Blog posts about ictd

I've been reading "Development and ICT4D - Too many pilot projects and not enough regular service" Amongst the stories of failures and success were references to helping farmers. This reminded me of Veronica (who is a teacher and a farmer in rural Nigeria). I thought I would share the story of her experience of ICT (Information and Communication Technologies). Veronica's story - the very short version The short version of Veronica's story is this. She was growing ginger for the first time and wanted advice on harvesting and marketing it, so she went to the Internet. The outcome she was...

It's only a few days until the Dadamac Foundation AGM, so I'm doing my final draft of the secretary's report. I'm glad that we've been able to respond to local needs and I'm delighted by the support we've been able to deliver, but there's more to it than that. Building on our success I have a remarkable success story to write for this year's AGM, which is a credit to our tiny core team and wider network, but I don't want my report to simply be a record of our past success, I want to place it in a wider...

As usual, this week’s UK-Nigeria online meeting proved a real gem. Feedback from John suggests the community is becoming used to the new realities of slow business output in the wake of the post-election conflict. He reports that the Kafanchan Peace Market traders are gradually getting their businesses going again, with some of venturing into new businesses areas. Twelve of the 27 traders are Muslims and these women have negotiated with Fantsuam Foundation to defer their loans until after Ramadan. In recent blogs I have documented the loss of experienced staff from Fantsuam, mostly as a direct consequence of the...

It's almost exactly ten years since I was first involved in communication between UK and Nigeria. In those days my friend, the late Peter Adetunji Oyawale, could only phone one person in his entire Oke-Ogun Community Development network. If we made a phone call it was to the landline of Chief Adetola, in the state capital Ibadan. What a contrast now. Today, from rural Ago-Are i got this text: "Mornin ma, my wiv gave birth 2 a bouncin baby boy yesterday afternoon, thanks Fola." Not only did Fola send his information to me, via SMS he also went online through...

Hi Pam, Here is something that might be of interest to Dadamac and FF. I am pasting a press release that I got from my friend, who is a doctor in the US. Here goes: Researchers from Makerere University and their collaborators from Norway, India, Ethiopia, South Africa, the United States and Pakistan unveiled openXdata at Kampala on November 12. OpenXdata is a community-developed, open-source, enterprise end-to-end software solution that revolutionizes surveys and studies by changing the way in which data collection, data management, and data analysis is carried out. Computer scientists and experts in public health, education and development...