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Web2ForDev 2007 was the first conference devoted to exploring the ways in which international development stakeholders can take advantage of the technical and organizational opportunities provided by Web 2.0 methods, approaches and applications.
“We need to come up with a description of what is understood by Web2forDev.” This comment was placed on the Democracy Board – an area outside the main Red Room where conference goers can write suggestions, make comments, share feelings and contribute ideas. The person who posted this particular suggestion was only putting on paper what many people outside the conference halls, in the coffee rooms and around the canteen have been asking themselves, and each other, over these past few days: just what is this Web2forDev thing?In true democratic style the people were given a voice and this is what a few conference citizens had to say:“To me Web 2.0 is a great tool for advocacy and promoting our struggle.”
Kado Muir of the Ngalia people in Western Australia “Web 2.0 is basically some of the newer tools that we’ve had to adapt to using to try and bring back the language. It’s using the internet and using computers as best we can to extend the voice out to the community and people who really need it.”
Tim Kulchyski, Hul’qumi’num Treaty Group, Canada“It means you can communicate with each other and exchange information. It’s not spreading information it’s sharing it. That’s why I’m here.”
Wilma Roem, ILEA, the Netherlands“I see it as a chance to bring agricultural researchers together to work on a problem and to share their experiences and possibly even to disseminate ideas and practices that could better serve the farmers of the world.”
Zaid Abdul-Hadi, head of Computer and Biometric Services Unit of ICARDA, Syria “Web 2.0 gives our experts a space to collaborate and share resources and blogs provide a good feedback mechanism for us, although the question remains for those who cannot yet access them. The other dimension is content development. This is something I’m very passionate about. I’m really interested to see how we can use these tools to develop relevant local content.”
Rachael Kadama, I-Network, Uganda“I believe it’s been part of a larger cultural shift from people being consumers to being active participants. It’s about changing the experience of how we interact with the information we consume.”
Bryan Cheung, chief executive officer of Liferay, USA “For me it means being able to communicate with the extension officers in all the countries and how they would be able to send and upload information, in that way we both learn from each other.”
Ajnu Mango, Information officer, at the Land Resources division of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, Fiji “It’s more interactive. Web 1.0 was static information, administered by someone else but web 2.0 allows users to interact with others to share information.”
Makelesi Gonelevi, information officer, at the Land Resources Division of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, Fiji There are certainly several common themes – sharing, interacting, communicating – but it seems to be difficult to come up with a single definition. And maybe that’s the point. Maybe that’s even the great strength of Web 2.0. It means different things to different people, and that’s how I would like to describe it. It’s about adapting the internet and making it work for you. It’s about giving information you think others can use and taking only the information you need. And for me, personally, it’s this ability that makes web 2.0 perfect for development.
This was a fascinating presentation about a project initiated by the Hul’q’umi’num’ Treaty group in Canada. Like Kado Muir’s accounts of the Ngalia people in Australia, this is another inspiring example of how First Nations communities are revitalising their culture and language using Web 2.0.The Hul’q’umi’num Elders approached the University of Victory in Canada and asked them to collaborate with them on a project. The Elders had identified language as a key element in strengthening their culture and cultural identity.They wanted to use participatory video within their community to record songs, stories, and skills. In Tim and Jon’s presentation, we saw many photos of Hul’q’umi’num community members engaged in ‘everyday’ activities, such as storytelling and weaving cedar bark. But as Tim explains: ‘It was about bringing it back into people’s everyday lives – they’re things that we’re losing, these activities are becoming extinct.’The key thing though, was the carefully developed process involved. All material generated within the community was overseen by Elders Advisory Boards – and in particular, to protect and preserve sensitive cultural information.Essentially, many Web 2.0 processes are often referred to as ’social computing’, about sharing information with the rest of the world. But here, the information generated is closely protected within the community. So it is, in fact anti ’social-computing.
Why? ‘There is a need for caution,’ co-presenter Jon Corbett observes. ‘Caution about what information goes online, and who has access. There has been really significant knowledge expropriation for generations – so what remains, the communities must have control of.’
Corbett continues: ‘Imagine a pyramid. Data is at the bottom, information next, then knowledge – and only wisdom is at the top. Social computing is a good way of sharing information, but less so knowledge, and certainly not wisdom.’
Essentially, what this means is that the learning and growth of community wisdom that is perhaps the most significant indicator of success.
‘It’s not the final product that’s important, it’s the process,’ Tim Kulchyski says in conclusion. ‘Like a dictionary, it’s never really done. If we’ve learnt something from it, to me that means the project has been a success.’
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 approach.
Lot’s of people in the world develop repository on the same particular topic that is of our interest and we would gain time and knowledge if we could access their references. That’s what you can get by using wisely your Delicious account. That’s still a quiet revolution but worth investigate with Christian from GTZ and Ninke from IICD. How does tagging work and why does it work so well? What is the added value of tagging? In the first interview Christian presents the tagging revolution and how it goes further than merely sharing information as it seems to be the best way to join your own community of practice. Ninke then explains how with a group of colleagues, she started to use a common tag to identify and retrieve resources which would interest all of them and the benefit of this single taxonomy. Tell a Friend
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 experimenting with the wisdom of wikis, and the World Bank with its blogs: Poverty and Growth and Private Sector Development. I wonder whether web2.0’s enable communication will lead to a change of the interaction of these organizations with external actors. Might it be that these organizations become, themselves, part of an open network for knowledge sharing in the future?
What fascinates me is that the web develops, pressures for own concepts of knowledge sharing, and affects more and more “real life”. Take a look at events or concepts like “JAM” or “unconference“. From what I know, both approaches are web rooted and rely on the web’s open and transparent culture. Both concepts are open for everyone interested. They are mainly organized online, but some unconferences such as barcamps take place worldwide to discuss web2.0, wine, local development or e-government. By the way, a book about how to do an unconference is currently collaboratively being written. UN Habitat organized a JAM prior to a conference, which allowed people to participate and articulate their opinion.
During a three-day digital discussion, hundreds of thousands of people from 191 countries engaged in issues ranging from safety and security to improving the lives of slum dwellers. In India, women participated through moderators who went into communities to seek their views, while in Kenya, people waited hours for computer access so they could have a say. The results of the discussion were included in the forum’s agenda. (Newsweek)
It enthralls me that web2.0–its communication, community, participation behind it, etc.–gives rise to new models of collaboration, which questions the traditional ones. At unconferences, everybody is a listener and a presenter at the same time, and they are organized over a wiki. As mentioned in my last post, at our conference, we also want to experiment with this kind of approach in our open sessions.
While reading a general dossier about Web 2.0 in Spore the CTA’s information bulletin I came over the short, but very interesting article “Field report from Cameroon”.
Very briefly the platform www.riddac.org is presented (which won the RFI Net Afrique price in 2006 for the best African Website). François Ossama launched RIDDAC, a network for information on sustainable development in Central Africa in 1999. He set up the website to circulate and exchange information on environmental issues.
But as he points out:
“…as time went on, we realised that a static website would not last long, since visitors who came to download a text would have no reason to come back to the site.”
François also supports interested people to create their own blog and open in this way the discussion and information exchange. Unfortunately comments on the blog are very rare until now. People reading articles can vote if they found them interesting or not. Taking this as one possible indicator you can see that the site it quite frequented and also considered as informative. Just have a look and see for yourself!
Many of your questions seem to be based on the premise that “web2.0″ is a single, identifiable phenomenon. In fact, it is many different things, though they all share some common features e.g. user-generated content.
With that caution in mind, please find below some brief answers to your questions:
Christian Kreutz (CK): What are the key challenges to be tackled for web2.0 for rural development?
Lawrence Agbemabiese (LA): In the short-term, poor rural connectivity and connectivity costs relative to average rural incomes. However, the technological and economic issue aside, I think the biggest potential challenge/threats will be legal in nature–things like copyright infringement battles with Microsoft, royalty rate increases (which for example recently caused the shut-down of last.fm, government control over content (like what YouTube seems to suffer constantly nowadays) etc..
CK: Is free and open source software the main driver for web2.0 technology?
LA: Yes, especially from the perspective of low-income developing country users.
CK: Does web2.0 is all about connecting people or does it really involve knowledge sharing?
LA: It is a lot more than connecting people. I think the most important potential value of web2.0 is “collective intelligence” although for this to be realized, a lot more work is needed on means to “filter” useful/relevant data from the junk.
CK: Is connectivity one of the main issues around web2fordev or only a shortterm challenge?
LA: Definitely short-term, I predict that 10 years from now the connectivity challenge–even at the most remote sites on earth–will be
history.
CK: How can developing countries realize their own web2.0 applications?
LA: Is this absolutely necessary?! One thing about web2.0 and the internet in general is that it offers at last the real opportunity for
collective intelligence to transcend national boundaries (and hopefully, one day language barriers as well…!). But anyway, there is already a lot of promising ‘developing country’ web2.0 applications starting to appear out there. Muti, for example is one, and there is also Afrigadget and a few others.
CK: Does the increase of social networks enhance potential for learning?
LA: Definitely.
I really like the dropping knowledge initiative and think that through questions a lot can be expressed. The basic idea behind Dropping knowledge is that only by posing the right questions can a global conversation be started which can change the world to the better.
That’s why I want to start here with some questions, which can be discussed during the conference:
What are the key challenges to be tackled for web2.0 for rural development?
Is free and open source software the main driver for web2.0 technology?
Does web2.0 is all about connecting people or does it really involve knowledge sharing?
Is connectivity one of the main issues around web2fordev or only a shortterm challenge?
How can developing countries realize their own web2.0 applications?
Does the increase of social networks enhance potential for learning?
…
What are your answers? Do you have more questions?
I was curious when an article titled Web 2.0 can benefit the world’s poor appeared on Scidev.net. The authors Waleed al-Shobakky and Jack Imsdahl see in new web applications, such as Google docs, a great potential for developing countries. They write, “Web 2.0 can help these students create documents, track their families’ or villages’ business affairs in spreadsheets and save and store data online. Users only need access to the Internet to benefit from these applications.”
No doubt these applications will change the old concept of purchasing software for each computer. But what is the real benefit of having documents online? I think these applications have great potential to collaborate. But the article doesn’t stress enough the “capacity crisis” that developing countries are facing in the context of information and communication technologies. In Africa problems of simple training to use computers, affordable access, and having enough bandwidth, need to be solved. Furthermore, these online applications need instant access to the Internet which is only available to a minority.
A more helpful approach is open office, so people can work without an Internet connection. Another one is Jahazi, which has developed a USB flash stick full of applications. Also, Google wants to bridge this connectivity challenge with its latest tool called Gear, which will allow to work with online content while being offline.
But what strikes me the most about the article is that it leaves out the biggest opportunities about web2.0 and development. The potential lies in its users and what they do with these tools to communicate, share knowledge and create social media. New social networks are established online, which facilitate interaction and collaboration in an unprecedented way. Blogs, wikis or free sources are the drivers of web2.0.
The authors see language as an obstacle, but on the contrary, I believe that web2.0 with its open source dimension offers software in all kinds of languages (e.g. wordpress and drupal). This is a key factor to create own communities in local or regional contexts (e.g. the union of the Urban Poor from Indonesia,Afrigator, Egypt blog review). However, to which extent this can benefit the poor, will be further discussed on the web2fordev conference.
Brenda Zulu is a journalist who comes from Zambia. She is specialized in Information Communication Technologies and social issues. (Articles)
Gnona Afangbedji est un journaliste économique qui vient du Bénin. Il s’intéresse au traitement de l’information sur les progrès dans les TIC. (Articles)
Ramata Soré est une journaliste du Burkina Faso spécialisée dans toutes les questions liées au Web2.0. (Articles)
Ibrahima Faye est un journaliste du Sénégal qui s’est très vite spécialisé dans le domaine des Technologies de l’Information et de la Communication (TIC)
Noel Kokou Tadégnon journaliste multimédia Togolais, est spécialisé dans la radio, la production télévisée et la photographie de presse. (Articles)
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