Aron and Elaine Aron are husband and wife as well as research partners and writing collaborators at Stony Brook University. They have made …
In their chapter titled “Innovation for the BoP: The Patient-Capital Perspective,” Robert Kennedy (University of Michigan and WDI) and Jacqueline Novogratz (Acumen Fund) give a real-world example of why a social (or any) enterprise should be willing to learn from their customers on what their wants and needs are and be ready to tailor their services appropriately.
Human-centric design begins with attempt to understand the …
ICT for Development Case Studies Series
IV. Banking & Micro Finance
Lessons from the Field – ICTs in Microfinance
PRODEM, for example, is using ICTs to verify the identity of its customers. It utilizes a combination of smart card technology combined with biometrics to allow fingerprint ID verification at all of its branches and ATMs. The use of fingerprint verification ensures that only the account …
ICT for Development Case Studies Series
III. Livelihood & Skills Training
Egypt: Youth Clubs for Tomorrow’s Leaders
Since 2001, the Egyptian government has undertaken a campaign to bring technology skills to the country’s youth. It has established more than 1,000 IT clubs offering a range of training opportunities for students. For isolated communities, the government has launched mobile IT clubs. Two container trucks with satellite …
Resource list from ICT for Development Learning Network’s August event on Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in Development: Experiences from the Field. The event was co-hosted by AED and Appropriate IT. Carmen Tedesco, Program Officer and Geospatial Coordinator at AED, moderated the panel discussion and also contributed to the resource list below.
Presentations:
Silvia Petrova, Winrock International: GIS for International Development
Andrew Ross, …
ICT for Development Case Studies Series
I. Market Access and Pricing
From conception to replication
Today, using FrontlineSMS, their pilot project is distributing prices from five large buyers to about 150 farmers, village leaders and farmers groups by SMS in a classic “market transparency” intervention. And it’s working. Prices are going up for farmers, and the buyers are getting access to more quantity and better …
Our domain got spoofed. The first indication was a ton of auto-responders in the past week that all got delivered to our catch-all email account. Most of these auto-responders were supposedly in response to our emails. But looking at the message header revealed a ton of emails with our domain name but unknown user names. TerimaddoxSilver@appropriateit.org, JennaeconometricGalindo@appropriateit.org, HenriettasuperstitiousLin@appropriateit.org, and so on and so forth. This …
So…Appropriate IT is working on a new sustainable agriculture technology platform – Krishi Janani. We have been at it for a while now, launching a partially working prototype earlier this year. Before I go into the ‘Great Unknown’ parts of the story, a quick summary:
Krishi Janani is an ag tech network (online platform + young women-led rural ag tech centers) enabling organic and sustainable …
A three day technology training in building websites with WordPress at PGP college in Namakkal, Tamil Nadu
By Alexandra de Vogel, Assistant Trainer
With a background in Industrial design and innovation management, being part of this training was a first experience for me. But now I know that it will definitely not be my last experience in this field. These three days in Namakkal …
(Guest blog by Heather A. Moore)
Usha recently invited me to share some words of advice with the inspiring young women that had recently graduated from the pilot program of AIDA, Appropriate IT’s Development Academy, and with those from the community. Having gathered some sage advice from a few wise and generous mentors throughout my career, as well as the hard earned wisdom that comes …