ICTworks

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.