Here is a collection of quotes which describe important issues that need to be taken into account when discussing, researching and theorizing about the use of Information and Communication Technologies within the framework of International Development Cooperation. These quotes have been selected and copied from numerous information resources which aren’t referenced here. All of them accumulated through google! Let information be free and accessible to all!
So… as my favorate saying goes:
“Was heißt Aufklärung?”
“…let me lay my cards on the table at the start by saying that in my mind there really is no more critical question facing the developing world today than how to face up to the challenges and opportunities offered by the Information Revolution, and particularly the phenomenon of the Internet. It is now the two edged sword that is leading the process of globalization: wounding those who don’t quickly enough grasp how to use it by leaving them ever further behind, but providing unprecedented benefits for those with the courage and willingness to grasp its potential to drive change”.
ICT4D 2.0 is about the worlds long tail, using digital technologies to draw on the capacities of the 80 percent who hold only 20 percent of the worlds resources.
As we stand on the threshold of ICT4D 2.0, we confront the key technical question of how to deliver the internet to the remaining 5 billion people who lack such access.
A crucial challenge for the contemporary development community is to close the structural gap between the supply and demand sides of assistance to ensure that limited development resources go where they are needed most.
Where ICT4D 1.0 saw ICT as a tool for development, ICT4D 2.0 sees ICT as the platform for development.
How to best exploit the interactive communications capabilities of digital media remains a growing task for ICT4D 2.0.
As web models moved from informational to interactional to transactional, ICT4D moved to service delivery.
It is fashionable to describe this ever-more-crowded development landscape as increasingly competitive, entrepreneurial, and market-led.
A priority in ICT4D 2.0 will be conceiving new applications and new business models that can use the growing ICT base to create employment.
If we accept that more hands on the development deck is a powerful and positive thing, then where might those hands best apply their strength to improve the lives and prospects of the poor?
The new generation of social entrepreneurs and hybrid ventures will be critical in bridging the gaps among innovation, community engagement, and sustainability that too often have diminished the transformative potential of research and technology.
Developers have identified the root of several ICT4D failures as stemming from their techno-centric approach, dominated by an informatics view of the world.
Beware of technological quick fixes
Those who are to be developed are often passive in the development discourse and development projects, and so are limited to the full potential of ICTs to be used to challenge structures of poverty.
When cooperating on a development project it’s important to be able to see what’s happening and how it’s happening.
The catchword “Web 2.0” allows internet users to create new individual realms within networks, users swap their knowledge and work together to create concepts and develop solutions.
To develop an understanding of development one must take into account the specificity of local geographies, cultures and social structures and the complexities of international politics.
ICTs can certainly be an important tool for dealing with development issues, but without political and economic changes at both international and national levels these technologies alone are not going to solve a country or region’s development challenges.
Leveraging technology to improve the lives of the poor requires express efforts to promote adaptation and widespread adoption.
The information poor forms an integral part of a discourse of development based on assumptions of a binary opposition between the developed and underdeveloped, the imperative being for the underdeveloped to catchup with the developed.
Assumptions about the need for a transfer of knowledge for development purposes are central within the ICT and development discourse and justify the existence of a category of people known as the ‘information-poor’ or ‘knowledge-poor’.
Assuming that people are ‘information-poor’ because they do not have access to the specific forms of information that are made available through ICTs, devalues the information and the knowledge that these people do have.
ICT 4 Uganda 
Inspiring indeed! references are crucial in science, were you stand on the shoulders of giants, for personal stuff pas de probleme!
ciao marlies
Hi Kai, I sourced out most of these quotations to satisfy my own curiosity. See my list here: http://tinyurl.com/lj4azq. – Cheers, Mark
Some countries have vast rural areas like in South Africa. So ICT is a new concept in most communities therefore more resources are needed. As a result i feel that those ‘stolen” quotes will be better utilised than be abused.
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