Community networking - Internet Society posts report on summit

In May 2017 the Internet Society (ISOC) published its analysis of a November 2016 summit on community networks -- communications networks in which infrastructure is deployed and operated by citizens to meet their own needs. The publication, Understanding Community Networks in Africa  is light on context and light on data for my tastes, but it adequately represents the concerns of the network operators in terms of resources, regulatory support, technical support and other issues.

It would be great to have a more clear understanding of the processes that have given rise to these networks. The implication is that they are demand-driven, but some of the discussion of funding and origination also suggests that the networks are "pushed" into likely areas without concern for local capacity or demand.  

While in some cases it was the more informed community members who started the community network, individuals who were external to the community informed other communities about the potential of establishing their own network. In the latter case, close collaboration with local institutions and structures (tribal authorities, schools, hospitals, etc.) was established from inception to make sure the initiative aligned with local communication needs and sensitivities 

Hmm. I would love to know more about the information exchanges that are described here. There are some really great, proven and effective models for community-based decision-making. (The one that comes to mind is Jhai Foundation's modification of Saul Alinsky's approach, which Jhai used successfully to establish a community network in Phon Kam, Lao PDR, in about 2003.) Also, as there's no template for community-networking initiatives, perhaps this would be a good place to start. How to engage stakeholders in discussions of issues around communications....

Here btw is a photo I took of the installation of a Wifi repeater that was part of the Jhai network. 

 The Jhai network was started (with much hoohah around a bicycle-powered computer) primarily because the villagers identified communication as a pressing need -- interrelated with local markets, conversations with family members gone in the Lao diaspora, and so on. The original dialogs about problems and needs arrived at the solution of a community network entirely naively, the determination could have been that water harvesting or accounting skills or a coffee cooperative were sorely needed. In any event, the Jhai network struggled in the face of government decisions (which is to say, perhaps, interests, which is to say, perhaps, well, never mind...). Some years later, Jhai did establish a coffee collective, however that was much farther to the south in Lao.

It's possible that the community networks at the ISOC summit resulted from facilitated stakeholder dialogs similar to those used by Jhai. But the publication gives the impression that community networks have a specific virtue, that "the world" needs more of them even if stakeholder communities aren't so sure.

PPPs and getting things done in ICT4D and E

I made an error. Not the first I’ve made ever, and not the most egregious, but among the more opportunistic: A few years ago I developed, in collaboration with the smart, experienced and dialed-in Anthony Bloome of USAID, a a white paper or other kind of publication supporting the design of ICT4E projects *(https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1865/E1-FP_ICT_Compendium.pdf). Ten principles that were intended to help USAID country officers and others engender (that would be design and manage the implementation of) technology projects in schools and education systems. 

Hog wash. Or something. 

I left out the most important principle. I wouldn’t junk any of the others, at least not usually, but just now I don't find them readable and I'm not going to share them here. The entire premise of that paper is that with appropriate support and in collaboration with private-sector and government partners, USAID education officers can achieve effective designs of technology projects. 

learning aid for four cardinal directions, Kabul

We are talking about decisions that require expertise in several fields. One of these is the most dynamic, innovation-oriented fields in human history, and one that has had profound changes on social, economic and individual conditions—the personal computer began its evolution about 40 years ago (1977, date of the launch of Apple II and TRS 80), gaining momentum through the launch of the Maciintosh in 1984, Windows 3 in 1986, and so on. The World Wide Web got its start more recently, about 1992. Since then, we’ve seen the emergence of mobile devices, lower-cost solar, mobile broadband, mobile money, social enterprises. (Premise.com, a social enterprise in Silicon Valley, makes big-data analytics available to development organizations and others.) 

At the same time, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, development has “matured” as a field: bottom-up and participatory solutions (and rhetoric), focus on girls and women, micro-loans and micro-enterprise, education in emergencies, outcomes-based programs and assessments—elements that seem natural, obvious, have required a long time (˜60 years) to be normalized because we’re dealing with a field in which the starting assumption is that having the money and having the power meant having the intelligence to make a difference. Not true. Perhaps we have gotten wiser; perhaps we are casting about for new methods; perhaps economic growth has had impact that outstrips that of development.

 

In any case, how can we expect a list of principles to enable someone to navigate in this dynamic environment? How can we expect a development person to understand the importance of the shit-canning of SCORM and its replacement by Tin Can? We can’t. We shouldn’t. 

The most important element in the design of successful ICT4D and ICT4E projects is the team. That team needs the right combination of expertise and the opportunity to bring that expertise to bear on a significant problem in a significant way. 

(Why do I think this? I’m just finishing my report to USAID on digital library design to support the provision of mother-tongue books to young readers. Cool. I’ve learned a lot. I’ve had to learn a lot. If I were in another position—staff guy, private-sector guy, government guy—that learning would have been impossible. I and USAID and, more importantly, kids asked to learn to read, would be out of luck. More on this by Monday…)

libraries in afghanistan

There are two points to bear in mind relative to my current affiliations and engagements:

1 - Books are precious
In Afghanistan and many other places, access to books is irreplaceably valuable. And community libraries--whatever form they take--provide an irreplaceable service.

2 - School performance is malleable
Education systems represent the biggest governmental employment sector in many countries. That makes the system prone to abuse (e.g., ghost schools and ghost teachers in Afghanistan), but it also make the education system--if it is properly calibrated--an unequaled agent of change.

What do these points mean, taken together? That school should be engaged as potential recipients of books, that school libraries are critical, and that re-imagining these libraries as community libraries is essential to school improvement, to improved literacy outcomes and to increased levels of social and economic well being in communities.

That's a lot to find in a small article. You are welcome to inquire about my reasonsing.

Democratization of big data

Very very informative interviewers by Moira Gunn of TechNation with Brian Sager, the co-founder of Omnity, a semantic-web-based search engine.

http://technation.podomatic.com/entry/2016-02-11T09_53_23-08_00

Omnity offers a free service, as part of its effort to bring the benefits of big data (or maybe "big processing") to all. At this point, at least, the results are not thrilling, but this appears to result from limited intake of publications.

The interview as mentioned is informative about search and discovery, about metadata-based search, and about taxonomic cataloging. The interview is worth a few minutes and Omnity is worth watching.

Don't miss it. Teacher Center on Comedy Central

And stay for the BMW commercial at the end, too. 

Teacher Center with Key and Peele

And in other news, dream on.