ICT4D in the Field – a truly collaborative online course for students from three continents
A short summary of this course in a 2 minute video clip:
Webinar Artificial Intelligence in and for the Global South – all talks and abstracts
The Open International Webinar Artificial Intelligence in & for the Global South – What is AI and what can it be used for? took place online, from 02-04 June 2021, with 145 participants from Asia, Africa and Europe, including master students from VU Amsterdam (Netherlands), UDS (Ghana) and UNIMAS (Malaysia) and Aurora European universities. This […]
Innovative student project: “Solid for users in low-resource environments”
Ownership of data and data privacy have become an extremely important issue, nowadays. Users are becoming aware of the need to control their personal data, and not letting it be manipulated and used by anyone on the Web. A new initiative, in this respect is Solid. Solid (derived from “Social Linked Data”) is a new […]
Digital Divide, Inclusion and Community Service Learning
Community service learning (CSL) is an educational approach that we have further developed in collaboration with universities and stakeholders in the Global South into a research and education model dubbed: ICT4D 3.0. This model combines problem-solving and situational learning with meaningful service to communities and society. In computer science and artificial intelligence education – traditionally […]
Digital Humanism
For a long time, Informatics has been viewed as a foremost technical scientific discipline; an idea aptly captured by the name “Computer Science”. For a long time, this view might have been justified. We are now witnessing how ICT technologies have become mainstream along with a full-scale fundamental impact on society at large. In the […]
Intervention or Collaboration? Redesigning ICT4D – 15 December 2020 thesis defence at Maastricht University
Thesis defence Anna Bon Maastricht 15 December 2020 – a promotion in Corona times The Pro-Rector, Prof. Dr. Christine Neuhold chairs the public defence, and opens the reunion at 13h. After Anna’s presentation of 15 minutes, the opposition is opened. Prof. Wiebe Bijker, emeritus professor of Technology and Society at Maastricht University. Prof. Dr. Wiebe […]
Sustainability and Ethics by Design – Interdisciplinary ASI project
“Sustainability assessment and ethical considerations are not commonly included as subtasks in the development of digital systems and services and receive less attention in the design process than business and technical aspects. When developing digital systems/services or platforms for people in resource-constrained environments, it is important to take a wider scope and include more aspects […]
AI for Sustainable Development: Hybrid Intelligence for Object Detection in Africa’s Drylands
Shuqi Yan did her master research project on an “AI for Sustainable Development in Africa” project. Machine learning for the interpretation of land use and object recognition on satellite images is a technique which is already widely used, given the large availability of open access satellite imaging and the popularity of data science and artificial […]
Covid-19 related ICT4D master research: m-health-based early detection of infectuous diseases
Siying Zhang’s master research was about how to design a participatory Covid-19 app. The events of this year 2020, have more than ever demonstrated the link between social networks and the spread of infectious diseases. No one can deny that opportunities are offered by the digitized society to prevent and control a contagious virus. However, […]
Supporting the Seed Value Chain in rural Mali
Since 2011 researchers from the W4RA team (VU Network Institute, Computer Science Department, Centre for International Cooperation and AI-tech company Bolesian) have worked with farmer organizations in Mali to help improve the efficience of the seed value chain, to the benefit of local smallholder farmers, to help increase food security in this country. The seed value chain […]