04-18-07

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• Alumni Enrichment Award - one possible resource for you to secure funding from to go on a similar adventure

• World Social Forum - Nairobi, where, among other things, Sue learned about Wikileaks.org -- an uncensored wiki to get the truth to the people

• Cross Cultural Solutions
• World Social Forum - Nairobi, where, among other things, Sue learned about *Wikileaks.org -- an uncensored wiki to get the truth to the people

• Africa@Home - Volunteer Computing for African humanitarian causes
• [[http://www.udconnection.com/ | Alumni Enrichment Award] - one possible resource for you to secure funding from to go on a similar adventure

04-18-2007 The Social Impacts of Computer Technology in Africa

Sue with Alex, one of the computer teachers at Ketasco Secondary School, in the computer lab in Keta, Ghana The typical size of a class at Ketasco, which meets once a week in the computer lab The first day of the World Social Forum, where a concert was held in Uhuru Park, overlooking Nairobi, Kenya Demonstrators at the World Social Forum, which was held at the Moi Sports Complex, just outside Nairobi, Kenya

Senior computer science and psychology major Sue Lister spent January in Nairobi, Kenya, learning about the digital divide and the social impacts of computer technology in Africa. In this talk, Sue will describe her experience and explain how to attain funding to go on your own socially aware adventure.

Presentation Summary

Relevant Sites:

• Cross Cultural Solutions
• World Social Forum - Nairobi, where, among other things, Sue learned about Wikileaks.org -- an uncensored wiki to get the truth to the people
• Massaba Rural Development Organisation - a Kenyan orphanage, the NGO Sue volunteered with
• Africa@Home - Volunteer Computing for African humanitarian causes
• Alumni Enrichment Award - one possible resource for you to secure funding from to go on a similar adventure

Extended Abstract

I spent this January in the capital city of Nairobi, Kenya exploring the Great Rift Valley, volunteering at a neonatal HIV/AIDS orphanage, attending the World Social Forum (WSF), and climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro.

In preparation for the World Social Forum, I spent most of my Christmas vacation researching computer technology throughout the world. My global Information and Communication Technology (ICT) knowledge rapidly expanded to include the concept of the "digital divide," and its paradoxical and negative denotation.

Through my research and attendance at the conference, I learned about a hospital in Kenya that uses a sophisticated software module to monitor HIV/AIDS out-patients. I learned about partner medical schools in Mali and Switzerland that facilitate online classes specializing in tropical medicine for European students and online medical school classes for Mali students. I also learned about the need for government policy in Uganda to integrate ICT education into primary and secondary curriculums.

Although developing countries that face challenges to ICT development also face severe forms of poverty, illiteracy, lack of government funding or unstable government, the successful development in these African countries address basic needs, needs that are similar to those in the US for sustainability: health, education, jobs, etc. The experience was a vital exposure to knowledge about global ICT developments as a Computer Science major, and a means to explore their social impacts, specifically in many parts of Africa and other areas of the world, from beyond a Western perspective.