(cross posting from internet.artizans blog)
Shaking the hype out of Web 2.0
A big shout out to the organisers of the Web2forDev conference in Rome. They’re shaking the hype out of web 2.0 and wrestling it in to relevance for the world’s poorest and most marginalised.
Connectivity, Innovation, Censorship
If I’d had a chance to contribute to the conference, […]

Interview: Christian Kreutz

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Interview Nynke Kruiderink

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There is so much data on Internet that for most of us it is a headache to find the right information. We’ve been using Google to search for key words in the last couple of years but I was told at the Web2fordev that it was not an up to date […]

Audio interview

We had an interesting presentation on Tuesday afternoon on the use of a Semantic Wiki Tool to Build a Repository of Reusable Information Objects in Agricultural Education and Extension by Prof. Chatterjee.
He stated that the mass of unstructured information in the field of agriculture is huge and that content is still dispersed without any […]

Over the past decade, the ‘digital divide’ has been shrinking as the number of fixed phone lines, mobile subscribers and Internet users grow. It is becoming less a gap in access to ICT as a difference in quality and capacity. However, the International Telecommunication Union estimates that approximately one billion people worldwide still lack connection […]

This afternoon, Kado Muir, Guy Singleton and Jon Corbett presented ‘Outback Movement for Cultural Survival Using Web 2.0: An Australian Aboriginal Case Study’. This presentation was really invigorating. I came in a minute or so late, only to hear Kado Muir joke, ‘We are quite recently out of the Bush – and we’re now trying […]

Interview with Jon Corbett, Steering Committee, Web2forDev Conference, Rome, 25th September 2007
On my second day at the conference venue here at FAO in Rome, I feel that I am delving a little deeper into how – and whether – Web 2.0 is actually participatory. But I still want to investigate this further: exactly how are […]

Interview with Dirk Koehler, Head of Publishing Department World Bank
Let me quote to introduce our topic a blogger from the Web2forDev community:” The real, revolutionary change from “Web 1.0″ to “2.0″ is the direction of communication. In the “old web” publisher was pushing content down to the audience, treating the audience as consumers, faceless statistics […]

Interview with Christian Kreutz, GTZ, Web2forDev Conference, Rome 24th February 2007.  
Monday was a preliminary workshop day, prior to the start of the main Web2forDev conference in Rome. Participants were introduced to various web-based applications that are part of the Web 2.0. One of the presentations was about blogging. 
Presenter Christian Kreutz, of GTZ in Germany, […]

Prince Deh from GINKS presented Vlogging on Day zero about “Publishing Tools: digital storytelling Video and Audio blogs for development”.
GINKS is a network of individuals and organisations that seeks to promote ICT4D in Ghana and was established in 2003 with the collaboration of the International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD).
http://www.youtube.com/v/k3t2Zwx_Dc0

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SANGOnet is an Information Communication Technology NGO in Southern Africa that promotes and support ICT projects in the region. They are currently setting up Citizen Journalism project with the aim of promoting the use of Web 2.0 by rural communities on issues of development. SANGOnet ICT Services Manager, Matthew de Gale […]

This morning Prof. Jayanta Chatterjee presented Kinsanblog (www.dealindia.org), an amazing virtual space where farmers can ask questions to tackle the agricultural constraints they face and get recorded answers in their local language. 
Two of the main barriers to sharing knowledge across farming communities are language and literacy. “Farmers are not literate and if they are, they’re […]

Amit Dasgupta is one of the few presenters at the Web2forDev Conference with a private sector background. Currently he is working for IBM India as General Manager in the Global Business Services division. At Tuesday, the first day of the Conference, Amit Dasgupta will do a presentation on practical examples of how knowledge sharing and […]

Etre interactif, s’interconnecter pour avoir des informations sur la disponibilité du poisson et les prix sur les divers marchés, telle est l’ambition des mareyeurs béninois qui associent timidement le net à la promotion de leurs activités.
« C’est clair que nous avons besoin d’être interactif, de nous interconnecter pour véritablement prospérer nos affaires mais avant tout, […]

Panos, which has been working with the West African journalists for quite some time, will sponsor two journalists to cover the event for people unable to attend the conference in person. This action allows the PIWA to pursue its support to strengthen the capacities of West African journalists on ICT. It allows as well informing […]

Interview:

Ndesanjo Macha, the Regional Editor for Sub Saharan Africa (Global voices) in this interview explains us why mobile technology will highly facilitate rural development especially when sharing content and linking farming communities with the global public sphere. Don’t miss on the same topic the post from Noel Tadegnon as an interesting project on African Mobile […]

Web 2.0 is often claimed to be “the social web”, be “made by/for people”, and “empowering” them. But for whom do Web 2.0 technologies really promising empowerment?
The continuous rise and fall of “development darlings” shows that the latest fashion is always the most attractive one – until reality catches up with it. This blog has […]

Interview:
First part:

Second part:

Ansbert Ngurumo, a famous Tanzanian blogger, claimed during the Digital Indaba Citizen (a great workshop held before Highway see http://dci.ru.ac.za) that “Africa’s best stories remain untold because journalists and bloggers have focused on urban areas and neglected rural areas (…) Most of the stories cultural, social and political are in the rural areas. […]

I was amazed to discover that while African people are still locked in series of discussions about Web 2.0 there is little awareness about positive development about the web2.0 tools. Just when I was busy with my assignment on web.20, a young bright man from Soweto South Africa —who probably escaped […]

Charles Dhewla made a comment which raised a great discussion on dgroups.  It expands how web2.0 might even widen the gap of ICT for development. It also highlights how challenges such as connectivity, electricity or education limit very much the use of web2.0. Here are some interesting quotes from the discussion. The full contributions […]

L’institut Panos Afrique de l’Ouest (IPAO) qui travaille depuis longtemps avec les communautés de journalistes en Afrique de l’Ouest va sponsoriser la présence de deux nouveaux journalistes pour couvrir l’évènement, en direct, pour tous ceux qui ne pourront participer physiquement à la conférence. Cette action permet à l’IPAO de poursuivre son appui au renforcement de […]

African Journalists need to embrace the new revolution of Web 2.0 tools if they are to catch up in this globalised World. Below find an interview on Web 2.0 with Matongo Maumbi a journalist from Zambia whose blog matongo.blogspot.com
Maumbi recently attended an online training focusing on Web2.0 tools organized by PenPlusBytes, the International Institute for […]

Blogs, wikis, podcasts, social bookmarks, and the like are all great ways of collaborating, allowing all Internet users to create new Internet content. Mashups go further, they liberate web users from the role of consumers of Internet services and allow them to create new services and share them.
So what is a mashup? The Wikipedia entry […]

Researchers and research interests in developing countries are underrepresented in mainstream academic publishing systems. Reasons are many but publishing costs, research infrastructure financing and interest in topics are among the most apparent. Some of the consequences of this landscape are:

Difficult access to international scientific production
Invisibility of research
Underrepresentation of development topics
Invisibility of researcher
Difficult access to mainstream […]

It is quite obvious that wiki software is changing communication, since the success of wikipedia and since many organizations use wikis to collaborate and share knowledge openly. It is interesting to see how organizations in the field of internal cooperation are starting to use these new tools as well. Some examples are the United Nations […]

Not more than six weeks away from the conference, we are excited to hear interesting presentations from all around the world and discuss web2.0 in the context of development. Here is some background information about the process so far.
By the end, 130 proposals were submitted, of which 40 were accepted to be presented. This number […]