When looking at integrating ICTs (Information and Communication Technology) into existing programs, or making an initiative go further or work better with ICTs, there is a lot to figure out before you even get started.

Over the past few months, I’ve been supporting the development of a mobile data gathering/ crowd sourcing and mapping workshop for youth in Benin. The training is part of a broader initiative to reduce violence against children.

ICt integration planning

We’ve decided to use Frontline SMS and Ushahidi as tools in the project because we think (and want to test whether) mobile data collection/ crowd sourcing incidents of violence will allow for a better understanding of what is happening in this area. We also think that geo-visualizing reports of violence against children may have an impact on decision makers and might allow them to better plan prevention and treatment programs and services.

At first I was most worried about whether we could get the technology itself set up and working, but as I started digging in, it was immediately apparent that the technology was the last thing to worry about.

The first thing to consider is probably: Why are you doing this?

Well, we all have our different reasons. But even in a worst case scenario where someone wants you to use ICTs because they are cool or you have funding for them (*not the case in the project I’m writing about, but I’ve seen a lot of this going around) you might be able to salvage the project if you ask the right questions and get the right people involved in finding the answers.

Many of the questions I’m asking myself and my colleagues now will be asked again next week when we are all together on the ground with local staff, youth and community members. I expect there will be more questions added to this list, and that a lot of our current assumptions will change. But here is the starting list that we’re working from (in no particular order, as answering one may alter answers to another one):

1. What are your specific information and communication needs and goals?
2. Are you working within a particular framework or project/program already?
3. How is the issue you are working on currently dealt with?
4. What are the parameters for information collecting? What is the local use of ICTs?
5. What are the privacy and protection issues that you may run into?
6. How will you close the circle and manage expectations?
7. What other questions come up based on the context of your initiative and your experience?

Read the complete discussion of these questions on 7 (or more) questions to ask before adding ICTs by Linda Raftree.

If you want to send computers or other technology hardware to Africa, how do you do it? You can't just walk down the to Post Office and put a stamp on the outside of the computer box and mail it to Nigeria. Okay, so you could, but you'd have many problems.

First, your package might make it to a regional post office in the country, but it would take ages and when it arrived, the recipient would have to pay whatever customs and duties the local postmaster thought was due on the equipment. That might work for a random present, but isn't the best way to ship equipment to Africa.

At Inveneo, we've learned the hard way that getting information and communication technology equipment to different countries in Africa can be a challenge, but there is a method to the freight forwarder madness. By using tools like a Shipper's Letter of Instruction, in addition to the Commercial Invoice, and requiring a Form M for Nigerian shipments, we've made the shipment of technology equipment to Africa an easy process.

And we've even made a video to explain the process:

Like Glenn Stewart and Colm Pelow say, the equipment goes via air freight, riding in the same planes that haul people from the USA to Africa. But unlike your luggage, air freight cargo doesn't get delivered to the Arrivals baggage claim at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. It goes to the customs clearinghouse for review and import duty payment. From there, a local shipping agent can retrieve your equipment and have it delivered to the implementation site.

But why worry about all this hassle? Work with an Inveneo Certified ICT Partner, and focus on your implementation, not equipment importation.

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If you're an expert in information and communication technologies in Kenya, Nigeria, or Ghana, and looking for a new job, where do you find employment opportunities?

I was wondering this as I read about Jobberman, which Techmasi says is a Nigerian job site with promise. Yet it only has 20 new jobs in the last 7 days, none of them in the ICT field.

So if you're an telcom professional, where do you look for work? Do you really use the Internet? If so, which job boards work the best? Here is a few I've found, with my impressions of them. A motley lot for sure.

Kenya

• BrigherMonday: with 7 information technology jobs, its actually one of the better job boards
• BestJobsKenya: is another good employment site with quality opportunities and direct emails to employers
• White African Job Board: started as a response to the lack of tech-focused job boards, its the one job board I've used to hire a techie

Nigeria

• Nariland: while not a employment site, specificlly, its the largest forum in Nigeria and its job section rocks
• Jobberman: as I mentioned before, it has some jobs but few in the ICT field. I include it in hopes it will grow
• NaijaHotJobs: is a forum filled with job opportunities mixed with IT support requests, get rich quick schemes, and other chaff
• CareersNigeria: looks all swank, but the job selection is pretty thin - only 3 in the ICT field

Ghana

• BusinessGhana: is impressive - the most number of current jobs of any job site I found
• And that's it - Ghana seems to be lacking in the online job board front - or BusinessGhana owns the field

Does this selection mean that most people find employment through newspapers and personal connections, not online? If so, here is another African business opportunity for the right entrepreneur.

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While many practitioners and pundits in the ICT4D community agree that the field has had more than its share of failure - with some even claiming an unbroken string of failures - little work has gone into understanding why these failures happened, and even less work sharing failure with others.

ICTworks attempted to change the nature of the community's discussion of failures last Friday with "Fail Day", the second edition of the now-monthly #ICT4D Twitter Chat.

By all measures, the event was a success, with nearly thirty participants -- including researchers, practitioners, and interested people from industry and government -- not to mention an even larger audience of observers. The event's guiding questions were simple: What are the major types of failure in the ICT4D field, why are we faced with these patterns, and what can be done to change the course?

Unsurprisingly, at the end of 90 minutes, there were arguably more new questions than answers. (A full transcript of the event is available.) However, a few important themes arose:

1. Improper or missing understanding of users.

Technologists, like all people, have a tendency to dream big. As a result, systems are often over-engineered in the minds of the designer, without taking the time to base the design on real data points from potential users (or even from other projects). Designed in a vacuum, these projects are nearly guaranteed to fail -- users in the developing world often end up finding very little in common with an application developer in the United States (for example).

The human-computer interaction field is partly to blame for this pattern, as we haven't done a good job providing low-cost, meaningful ways to better understand users in the global south. We certainly haven't promoted use of simple techniques such as use of personas, interviews, and surveys in the early phases of ICT4D projects. Some of us, including me, are working to change this, but it will not be an overnight process.

2. Failure to focus on real problems and needs.

A failure to understand real needs is somewhat related to misunderstanding of users. After all, the better technologists are at understanding users, the better they can understand their needs. At OpenMRS, we have a mantra that "care will lead the way". This means that every bit of functionality can be traced to actual, real-life needs of the clinics and health care professionals we serve.

Unfortunately, this type of understanding can only be achieved by spending time first-hand in the environment where an ICT4D solution will be used, or, if that's not possible, by involving people from that environment directly in the design process. Eliminating time spent on "imagined" problems not only makes the technology development process faster, it also increases the likelihood the product will be well-received.

3. Expectation gap between implementers and donors.

Building on the previous two points, the chat's participants made it clear that implementers don't always do a good job of educating donors and other stakeholders about the realities "on the ground". (Perhaps this is because these "doers" don't fully understand them, themselves!) This misunderstanding inevitably leads to faulty expectations not only of the project, but also the processes of designing and implementing. Technologists must become better at "speaking donor", and also must help the donors learn a little about how to "speak tech".

This communication gap has plagued the informatics world in the global north since its beginnings, so it's not surprising to see it at play in the global south in international development projects. However, I believe the remedy may be the same in both situations - increased cross-training of people with solid technical backgrounds in concepts like interpersonal communication, project management, monitoring and evaluation.

Summary

While failures -- particularly in ICT4D -- will never be eliminated, focusing on these factors earlier in projects can help reduce of the impact of these failures, and help us "fail early and often", iteratively improving project implementations instead of failing late in the game, wasting more donor funds and invaluable time.

What do you think? Do you agree with these ideas? Were some overlooked? Voice your opinion in the comments.

Other FailDay Chat Synopsis

• ICT4D: Past mistakes, future wisdom
• Agile Development and Retrospectives: Learning from failure?

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For the December #ICT4D Twitter Chat, we're looking to learn from our mistakes, find common causes, and brainstorm on how to not repeat them in the future using the #FailDay hashtag on Twitter.
We'll start at 12-noon Eastern Time (noon Eastern around the world) with introductions, then move into the discussion by asking ourselves these three questions:

1. What do you see as common ICT4D mistakes, and why do you think they happen?
2. Building on #1, what common underlying causes plague the ICT4D space?
3. Of the issues in #2, which ones can we do something about, and what might that action be?

Our hope is to learn from each other to change the failure factors that we can individually control, and recognize the ones we need collective action to remedy.

• Handy Re-Tweet
  December #ICT4D Twitter Chat: Learning From Failure
  December 11 @ 12:00/noon Eastern
  RSVP: http://bit.ly/4Ok2LY

For those new to Twitter Chats, its a freewheeling conversation around our central questions on the Twitter platform. We'll archive the Chat too, in case you miss out.

Congrats to ict@innovation for launching the first East African Regional FOSS Business Models Course that seeks to answer the key question of "How can African IT-businesses make money with Free and Open Source Software?"

This advanced course will bring together over 20 experts from universities, training institutions and private sector in Tanzania, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda. Its main goal is to form a corps of trainers and advocates who are equipped to spread the word on Free and Open Source and its potential for IT-companies in Africa. The course inter alia builds on more than eight practical case studies of African IT companies, who use FOSS to generate income drive innovation, add local value and provide legal, low-cost and high quality software solutions to businesses and administrations in their countries.

Inveneo Certifed ICT Partner, James Wire of Linux Solutions was moved to tears by the opening ceremonies:

"On August 31st 2009, on a good Ugandan monday morning, I was invited to address the participants as the General Secretary of the Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa, I could hardly hold back my tears of excitement. Not only did I appreciate how far we have come, I also quickly made a mental comparison of how we used to previously confine our Open Source discussions to evening drinking sprees in dimly lit dingy pubs and now here we were in a state of the art four star hotel with Open Source being the reason. The two weeks training has brought together participants from Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi.

The most unique aspect about this training is that all the content was prepared by Africans with African experiences in mind. This was intentionally done to ensure that the skills and knowledge passed on does not become a white elephant for the participants. With many African countries having lots of similarities in terms of society setup and management, I believe a lot of fruit will come out of this training."

See more about FOSSFA and InWEnt launching first East African regional course on Business and Open Source in Kampala, Uganda

With the explosion of the field of ICT4D in the recent years including countless conferences, working groups, and projects being implemented both formally and informally, it's important to always keep in mind the "Four C's:" connectivity, cost, capacity, and culture.

First described in Information Technology for Health in Developing Countries, following these four principles will produce a lasting impact that will achieve the ultimate goal of improving and saving lives.

Connectivity
Many of the projects being deployed depend highly on a reliable Internet connection to store data, download software, or connect to others. However, even if the Internet is present, which in itself is rare, the connection is often unreliable. Users are much less likely to continue using the Internet of an ICT4D project that is web-dependent if it takes considerable time to load a page or download a file, and thus the project will be less sustainable in the long-term.

Cost
Cost is also a hindrance for ICT4D projects as the price of hardware remains high in most areas and is therefore unaffordable for those who the intervention is targeting. Even with the use of lower-cost, open source software, the total cost of ownership remains high because of shipping, training, and maintenance costs.

Capacity
Even if the area has connectivity and the hardware can be obtained cost-effectively, the local expertise to maintain and repair higher-tech devices is generally not present. Furthermore, members of the older generations often do not have the capacity to use the hardware that is introduced to them, which significantly decreases the effectiveness of any project that is implemented.

Culture
The final "C," and the most subtle, is culture. It is critical to take into account the people for whom the project is being developed and their demonstrated needs that will be met by a given intervention. A project is much less likely to be sustained in the long-term if it addresses an issue identified by an outside organization than if it is able to be used in a way that the targeted group deems important.

Despite the endless optimism that surrounds the potential of ICT4D, this framework is meant to focus attention on possible impediments to future project deployment.

As everyone in Kenya knows, there's been explosive growth in voice and data usage, mainly through mobile phones. And while the vast majority of mobile phone usage is beneficial to Kenya's economy, the very ubiquity, ease, and anonymity of prepaid mobile phones that make them so attractive for positive uses, has also made them great tools for nefarious ones.

Can't wait to know you

In reaction to this trend of using prepaid accounts to facilitate crime - from petty to serious acts - the government of Kenya is now requiring mobile phone providers to identify all prepaid account holders, following similar acts by the governments of South Africa and Tanzania.

As The Nation reports, Kenyan mobile phone operators are not happy with this new government mandate:

Zain CEO Rene Meza said the move would not reduce crime. "Prepaid subscribers registration is a good initiative to identify mobile users. However, it does not prevent or reduce crimes as the criminals normally manage to get hold of stolen mobile phones or fake or stolen identity cards to get their own mobile connections," he said. This was based on his experience in Pakistan and Paraguay where the law required that prepaid subscribers be registered.

And who can blame them - establishing a prepaid phone line registry will do little to discourage or solve crime. Mobile phones are an enabler for sure, but just as much as any other communications device. And creating a registry for Kenya's 17.6 million mobile phone users will vastly increase paperwork for both customers and mobile line operators, with little impact on mobile phone usage in crimes or the ability to solve crimes after they happen. Worse, the mobile subscriber database, with all those personal records, would be a target in itself for criminals.

So while mobile phone operators fight this battle, Internet cafe owners should not think themselves immune. They could very well be the next registration target for the government. To combat cybercrime in Italy, Internet cafe owners are required to record the identification of anyone who uses their computers and worried African governments may not be far behind.

I'm surprised that there isn't already a call for Internet user registration in Nigeria, home of the famous "Yahoo Boys", to curtail 419 fraud.

Here at Inveneo, we're often asked for leads on good African software developers or asked by Africans for job opportunities. And while we're too small to employ all the gifted programmers we come across, or even to keep a detailed list of who is looking or hiring, Erik Hersman of White African has come to everyone's rescue.

He's launched an Africa-focused Job Board:

The White African Job Board: it’s a simple and free place to post jobs for African technology professionals. So, what I’m really looking forward to seeing are opportunities listed specifically for people in Africa. That last bit is important, it’s for African devs, designers and bloggers. A lot of these might be for short-term gigs and volunteer opportunities, but who knows… It’s a little bit of an experiment

Personally, I think this fits well with the Coded in Country movement and the coming East-African bandwidth bonanza, and it directly supports Inveneo's goal of increasing ICT capacity in Africa.