ICTworks by Inveneo

Fail Faire DC 2011 is a celebration of failure as a mark of innovation and risk-taking. We will have great speakers with fun, fast, Ignite-style presentations of their professional failures. Audience participation is not only encouraged, it is mandatory! We are all peers and none of us is perfect. Expect much laughter as we navel-gaze at where we have all gone wrong in ICT and international development.

Yet we will LEARN from failure. Failure is no reason to be ashamed. Failure shows leadership, innovation, and risk-taking in pushing the boundaries of what is possible in scaling ideas from pilots to global programs. There is great value in examining our mistakes as we go beyond the easy and the simple. So while we encourage irreverence and humor, we will be improving our profession too.

Fail Faire DC 2011 will happen on October 13th at the World Bank. The event is sold out already (in 5 hours!) and there is only one way in now - present.

Fail Faire DC 2011 is brought to you by theWorld Bank, Development Gateway, Inveneo, and Jhpiego.

Agenda:

• 6:00pm: Welcome and drinks
• 6:30pm: #FAIL-Slam
• 7:30pm: Open Discussion
• 8:00pm: Mingling, learning, networking, more drinks

.
Featured Speakers (so far)

• Dr. Tessie San Martin, CEO, Plan International USA
• Ian Schuler, Internet Freedom Programs, U.S. Department of State
• Erin Mote, Chief of Party, USAID Global Broadband and Innovations Alliance
• Andrea Bosch, ICT Advisor and Chief of Party, TILO Egypt, Creative Associates
• Dr. Harshad Sanghvi, Vice President of Innovations & Medical Director, Jhpiego
• Kristin Peterson, CEO & Co-founder, Inveneo
• The World Bank on their 70% ICT4D failure rate
• Grameen Foundation
• Development Gateway
• You? Apply today!

.
We're sold out already so sign up to get alerts and updates about this and future Fail Faire DC events.

We all know that developing countries have seen rapid growth in information and communication technology (ICT) access and use - from basic Internet access to the explosive growth of mobile phone ownership - and this growth is uneven. While the hype points to mobile phone saturation, high-speed Internet access and broadband connectivity is still limited and poorly used by business and government to create and deliver key services.

The World Bank Group had the strategy to promote ICT access and adoption across all sectors of the developing world through:

1. ICT sector reform,
2. access to information infrastructure,
3. ICT skills development, and
4. ICT applications.

Recently, it's internal Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) completed an Evaluation of World Bank Group Activities in Information and Communication Technologies, a review of the $4.2 billion in World Bank support to the ICT section during fiscal 2003–10. During that time, the Bank Group was the largest multilateral financier in telecommunications in Africa. (Yet that was about 1 percent of private investment in telecommunications of $400 billion between 2003 and 2009.)

The IEG's findings are quite impressive - in it's transparency and its recommendations - on the Bank's ICT expansion activities:

Among these areas, the Bank Group’s most notable contributions have been in sector reforms and support to private investments for mobile telephony in difficult environments and in the poorest countries, where most of its activities have taken place. Countries with Bank Group support for policy reform and investments have increased competition and access faster than countries without such support. In other priority areas, the World Bank Group’s contribution has been limited. Targeted efforts to increase access beyond what was commercially viable have been largely unsuccessful.

In general, the Bank has a 60% success rate across the four strategies, with one major exception:

Regarding efforts to promote universal access, targeted World Bank ICT projects with the objective to directly promote target access for the underserved and the poor had limited success; only 30 percent have achieved their objectives of implementing universal access policies or increasing ICT access for the poor or underserved areas. Bank operations to promote universal access often were slow to get off the ground and were superseded by the rollout of mobile phone networks by the private sector, in some cases supported by Bank sector reform

Congratulations to the World Bank!

I am sure there will be many people who see that 40-70% failure rate in ICT projects and ask why the Bank is doing such a bad job. Expect the calls for reduction in ICT investments to start soon after. Both are misguided. Rather than bemoaning the failure rate, let us congratulate the World Bank on such transparency and risk taking.

First, it takes great bravery to critically examine any project, and even more so when donor country funds are at stake. It is even harder to be honest that many projects fail, and harder still to make those failures public. On Monday, we asked, "How Do We Break Oscar Night Syndrome in ICT4D M&E?," and I am quite impressed that the Bank did just that even when the results were seemingly so unflattering.

Next, let us be realistic about where the World Bank is often working. It is supporting programs in relatively challenging environments, even market failure situations, where there is minimal private sector investment and considerable resistance to reform. What do you expect the success rate to be in situations like that? I would consider 30% to be a remarkable success rate. It's better than the 20% success rate of Silicon Valley start-ups who are coddled by the most business-conducive environment in the world.

So let us not be critical, let us actually be ecstatic that the World Bank is brave enough to invest where others fear to tread and is honest about it's success in doing so. In this case, may we all be more like the Bank.

infoDev is proud to announce a business plan toolkit for Mobile Applications Laboratories (mLabs) with the objective to drive mobile innovation in emerging markets.

With more than 5 billion subscribers worldwide, the mobile phone network is the world's largest distribution and communications platform. In recent years the fastest market growth has been in developing countries, laying a foundation for a huge potential user base for innovative mobile applications and services. This market is largely untapped because low-cost, high-value applications that have a direct and immediate impact on the developing world are still hard to find.

To respond to this development challenge, infoDev is working with the Government of Finland and Nokia to establish a series of mLabs around the world. The mLab network will ensure that locally relevant applications are created to meet growing demands among users in developing countries.

mLabs are an innovative way to foster enterprise creation, employment, and competitiveness by providing open spaces where entrepreneurs and programmers can find training, mentoring, technical expertise, and access to finance. Providing both incubation facilities and a network of like-minded and knowledgeable supporters, the infoDev global network of mLabs will accelerate the commercialization of innovations in developing countries.

The mLabs business plan is a tool to accelerate the planning and establishment of the labs, which are expected to generate revenues and sustain their services after an initial round of seed funding. However, mLabs are still required to design a customized business model and a service portfolio relevant to their own market conditions.

This initiative draws on infoDev's expertise in business incubation and technology entrepreneurship, and has been carried out as part of a joint Finland-infoDev-Nokia program on Creating Sustainable Businesses in the Knowledge Economy

Opportunity closing date: Friday, July 1, 2011
Opportunity type: Employment
The Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Unit of the World Bank seeks to hire an Intern, based in Washington, DC, committed to the cause of using ICT to enable social and economic development.

The Intern will work with the World Bank's Open Development Lab, a new joint initiative of the World Bank Institute and the Information and Communication Technology Unit of the World Bank.

The mission of the Open Development Lab is to enhance accountability and improve the delivery and quality of public services by leveraging innovation, knowledge, and technology from social innovators, technology companies, and civil society. The Open Development Lab will facilitate knowledge exchanges between country-level implementers and global program experts by mobilizing expertise, applications, and knowledge through open collaboration in response to practitioner needs.

This is a great opportunity for a self-starter with excellent analytical and communication skills, with demonstrated experience or interest in ICT4D. S/he will have the opportunity to shape this new initiative as part of a dynamic, engaged team, while gaining exposure and access to leading ICT4D practitioners inside and outside the World Bank. Specific responsibilities will be determined based on programme needs and activities.

The internship will be for a preliminary duration of four months.

Requirements:
Minimum of a Bachelor’s degree in technology studies, communication, international development, policy analysis, technology, management, or related fields;
Preferably, work experience in areas related to the design, deployment, development, and use of ICT and mobile applications and related technologies;
Demonstrated English-language writing and strategic communication skills;
Demonstrated ability for research, analysis, preparation of case studies, web content creation and organisational tasks;
Self-starting, able to work under minimum supervision, and deliver high-quality work against tight deadlines.
Starting date: As soon as possible.

Salary: The Intern will be remunerated based on experience and qualifications based. This position is not tied to and does not lead to any guaranteed future employment opportunities at the World Bank or its affiliated programmes and institutions.

To apply, submit a cover e-mail message of up to 250 words describing why you are interested in this position, and an up-to-date resume showing past work experience relevant to this position, to wbmapp@gmail.com with the subject line reading “CoLab Intern 2011 application”:

Only complete, timely, and correctly-submitted applications will be considered.

Please indicate in your cover note in which media you first saw this advert - NGO Pulse Portal.

For more about the World Bank, refer to www.worldbank.org.

For other vacancies in the NGO sector, refer to www.ngopulse.org/vacancies.

To view the listing: http://www.ngopulse.org/opportunity/world-bank-open-development-lab-intern

--
Follow me on Twitter for more ICT4D Job and Internship Opportunities @AfroBella11

Last year, the World Bank issued a challenge to software developers from across the globe to take on some of the world’s most pressing development problems by creating digital apps using the Bank’s freely available data. The response was overwhelming, with 107 entries from 36 countries across six continents, and nearly a third from Africa.

A panel of expert judges, including technology gurus such as Kannan Pashupathy of Google, Ory Okolloh, co-founder of Ushahidi, and Craig Newmark of Craigslist, selected the winners. A total of $55,000 was awarded in cash prizes to competition winners.

The three winning apps all feature unique approaches to pressing development challenges:

· First Prize Winner - StatPlanet World Bank (Australia): With this powerful app, you can visualize and compare country and regional performance over time. The user can select from among the 3000+ indicators covering virtually every dimension of economic, social, and human development, and can select the manner in which the data is displayed. This app allows anyone an easy interface to these indicators - even without Internet connectivity - via a desktop version of the app. Entry - Website

· Second Prize Winner - Development Timelines (France): Development Timelines lets you put global development data into historical context and better understand how events such as war, education reforms, or economic booms and busts, affect progress towards the Millennium Development Goals. Entry - Website

· Third Prize Winner - Yourtopia - Development beyond GDP (Germany): This interactive app allows you to sum up human development according to your own criteria and, through a short quiz, choose how important different dimensions of development are to you. You can then participate in constructing a multiple-dimension index of human development. Entry - Website

The Apps for Development Competition was launched in September 2010 by World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick as part of the Bank’s Open Data Initiative, an effort that unlocks the institution’s world-class knowledge and development data for researchers, activists, students, and development practitioners across the globe. The initiative is rapidly expanding, in line with the huge demand for development data and information.