ICT for Development - ICT4D

ICT plays far more great role in transforming a society, as compared to other sectors. To be specific, the mass introduction of mobile telephony in Ethiopia in the years 2002-2005 was accompanied by a correspondingly high jump in commodity exchanges, construction, agricultural and other investments.

Currently mobile communication and the services bundled with it are penetrating into all corners of the globe, including least developed countries (LDCs). This may be one potential to access the whole society in education, basic health and other services to develop an information society.

An educated community is able to cater itself within resource limits, in the bounds of sustainability. The power of Mobile communication is intensely profound in this regard.

In countries where the literacy level is low, mobile communication urges citizens to adapt to communication technologies, new services and concepts. The success of M-Pesa in Kenya is one example - individuals not knowing saving were able to adopt banking concepts.

The software additives in mobile terminals are also a crucial value to create interest for learning. The dynamics of a community's thinking will be dramatically changed, according to my observation in my home country Ethiopia. Before mobile 'boom' schools were required to send family counselors to let their children to school regularly; as most children, especially girls, were leaving school early to help their families. Parents not able to use the functionalities of a mobile terminal, which need reading and writing skills, are attracted to educate their children.

The eLearning, eGovernment and eAgriculture are all important facets of ICT, important for enhancing information dissemination. A country with small number of teachers could serve the whole population using TV broadcasts, eLearning etc.

In conclusion, ICT is the best shortcut used in increasing the intellectual level of developing countries.

Workshop on Transportation

Transportation system is one of the key economic drivers. Its directly related to development, in which case many developing countries are pushing to improve their transportation infrastructures. Installation of the infrastructures considers demographic trends, economic advantages, cultural heritages, mobility ...etc. Reducing the cost of transportation may be one source of advantage to decrease gross domestic consumption of oil. For developing countries that may supplement a huge part of their economy by avoiding oil import - there by decreasing carbon emissions.

Thursday's workshop was discussing about feasible solutions to a set of problems associated with transportation systems design. I and my fellow chose to discuss on Low cost implementation of Mobility on Demand.

Implementing a reliable Mobility-on-demand transport system is a more costly option specially for developing countries, besides the infrastructure bottlenecks. It increases gross energy consumption, congestion and indirectly encourages private car ownership.

Mobility on demand can be implemented best if it is handled using a model like Public Taxi System/PTS/, which can admit private cars as a potential pool of resources. Private owners, while giving service to the PTS customers can add their mile/time or money - based on the business model/ count which could be paid back to them in oil, money or free-ride from the PTS system. This idea is more plausible in developing countries where the number of vehicles is incredibly small to provide Mobility on Demand.

The Workshop showed me the matters associated with transportation systems. And a closer look at the problem from socio economic perspective.