This blog post is from Andy Bayor:
As you may recall from the last newsletter, Cliff Schmidt, Trina Gorman and I were invited to present the findings of our research paper, “Impact of Low-Cost, On-Demand, Information Access in a Remote Ghanaian Village” at the 2010 International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development(ICTD) in London on December 13-16, 2010. I am happy to say that the presentation was well-received by participants who attended, including researchers, practitioners, NGOs and all those interested in the latest research advances for the use of information and communication technologies in development practice.
Aside from our presentation, we attended various sessions at the conference, including open discussions, which I found very interesting because diverse ideas seem to converge as a single point. We also sat in on other research paper presentations and participated in workshops, demos and panel discussions. Most of the keynote speeches were centered on designing ICTs for development for the world’s poorest, and getting the users to participate in the design process. Additionally, we made many very useful contacts and had a few press interviews
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCYcQXJZ3FI, during our time at the conference.
I had the rare opportunity of meeting organizations and individuals working on similar projects in the developing world—though most of them were using mobile technologies. I also for the first time met a lot of people that I had communicated with over email. It was fun and interesting sitting together with Cliff and Trina in a coffee shop to discuss our projects in Ghana.
It was a wonderful experience personally, and as a group. Wonderful experience for me because first of all it was my first time on a plane! You can’t imagine how I felt at takeoff and when I peep through the window to see how far I was from the ground!! I had the rare opportunity to see with my own eyes what snow looks like, but without Doris’s coat that Trina carried for me, I might have frozen. It looked like everyone was a natural smoker because whether you were smoking or not, vapor comes from your mouth when you speak and when you look at that from afar, it looks like the person were smoking cigarette. Then it was food, usually the appearance looked very enticing to me but the taste was usually very strange to me. The closest Ghanaian meal I had was the rice dishes, and then I remembered how it has always been for Cliff and Trina anytime they are here in Ghana eating nothing close to anything in the US. At a personal level everything looked organized with the trains and buses because you could get the exact time to get a bus or a train online. The buildings and infrastructure was splendid and this makes me feel like we still have a lot of work to do in Africa.
Literacy Bridge
