For several decades ICT4D practitioners over the world — funded by international development donor agencies or private funds — have tried to empower disadvantaged communities by providing them with ICT solutions. However, this has not not always worked out successfully. Often, technologies have been deployed for the “poor” without knowing their needs or assessing their […]
A group of students from VU Amsterdam and UNIMAS, Sarawak, have carried out an ICT4D in the Field project in June 2018. The goal of this project was to build an information system that supports the work of banana contract farmers in rural Sarawak. To do so, the students did a context analysis followed by […]
Appong is the name of an application that helps increase sales of Gula Apong, a traditional sugar product, produced by smallholder farmers in Sarawak, Malaysia. The application was designed and built by a mixed team of master students from VU Amsterdam and UNIMAS: Giorgi, Judith, Kuan and Chris, in the framework of an educational ICT4D […]
[This post on victordeboer.com describes the Information Sciences Master Project of Hameedat Omoine and is based on her thesis.] In the quest to improve the lives of farmers and improve agricultural productivity in rural Burkina Faso, meteorological data has been identified as one of the is key information needs for local farmers. Various online weather […]
Samarahan, 2 July 2018 “It is a great pleasure to present to you the work of our VU and UNIMAS student group, who worked the past month of June very hard to build ICT solutions to serve local communities in Sarawak, Malaysia, in a practically oriented course that we have given the name ICT4D in […]
Pinggan Jaya, 24 June 2018 – Five students from VU and UNIMAS — Tasos, Nip, Guusje, Deva and Ludwig — who are currently following the “ICT4D in the Field” course in Sarawak, Malaysia, — have delivered the first working prototype of EDUCOMX, an educational app for primary school age children. This app is meant to […]
Hi all! We have been here for two weeks now. Our projects concern banana farmers, Gula Apong producers and children of Kampung (village) Pinggan Jaya. To get to know the context, we met banana farmers, the owner of a banana chips factory and children and women that live in Kampung Pinggan Jaya, which is only […]
Amsterdam, 19 June 2018 – The Kasadaka “talking box” platform, the winning concept, is a platform to develop voice-based technologies for those who are not connected to the Internet, cannot not read and write, and speak underresourced languages. Kasadaka has been developed to allow development of specific, context-sensitive content, in a collaborative way, in the […]
Saturday 9th June 2018, Kota Samarahan, Sarawak The ICT4D team currently at UNIMAS, conducted a field trip to Asajaya, a 1 hour 30 minute drive from UNIMAS to conduct interview session and requirement analysis on the challenges faced by the local farmers in this area. The 11 postgraduate students and 2 lecturers from VU, accompanied […]
By Judith Schermer, student ICT4D master course @VU 2018 On the 27th of May, the fifth annual symposium on Perspectives on ICT for Development (ICT4D) was held at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. This essay summarizes the subjects that were discussed and the presentations that were held. ICT4D is aimed at how the benefits of ICT […]
