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Developing communities, developing technologies:
Technology is changing
and people are complicated. Creating and implementing technologies for
development is a grand challenge unto itself, as well as to the
practitioners, academics and policy makers across the technical and social
sciences. Billions are spent annually to close “digital divides” worldwide
-- and while most of us are idealistic about technology’s role in societal
transformation, the development needle barely moves.
Academic responsibility to development:
A significant factor
to the inefficiencies of today’s ICTD is the “stovepipe” nature of the
field – we need to be more flexible than our minds, technologies and
academic offerings currently allow. There is a critical need to educate
“academic practitioners,” -- well-rounded, informed ICTD practitioners who
understand, create and advocate for appropriate, sustainable and
community-equitable ICTs for Development.
Individual
Research Focus:
I am concerned with the end users and communities we
want to work “with.” To that end, my focus in Information and Communication
Technology for Development (ICTD) is on research, curriculum design, gender
and social barriers to ICT access and use, and the ethics of participatory
development fieldwork. I bring both a technical and social science
background to ICTD, having spent a decade at Microsoft and before then,
studying development communication and globalization from a feminist theory
perspective. I am not a region-specific expert, having current field
projects in East Africa, India, South and Central America, but my heart is
pretty much in Sub-Saharan Africa as that’s where I cut my ICTD research
teeth.
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ATLAS Institute and the MS-ICTD program
– apply now!
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Read
about our first cohort
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Course and Curriculum Resources
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Curriculum Vitae
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