Yesterday, my good friend Jon Camfield asked a great question: Hey ICT4D folks, is there a best practices and principles document for our work, or do we all just kinda make it up as we go? This reminded me that Adele Waugaman asked me a similar question in January, and to both, my response is the same:
There isn’t one overall document that I am aware of, just blog posts, short video clips and the like. Inveneo did a sustainability primer, which is the closest I’ve seen to a best practices guidebook.
But why should that be? Its not like we just woke up yesterday and started ICT4D projects – we’ve been applying technology in international development since Gary Garriott worked on FM radio in 1970’s Central America. By now we should have a good body of knowledge of what works, or doesn’t in ICT4D. Yet in her search for best practices, Adele came up with this short list of posts on lessons learned:
- The Top 6 Technology Challenges in International Development
- Connect U.S. Fund Best Practices
- 12 Habits of Highly Effective ICT-Enabled Development Initiatives
- Best Practices of ICT for Development Projects
- A quick guide to implementing ICT for development projects
- Best Practices in Incorporating ICT into Proposals for Funding
- Connecting the first mile:
a framework for best practice in ICT projects - Connecting the first mile: investigating best practice for ICTs for development
- Steve Ballmer: Prepared Remarks, ICT Best Practices Forum
- Best practice framework for ICT projects in development
- The Global Information Technology Report
I am convinced there are more resources and more knowledge on ICT4D best practices. We all know how to keep ICT4D real, we just need to share so we can collect and analyze the knowledge. What better way to do that than a Twitter Chat? And Friday is a perfect Twitter Chat day.
#ICT4Real Twitter Chat!
Today, Friday, April 12, jump on Twitter and tweet out what you think are ICT4D best (and worst) practices. You can add your thoughts or link to ideas from someone else. Just be sure to use the #ICT4Real hashtag. Jon, Adele, and I will be following the conversation closely and we’ll consolidate everyone’s ideas into a definitive ICT4D Best Practices guideline.
If you tweet, you’ll get a mention, so what are you waiting for – tweet your ICT4D best practice idea right now!
Recent #ICT4Real Tweets:
[hashtag_tweets hashtag=”ict4real” number=”20″ cache=”1″]
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