La première conférence internationale sur le Web2fordev a visiblement comblé l’attente des organisations au regard de l’engouement que cette rencontre a suscité de par dans le monde entier. Pendant trois jours, près de 400 personnes venues des quatre coins du globe se sont retrouvées pour partager leurs expériences sur l’usage des outils du Web et réfléchir sur comment le web participatif pourrait contribuer au développement des communautés rurales.

Derrière le rideau, une grosse machine composée de 12 organisations internationales de développement a travaillé dans l’ombre pendant des mois pour asseoir ces assises qui marquent un tournant décisif  dans l’usage social de l’Internet.

La convergence des énergies au niveau de ces structures, qui se trouvent dans différents pays, a surtout montré son efficacité grâce à l’usage des outils du Web 2 dans l’organisation de la conférence. Dgroups, skype, wiki, tags, blogs ont été les principaux ingrédients qui ont facilité la mise en réseau du comité d’organisation ainsi qu’une préparation à moindre coût de la conférence.

A dessein, l’organisation s’est un peu démarquée des méthodes classiques de diffusion de l’information pour fonder sa stratégie de communication sur les outils du Web2, notamment le blog de la conférence renforcé avec d’autres outils participatifs en ligne comme le wiki, le postcast, le flickr et le Youtube.

Pour Giacomo Rambaldi, les fruits ont presque tenu la promesse des fleurs. Selon lui, le blog de la conférence recevait plus de 400 visiteurs par jour, répartis dans 168 pays dont les plus importants sont l’Italie, les Etats-Unis, l’Inde et le Kenya. Un record dans les statistiques de visite de blog.

Au fur et à mesure du déroulement des séances plénières et des sessions parallèles, les présentations sont postées sur le wiki de la conférence. Les participants avaient la possibilité de télécharger leur photos sur le flickr et ceux qui ont eu la chance d’être vidéo interviewé peuvent consulter youtube.

Selon les organisateurs, l’enthousiasme qui a régné doit se poursuivre à travers la communauté de pratiques qui a été constituée et renforcée au travers de cette conférence. Car, ce qui fait le ciment entre les participants, c’est avant tout la foi qu’ils ont en ce qu’ils font.

Gnona Afangbédji

«Le wiki est notre salle de rédaction. Nous y discutions des différentes tâches journalières à faire par chaque journaliste, à discuter des articles à écrire et à publier » a affirmé Kwami Ahiabenu de l’International Institute for ICT Journalism/GINKS. Ainsi, au Ghana, l’International Institute for ICT Journalism (PenPlusBytes) en partenariat avec le GINKS et d’autres institutions offre, depuis 2006, une formation de trois mois sur la gestion d’une rédaction virtuelle et l’utilisation des outils du Web.2 à des journalistes venant de 53 pays du monde (Asie, Afrique, Europe, Amérique). Pour Kwami Ahiabenu, les journalistes ont besoin d’être formés à l’usage des technologies de l’information et de la communication.
Les cours en ligne sont gratuits mais la disponibilité pour les suivre est très importante car l’apprentissage online, même en étant amusant, nécessite de la disponibilité. L’avantage avec cette formation, c’est que les journalistes participent aux cours en étant dans leur propre locaux ou bureaux. La seule contrainte est d’avoir une connexion Internet afin de faire les « devoirs de classe » et les recherches. Mieux, les outils du web.2 contribuent à tisser des relations entre les étudiants. «Pour connaître les membres de notre classe, nous utilisons le flickr pour publier les images de chaque étudiant » assure Kwami Ahiabenu.
Somme toute, l’apprentissage en ligne permet aux journalistes d’apprendre directement de nouveaux outils en renforçant leurs connaissances sur l’usage de outils du web.

Par Ramata Soré

Ethan Zuckerman gave the keynote speech on the final day of the Web2forDev conference, held at FAO in Rome, 24^th-27^th September 2007. Ethan is the co-founder of Global Voices, the world’s largest aggregator of media in the South. The Global Voices Forum brings together bloggers from around the globe.

Here are some quotes from that speech today:

Zuckerman on our new interest in old technology:

‘Email preceded the Internet… blogs are ten years old, and Wikis have been around since 1995… If most of this stuff is twenty years old, why are we talking about it now? Because it’s not about the tools, it’s about the people.’

‘The reason that it matters now is that we are experiencing a seismic shift – it’s about who can be brought together with these tools.’

Zuckerman on mobile phones:

‘When we think about participatory web, it’s not about laptops and high bandwidth… it’s about mobile phones. There are 3 billion handsets worldwide, and its estimated 80-90% of people in the developing world can access a mobile phone if they need to. This is a level of penetration of technology that changes the rules of the game. We need to broaden our thinking beyond the Web.’

‘For example, Interactive Radio for Justice gives people, particularly women, the opportunity to send questions via SMS to very powerful people. No, it’s not Flickr; no, it doesn’t have tags, but it’s back-and-forth participatory, it’s appropriate to the people it’s trying to reach.’

Zuckerman on Wikipedia:

‘Get smart about Wikipedia. It’s the ninth most popular site in the entire world. This it literally the biggest bang for the buck you can do.’

Zuckerman on why you should blog:
‘Think about who you’re trying to reach and how… if someone just signs a petition and says, “this is important to me”, it’s not enough. We’re looking for participation here… This is the reason to blog: links. Blogs are full of links and Google loves links – the more links you have, the higher up the search engine results you’ll appear. It makes sense to look at this as an eco-system approach. You have to link to figure out how to participate.’

“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.

At the Web2forDev conference, everyone has been saying that it’s not about the technology – it’s about the people. It’s about what people can do with the technology – and what ‘mash-ups’ of tools and approaches are appropriate and really working.

I came to this conference to find people who are really doing participatory web – not just using the technology, but facilitating real empowerment and positive change. Our plan at IIED is to co-publish with CTA a special issue of the Participatory Learning and Action series on participatory web for development – so I needed to find real examples.

Well, yesterday I was lucky enough to see Ednah Karamagi give her presentation, Enhancing Knowledge Sharing in the Rural Community through Adoption of Web 2.0 tools.  

I felt like I had found a magic bean.  Ednah works for a Ugandan NGO, Busoga Rural Open Source & Development (BROSDI). It’s a not-for-profit organisation that works with government and civil society in improving rural livelihoods. Within BROSDI is a project called Collecting and Exchanging of Local Agriculture Content (CELAC).                       

Both BROSDI and CELAC project make extensive use of Web 2.0 approaches. But it’s a real combination of Web 2.0 and grassroots participation. For example, CELAC is almost entirely populated with locally generated content. As Ednah says, ‘We are sharing information from our great grandfathers that we are losing in our generation.’  

Essentially, it’s a great combination of the online – Blogs, Google Maps, Wikis, online documentation, chatrooms – and the offline – a weekly mobile phone SMS farmers’ information service, village knowledge brokers, monthly farmer forum meetings, village meetings, radio, and hard copy documentation. They are even developing an e-learning tool for primary school children. 

Ednah is candid about the challenges they face. ‘The Internet is expensive, and needs power,’ she says. ‘It’s a problem in a country where access to electricity is intermittent.’ There is also the issue that people need to change their attitudes towards sharing information, rather than ‘hoarding’ it. And sometimes the technology doesn’t work – and is abandoned. ‘We did have a Wiki,’ Ednah says. ‘But the staff rejected it, as it was too complicated. But we plan to have a new Wiki for developing training material so that we can all comment and add to it.’ 

Ednah was a real inspiration. There was a long list of real life examples – not just the different technologies – but how the technology has made a real, positive change to people’s lives. My favourite was Cissy and her turkey farm. Ednah told us, ‘She learnt how to rear turkeys on SMS!’

This morning, I overheard Dr Hansjorg Neun of CTA talking to Ednah Karamagi. He asked Ednah, ‘Why do you think you have been so successful?’

Ednah’s reply was, ‘You have to use as many methods as you can to reach your community.’

Well, BROSDI are doing that in style. Let’s hope they continue to get the support they need to keep this pioneering organisation going from strength to strength.    

Le volet social a dominé les interventions, après l’ouverture de la première conférence internationale sur le Web 2.0 pour le développement du monde rural, ce mardi 25 septembre au siège de la FAO à Rome. Beaucoup de conférenciers et de participants ont abondé dans ce sens en plaidant pour une meilleure utilisation des outils du Web 2.0 surtout dans le domaine de l’agriculture et du développement du monde rural. Avec des exemples précis tirés des pays de  l’Amérique latine comme le Pérou et d’autres zones du monde, certains conférenciers comme Eric Gundersen ont invité les participants et autres personnes qui suivent la conférence via le blog ou des médias à se départir de leurs vieilles habitudes qui consistent seulement à utiliser  les mails, les serveurs avec des fichiers et contenus statiques avec l’Html au profit des blogs et autres moyens de publication disponibles avec l’avènement de la deuxième génération de l’Internet. Selon Eric Gundersen, la création du blog est guidée par un souci d’améliorer considérablement et d’accroitre le flux d’informations. Pour étayer son argumentation, le conférencier a révélé que le rapport sur le réchauffement de la planète, sorti récemment, a généré 36 000 réactions à travers le monde. Les raisons de la création du blogEric Gundersen a, à cet effet, estimé que le blogging, le tagging, le blogroll, entre autres constituent des logiciels sociaux. Ces outils permettent une interaction et la création de réseau entre les personnes et groupes de divers horizons. C’est dans ce même sillage qu’il a évoqué les possibilités qu’offrent Wikipédia qui est une encyclopédie électronique et en même temps celle d’avoir des conversations, des discussions avec un blog. M. Gundersen a, par ailleurs, fait un plaidoyer pour les logiciels libres qui pourraient selon lui aider à adapter les ressources. «On peut accorder une valeur aux blogs et aux  différentes sources. Cela représente de grands bénéfices»,  a-t-il souligné. Avant d’ajouter que les «les logiciels libres vous donnent une grande flexibilité vous pouvez interagir et faire les changements que vous souhaitez«Le blog est en train de mettre des gouvernements en crise»L’un des maîtres d’œuvre de la conférence, Giacomo Rambaldi du Centre technique de coopération agricole et rurale (CTA) n’a pas voulu entrer dans le débat des logiciels libres, mais il a reconnu les avantages qu’offre le Web 2.0 et ceux qui ont mené la lutte pour le faire émerger. Les applications et technologies du Web 2.0 sont des «outils qui permettent au web d’être accessible», a-t-il affirmé avant de marteler que «c’est la société civile qui a mené ce combat». Un processus qui s’est, selon lui, déroulé du bas vers le haut et qui est en train de mettre beaucoup de gouvernement en crise. «Avant les gouvernements contrôlaient les blogs et les médias. L’internet c’est un outil qui favorise la démocratisation parce qu’il permet à n’importe qui de communiquer», a conclu Giacomo Rambaldi.Cette conférence sur le Web 2.0 pour le développement rural est à l’initiative du CTA qui a été créé en 1983 dans le cadre de la Convention de Lomé entre les États du groupe ACP. Elle a été organisée par le CTA, la FAO, l’IICD et la GTZ avec un partenariat avec l’Institut Panos Afrique de l’Ouest pour la couverture médiatique de cette rencontre internationale qui se déroule depuis lundi dans les locaux de la FAO à Rome. Ibrahima Lissa FAYE

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 the Web 2.0 community of practice integrating participatory approaches to development with ‘participatory’ web?

I wanted to get to grips with some comments I had heard about Web 2.0 since I had arrived in Rome. First, I wanted I wanted to question Steering Committee member Jon Corbett about what the differences are between ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) and Web 2.0, with its plethora of applications such as blogging, vblogging, audioblogging, wikis, and social bookmarking.

According to Corbett, Web 2.0 is still a form of ICT – ICT is just an umbrella term, which covers all forms of digital information technologies. ‘But,’ Corbett argues, ‘Web 2.0 is markedly different from other ICTs. It doesn’t just solicit; it thrives on the participation of people. It’s what fundamentally makes it different. Web 2.0 wouldn’t exist if it weren’t populated by people using it.’

But perhaps more importantly, I also wanted to probe deeper into a comment Corbett made on Sunday, before the conference.

‘Web 2.0 is parallel to participatory development,’ Corbett had stated. ‘It’s about empowering people to take a role, it’s about citizen media.’ So I asked him today, why do you describe it as parallel to participatory development?

‘Ah, it’s not exactly parallel,’ he says, and goes on to explain. ‘I’ve been working with digital information technology with indigenous communities since 1995. In the past, it was different. All the content was produced with communities, but there was a steep learning curve in terms of the technology. But with Web 2.0, it simplifies how people interact – and it thrives on people contributing knowledge, and hence the comparison to participatory development.’

Essentially, what Corbett argues is that Web 2.0 requires the active participation of people in creating the content online – unlike in the past, when technical experts traditionally drove the uses of ICTs, in both the set-up and populating with content.

‘The technical experts were essentially the gatekeepers of the technology,’ Corbett says. ‘But Web 2.0 now offers opportunities for communities to interact with the technology – anyone can create content, you don’t have to be an expert.’

So is this why he describes it as parallel to participatory development? ‘Yes, as it’s about direct engagement, not about being represented by experts,’ says Corbett.

But, I argue, what about those without the time, access or inclination to take part in Web 2.0 for development?

‘There will still be a lot of people who are passive recipients rather than active participants,’ agrees Corbett, ‘But you could argue that this is the same as any other form of development today. The main difference is that Web 2.0 invites everyone to participate – and there’s no requirement any longer for it to be expert driven.’

‘It’s about early adopters,’ Corbett continues. ‘Early adopters of the technologies and applications get on board – just look at the people who are attending this conference. People like Ethan Zuckerman with Global Voices , or Kado Muir [who is presenting a session at Web2forDev on the ‘Outback Movement for Cultural Survival Using Web 2.0: An Aboriginal Case Study’]. These people have already identified that their communities, or the communities they work with, can benefit from Web 2.0.’  

It’s good to know that there are real examples of participatory development integrated with Web 2.0 applications out there, within this community of practice. I feel that I am a little closer to understanding this ‘mash-up’ of participatory approaches and ‘participatory web’. But I still have more questions to ask….

Le projet d’encyclopédie librement distribuable que chacun peut améliorer est bien le Wiki ou wikipédia, l’un des outils du web.2. Bien sur, comme le dit Kevin Painting du CTA lors de la préconférence du web.2 pour le Dev à Rome en Italie, les outils du web.2 sont « centrés sur le monde, donc beaucoup plus sur l’intégration et le développement avec un accroissement de la connectivité. Conséquence, l’on est centré sur ce qui se fait et non sur comment on fait ».

Mais que peut-on faire avec un Wiki ? Avec un wiki, on peut prendre et éditer des notes, son agenda, créer un site sur Internet qui permet à tous les Internautes de participer à des activités ; créer un Intranet permettant un partage de connaissances au sein d’une organisation.

L’objectif d’un Wiki est d’avoir un contenu riche. Et de contenus, le wikipédia en est vraiment riche. Une application appelée WikiCalc est actuellement en phase de test. C’est une feuille de calcul au service de l’internet collaboratif. Cet outil sera utile pour le monde agricole pour le calcul des données et le stockage des données.

Le ludopédia, lui, concerne les jeux de tous types : cartes, dés, Jeu vidéo… Il y a bien d’autres comme le Wiktionnaire, ou dictionnaire universel, le Wikiquote sur les Recueil de citations, le Wikispecies, qui fait l’inventaire du vivant, etc.
Le wiki étant le symbole de la démocratie, l’utilisation d’un Wiki peut s’avérer être un ¨choc¨ car il abolit les barrières qui empêchent la participation dans le partage de contenu et de connaissances. C’est donc un outil démocratique et de partage de connaissances.

Ramata Soré

I asked people about what they learnt on Day Zero Web2.0fordev conference and what they where going to take home.

Prince Deh GINKS Assistant Network Coordinator, Ghana

I am planning to host local language videos and translate the text in English because I realise that many people get my stories and information from the blog. Video blogging has enhanced my knowledge and sharing skills.As you see people are attracted by video and they want to see and hear at the same time. I have learnt how to use delicious, wikis and tagging. One thing is that if you don’t tag your work not so many people will read about it.

William Eziniwa Nwangwu, Nigeria
Regional Center for Information Science, Lecture
I have been wondering why Web 2.0? Isn’t it a new word for an old thing?I have discovered how it is being used and sometimes it worries me as an academician. Some Universities in the
USA have banned students giving reference to wikis as one of their sources of researched information. In wikis who is the author? Is the information peer reviewed? In my institution I limit the reference of wiki copies. 

Makelesi Gonelevu, Anju Mangal - Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), Fiji
We learnt about the potential of RSS feeds, wikis, tagging, blogging and the most interesting of all was the farmer blogging where farmers shared agricultural knowledge amongst themselves and also between experts. In the Pacific, we at SPC are trying to get farmers to access online agricultural information and have expert’s answers queries from the farmers.Web 2.0 will enable us to implement the various ways of information sharing and collaboration between farmers and stakeholders. In the Pacific, we have to deal with accessibility issues and one of the main issues that we face is connectivity. Web 2.0 is an amazing tool; however, it may not work in the Pacific if we have accessibility issues. Low bandwidth is an issue and using vlogging can be a problem in terms of accessing online videos.  We have discovered a lot on day zero and we hope to fully utilise Web 2.0 www.spc.int/lrd - SPC Land Resources Division website.  

Mirjam Schaap, Wageningen International
I learnt about real relevant use of Web 2.0 tools for grassroots people (farmers, traders etc), the potential of bridging gaps between farmers / researchers. It was also interesting to have the impression that some people are concerned about a threat of use of Web 2.0 tools by ‘amateurs’ for the ‘professionals` (concerns about taxonomies, about traditional video professionals etc). I also learnt that some of the names I have come across online, actually are real people …, that they also exist outside cyberspace … Very nice to meet people in real life. I loved the ‘online presentation’ and desktop sharing from Wageningen, and I got to know some handy tools which are used by others (desktop sharing, good cheap hosts, wordpress plugins etc.)I really liked the energy during the day, and the willingness of everyone to share experiences. I am still looking for tips on how to infect my colleagues with the Web 2.0 virus, how to convince my friends to share info using Web 2.0 tools, how to convince my colleagues to not just use text to communicate but also use video and audio. So on how to mainstream Web 2.0 tools use in my organisation and among our partners.But we’ll have another 3 days of working together, and sharing and learning.

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 publishing circuits
• Difficulty to build one’s scientific network
• Actuality of findings

Efforts have been made to mitigate this situation; an increasingly common and successful approach is open access to scholarly literature such as open access journals, self-archiving in corporate repositories and self-publishing — most of them, as can be seen, at the institutional level. But the concept and tools around the web 2.0 harness clear opportunities for researchers, acting as individuals, to contribute and build a broader personal presence on the Internet, at the same time benefiting from a better diffusion for their work, interests and publications.

Complementary to formal academic research dissemination and validation trajectories, and complementary to these institutional initiatives, the Personal Research Portal — a mesh of Web 2.0 applications like blogs, wikis and the like — should be able to contribute to achieve the following goals:

At the Personal / Researcher level, let the scientific community know:

• “who am I”
• “what do I do / what does interest me”
• “what have I done / what do I know”
• “where am I”

At the Work / Research level:

• Constitute a public repository for personal production, with past and present information and documentation, with everything interlinked
• Gather digital resources, news, general information and materials, on the same platform, accessible from each and every computer
• Self-archive & self-publish research results, ongoing research, reflections, doubts, findings
• Let know what one knows and that one knows
• Disclose and foster formal and informal relationships with the academic community

_____________________

The concept of the Personal Research Portal will be discussed with professor Ismael Peña-López, Open University of Catalonia (Spain), during the Web2fordev Conference. His work in this topic has been recently published at the Knowledge Management for Development Journal, where a full article is free to download.

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.

I found this chart via the sun light foundation. It is also available in Spanish (sorry could not find any French version). The large version has 8MB and can be printed out as a poster. It visualizes very good the different dimensions of web2.0.

ICT Update (http://ictupdate.cta.int) magazine is producing a special issue to coincide with the Web2forDev conference. We would like to hear from established projects already using web 2.0, particularly when applied to agricultural and rural development in African, Caribbean or Pacific countries. We are especially interested in initiatives using:

• wiki technology
• social bookmarking
• podcasting, RSS or web feeds.

We want to hear why you decided to use web 2.0, about the challenges you met, how you overcame them, what are the benefits of this technology and how you have succeeded.

ICT Update explores innovative uses of ICTs in developing countries. There’s no policy-speak or techno-dreams, the focus is on field reports from projects actually using ICTs. For more information send an email to Jim Dempsey (jim@contactivity.com) including brief details of your project and the relevant web addresses.

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.

Crossposted: www.crisscrossed.net