It is very easy to be caught up in research that focuses on technology enhancement, while ignoring the basic needs of the community. Thus if researchers and policy-makers took the time to assess and analyse the fundamental problems affecting our communities and how ICT can blend in as a non-disruptive solution, this would make levels of ICT adoption much higher. People integrate technology into their lives – not the other way round.
This pin-points another problem faced particularly by developing countries as most research is not born from the community but is done by a person who has no idea about the social, financial or literacy levels of that community. Introducing i-phones to an illiterate community can cause the community to be isolated and shun technology, because the phone in itself is difficult to maintain due to either low or no connectivity whether on the electric or telecommunications grid.
But if in the same community we would start by upping the literacy levels by interactive computers, which additionally have the mother tongue as the main interactive language, it makes people more open to change and freer to embrace it.
Other researchers have even highlighted how African researchers have negligible publications in the area of ICT for development (ICTD), suggesting that key theories in ICTD are being formed without significant influence by African scholars. We need to identify mechanisms to enhance their contribution. This indirectly demonstrates how policies and theories will never address the real problems faced by various communities in developing countries.
However, there are some happy endings – with cellular handsets being used as portals of information for dissemination of information on HIV or learners being taught Mathematics via a social networking forum like MXit.
ICTs have been there long before they were even identified as such and will always be there. The question that still stands is how each individual can be able to integrate technology into their daily routines in a non-intrusive and self-enhancing way and still remain in control.
Post published in: News