Tribute to a friend
It’s quite fitting, really, that I find myself sitting in the most unlikely place – the foyer of a five star hotel in Saudi Arabia – randomly reading a tribute to a man who was instrumental in helping...
View ArticleReflections on two days in a ‘media silo’
I’m sitting in the old German parliament building listening to a plenary discussion on activism. It’s my second day at the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum, and I’m in Bonn to help mentor Ashoka...
View ArticleField of dreams
Two years ago this summer, long-time friend Erik Hersman and I took a stroll through this grass meadow in St. Ives, a small market town in Cambridgeshire where I work from a small office above a...
View ArticleTime for a Donor Funding Charter?
“Innovation isn’t about green bean bags and whacky idea sessions. It is a long term business development strategy“ Lucy Gower Behind almost every good social entrepreneur you’ll find a donor. These...
View ArticleRethinking livelihoods.
This post appeared on the PopTech blog and has been republished with permission. You can read the original post here. This post is co-authored by PopTech president Leetha Filderman, and Ken Banks,...
View ArticleInternational development: A problem of image, or a problem of substance?
The world has problems. Big problems. They need big answers, ambitious projects and innovative solutions. And they cost money. Lots of it. Read more: International development: A problem of image, or a...
View ArticleThe folly of “Designing with the end user”
After years of near-invisible end users, it’s promising to see the beginnings of ‘end-user recognition’ in much of ICT4D‘s emerging best practice. It looks like we’ve made a big stride forward, but...
View ArticleEvery three seconds
Every three seconds, someone in the world dies from hunger or extreme poverty. In a society where materialism reigns, what is the real secret to happiness? Award-winning filmmaker Daniel Karslake (For...
View ArticleLike writing? Social innovation? Technology? Read on.
If you’re interested in technology – in particular the human face of technology in international development – have excellent writing and research skills, and want to develop our presence on the...
View ArticlePrinciples and Charters: A recipe for harmony in ICT4D?
There’s a phenomenon in the science world known as ‘multiple independent discovery‘. It’s where “similar discoveries are made by scientists working independently of each other” and the Theory of...
View ArticleBook Review
The Rise of the Reluctant Innovator Ken Banks (ed), London Publishing Partnership, 2013, 232 pages Review by the Society of Business Economists “Any book with a foreword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and...
View ArticleGlobal Development: Investors in People?
We hear it all the time. Investors invest in people, not products or ideas. Marty Zwilling, a veteran start-up mentor, describes people as the great competitive advantage. I wonder what the non-profit...
View ArticleTalking ICT4D
Back in 2009 I carried out something of an experiment. Me and Erik Hersman attended ICT4D in Doha. For both of us it was our first time at a ‘professional’ tech-for-development gathering. After hearing...
View ArticlePublishing and the art of iteration
Eighteen months ago, “The Rise of the Reluctant Innovator” hit the shelves. The product of a combination of donations, crowdfunding, ten inspiring innovators, an editor with too much time on his hands,...
View ArticleThe “Tweet. Recycle. Repeat” of ICT4D
During a rare, quiet, bored few minutes last week I looked through a few early blog posts from some of the longer standing members of the ICT4D community. Between around 2012 and now, many of the same...
View ArticleIn global development, is the pen mightier than the sword?
I’m reading two books in parallel right now – Ben Ramalingam‘s ‘Aid on the Edge of Chaos‘ and Kentaro Toyama‘s ‘Geek Heresy‘. With both books I’m finding myself regularly pausing for a nod of approval...
View ArticleIs ‘fixing development’ the real Grand Challenge for Development?
“Don’t let complexity stop you. Be activists. Take on the big inequities. It will be one of the great experiences of your lives” – Bill Gates, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation I’ve got an idea for a...
View ArticleGlobal development R&D: Maintaining a balance
My first brush with technology-for-development, almost twenty years ago, wasn’t on the potential of the Internet, or how mobile phones were going to change, well, everything. To be honest, neither were...
View ArticleMaking a new ending
Exactly two-and-a-half years ago I sat on the Unreasonable at Sea ship, docked in Ho Chi Minh City, planning next steps in a life and career that’s taken me from programming Commodore PET computers,...
View ArticleICT4D students: The world is your classroom
It seems courses in business and innovation are getting a hard time these days. First, Peter Jones, a 49-year-old serial entrepreneur in the UK, said he believed that hands-on experience was far more...
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