One source of continuous frustration for ICT4D researchers is the glacial pace of academia. One has to submit papers 8 months in advance for conferences that are over a year away - like ICTD. Or it usually takes about 2 years minimum to get a paper published in a journal.
I am Nicki Dell, a PhD student at the University of Washington in Seattle. I’d like to tell you about a project that I did recently during an internship at Microsoft Research India with the Technology for Emerging Markets lab.
Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICTD) research brings together a community researchers from such varied fields as computer science, cognitive and social psychology, design, anthropology, development theory, economics and public policy.
The funny thing about ICTs and Development (and mostly everything else in this world) is that just when you think things are plugging along, you get the rug pulled out from under you and have to re-think everything.
Historically, there have been numerous initiatives targeting the creation of "computers for the poor," but the quest for such devices has been an elusive one.
Arguably, the original "low-cost PC" was IBM's PCjr, which was launched in 1983 with much fanfare, including a magazine devoted to coverage of it even before its actual release. The product led to a wave of clones, some fairly successful, including the Tandy 1000, though it did not itself succeed in the market due to design issues. Low-cost innovation
What happens when you put computer scientists, user interface (UI) specialists, human-computer-interaction (HCI) designers and non-profit work together? You get ICT4D, surely? Well, maybe not as it turns out.
Once upon a time, a very long time ago, before even Google or mobile phones and long before Facebook, there was just the Internet.
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