Dear Antonio,
I agree that Will's work would be worth a look. I am a bit unclear, though, on who it is that you are considering. Do you want to look at effective use of ICTs by government offices? By national-level NGOs? Small CBO's? Larger businesses in urban areas? Small businesses in rural areas? The average villager? Educated professionals? I would suggest that each of these groups have made use of ICTs in different ways in different countries. A couple projects you might look at in Peru include the work of Martha Davies and Quipunet <http://www.quipunet.org/>, and the work of Ana Maria Ponce and her travelling workshops for InfoAndina <http://www.condesan.org/infoandina/itinerante.htm>, the Latin America node of the Mountain Forum (the organization for which I work). In Nepal, we are currently involved in a pilot project to link the global online Mountain Forum network with community networks mobilized through community radio (in this case, Radio Sagarmatha, the oldest community radio station in South Asia <http://www.radiosagarmatha.org/>) <http://www.mtnforum.org/apmn/radio_index.htm>. However, community radio stations generally which use the Internet to access information in response to expressed needs for information by community members are good examples of this. Radio Sagarmatha has done work in this way, but the best known example of such work, of course, is the community radio station in Kothmale, Sri Lanka.
Another aspect to your question is the type of knowledge you are considering. It seems implicit in your question that you are considering how people in less industrialized countries can make better use of or incorporate information they get from the outside, as opposed to how they can better produce or make more effective use of locally produced knowledge. The Jhai Foundation in Laos has done work in this way <http://www.jhai.org/technology.htm>. By creating wireless links between villages, they are facilitating easier information sharing between villages. An issue related to this that receives a good amount of emphasis, particularly in Peru, is indigenous knowledge. You may want to look at literature on use of ICTs with relationship to this topic.
Best of luck, Layton Montgomery
------------------------- Layton Montgomery Executive Secretary Mountain Forum
http://www.mtnforum.org [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
c/o ICIMOD GPO Box 3226 Kathmandu, NEPAL
Dear All,
I am in the first year of my doctoral studies at The University of Auckland, New Zealand. I am from Peru and my research interest is to examine how ICT assists human capacity development for socio-economic development in developing countries. My interest is to find out how ICT gap between have and have not (DC and LDC) can be closed in order to benefit from the knowledge economy. Most authors, organisations and development agencies have been busy providing ICT (information and communication systems) to developing countries. However, can these systems actually develop the capability and capacity to synthesis 'useful' knowledge in developing countries? I doubt it.
There is considerable literature, theories and propositions on knowledge management with a slant towards information provisions to developing countries. Several development programs funded by the ADB, World Bank have focused on providing ICT systems as an enabler and access to information. >From knowledge management view point, I would like to argue that providing information and enabling ICT systems, is only small effort in bridging the gap between knowledge have and knowledge have-not. This is because the ability to use information resides in capacity and capability to create knowledge from such information. For ICT to be beneficial, it is imperative that we develop knowledge synthesis capability at individual and enterprise levels. My initial research suggests that we have devoted most our efforts to develop ICT systems not the knowledge creation capability from it. Access to information is not the same as knowledge synthesis; the information access is not enough for the creation of "useful" knowledge and it seems that most efforts in developing countries are currently devoted to ICT systems building thinking that it will allow knowledge synthesis.
Has any one seen any interesting work in the area of methods of translating ICT to knowledge or any studies on developing countries capability to use them effectively?
I will appreciate your comments and assistance.
Regards,
Antonio Díaz Andrade
The University of Auckland Business School Information Systems and Operations Management Department
7 Symonds Street,
Auckland New Zealand
Phone: 64 9 373-7599 ext. 89838
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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