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A few weeks back I had the privilege of serving as one of 4 judges for the business plan competition that is the culmination of Assistant Professor Tapan Parikh's graduate course, "ICT for Social Enterprise", at UC Berkeley's School of Information Sciences.

I was introduced to the course and the competition last year, when I also judged, and from what I saw this year all I can say is that if I were going back to school (a perennial fantasy of mine), and if I had any real tech chops, I'd want to go to Cal in the iSchool. Full disclosure, I was Bear as an undergrad so am a bit biased.

This year we evaluated 5 projects, each of which puts ICTs at the core of an innovative Social Enterprise business model. Though each pitch was distinct in terms of focus and ICTs, there were some recurring themes as well, among them the use of crowd/outsourcing, reliance on mobile devices and pilot projects planned in India.

Here, in alphabetical order, are brief descriptions of each company, pretty much verbatim from their pitches, along with contacts in case you're interested.

1. AwaazDe’s primary offering is a voice messaging platform that allows individuals to call a hotline, leave a message, and receive a tailored response from the organization managing the hotline. Team: Paul Goodman, Meena Natarajan, Rose George.
2. Edumile enables micro-loans through social investors to reach students pursuing higher education in India. Team: Satish Polisetti, Ankita Goyal, Sean Carey.
3. Mobile Works gives underemployed and impoverished individuals in the developing world the ability to earn supplemental income by doing work through their mobile phones. Team: Anand Kulkarni, Daniel Chiang, Philipp Gutheim, Prayag Narula, David Rolnitzky.
4. The NGO360 web directory is a website for NGOs and anyone interested in learning more about them. The profiles serve as a hub for discovering more information about NGOs in existing web locations. Team: Walter Koning
5. Shreddr revolutionizes data management by providing organizations with on-demand paper data transcription and access to digital versions of their data. Team: Andrea Spillmann, Ariel Chait, Daniel Perry, Kuang Chen

The pitches this year were strong; so strong that we decided to award 2 "first place" prizes ($4k each to AwaazDe and MobileWorks) and a second prize ($2k to Shredder) as well. I know that risks spreading the love too thin to do any one project much good, but I think all the judges agreed that several of these projects have a real chance to get to pilot, and even modest support, however small, can help to leverage additional funding.

I look forward to following their progress and hope to be invited back next year for more great pitches and an update on the alums.

Welcome to the ICTworks bi-weekly ICT4D Retrospective, where we condense the last two weeks of news into a succinct list of links for your perusal. If you want your news to be featured, email them to ritse [at] ritseonline [dot] com. To get these links faster, follow me on Twitter: @RitseOnline

Drop by Drop Gets the Pump: A new case-study from MobileActive highlights a mobile layaway service focused on helping small-scale famers purchase irrigation pumps for their farms. Definitely a case of teaching farmers how to "fish"!

I Paid A Bribe! The team behind Janaagraha seeks to fight corruption in India with its new online initiative, IPaidABribe.com — a website that allows citizens report instances of bribery as they occur. Innovative crowdsourcing, indeed!

Gambling on Broadband? While many African governments seek to foster economic development by making significant capital investments in ICT infrastructure, Mark Graham of the Oxford Internet Institute wonders if this trend is all a gamble.

Speeding Things Up: According to the WFP, only 28% of Burundi's population has enough food to eat. However, food assessment surveys are now being conducted using PDAs and this translates to speedier and more efficient delivery of food aid to the most needy.

Protecting Kids, One Text at a Time: Learn about how Plan International is using Ushahidi to track and respond to violence against children.

Intercultural Software Engineering, huh? Anne Schanz of IICD provides some thoughts on navigating some of the cultural differences she has encountered in developing and deploying ICT projects in Bolivia. A helpful reminder for ICT4Ders.

More Competitions, More Prizes: Check out the Apps for Development competition which hopes to bring software developers and development practitioners together. You might also be interested in the mWomen BOP Apps Challenge launched on October 7, 2010 as part of the GSMA mWomen Program.

Get a Job in ICT4D
FrontlineSMS:Medic (N/A): Java Developer and Senior Web Developer
Grameen Foundation (Ghana): Technical Program Officer (Mobile Health Innovation Program)
InfoDev (Various): Mobile Application Laboratory Manager (Kenya & South Africa)
NDI (Various): Drupal Developer (USA), Internet Freedom Project Manager (Burma), Online Messaging Consultant (Middle East)

Finally…the ICT4D Spotlight of the Week: A Point-of-Sales Mobile App
Frogtek's POS app "allows micro-retailers to record all store expenses and revenues directly on a mobile phone" using an external bar code reader.

At the 14th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of African Union, Bingu wa Mutharika, the African Union (AU) chairperson, has called upon member countries to take information and communication technologies seriously.

I could not agree more. I salute African Union's call to truly embrace ICT as a facilitator of development and progress across all African nations. I also call on the African Union to follow up its declaration with the following two changes across its membership:

1. Open and Competitive ICT Markets

Too many African countries artificially constrain the ICT sector with unreasonably high fees, unnecessary regulation, and outright corruption, if they let ICT competition take place. Often they do not. In too many countries, the incumbent telco is given every advantage to suppress new entrants and maintain high prices with poor service. The result is striking. The entire African continent - home to over 50 countries - has fewer Internet users than France alone.

2. Universal Service Fees used for Universal Access

Many African countries impose a Universal Service Fee on ICT usage. These fees generate millions of dollars in revenue each year. Yet many rural Africans are still waiting to see any impact from USF projects in their areas. At the same time, the private sector, which contributes the majority of the funds, is excluded from decision making.

The Time to Act is Now

Africa is poised for rapid growth, facilitated by information and communication technologies - and industry in itself. ICT is already said to be Nigeria's 2nd largest industry. And we have sucessful models to follow.

Let us unleash that industry, remove its regulatory shackles, and let it bring Africa into the modern world.

I was in a computer shop in Kaduna two days ago and i was surprised to see the eee PC on the Manager's desk. I was actually branded as his own product. This copy did not have the eee pc inscription on it. I cant tell what company manufactured that.

But i want to believe just as some one who saw the product said, that if the stuff start having problems there would difficulties with replacement for parts like the keyboard.

Its actually a new product of the company which goes for a good price, and with good incentives.

This could be a challenge.