ICT4D
From Appropedia
(Redirected from Information and Communication Technologies for Development)
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More information is at ICT4D category - subtopics, howtos, projects, designs, organizations and more.
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Information and Communication Technologies for Development, or ICT4D, include:
- Telephony (especially mobile phones and especially text message services - see Mobile phones in development and disaster management)
- Affordable internet
- Affordable and appropriate computing.
Such ICT follows the principles of appropriate technology and aims to make the benefits of these technologies as widely available as possible.
[edit] Key principles for ICT4D
These are general principles that will vary according to the specific application and context:
- Minimize power usage, because:
- Less power means less infrastructure, and infrastructure can be expensive
- Power means heat, means fan, which means sucking in dust, which means breakage and need for repairs; it also means all parts of the system heat up, which can lead to malfunctions. So the less power, the less breakage.
- Locally maintainable, through a combination of:
- Ease of use and repair
- Interchangeable, standard parts as far as possible. This is not strictly possible in a village context, but don't be more exotic in hardware choice than necessary.
- Upgrades and reinstalls freely available without need for payment. The use of open source software has the advantage on this point.
- Training
- Support materials in the local language, or (next best option) in a language that local people can understand.
[edit] See also
- Green IT, which shares a focus on minimal resource use.
[edit] External resources
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