DOi: 10.1145/1516046.1516064
about $100 laptops, kids learning about computers through a “hole in the wall,” and the power of mobile phones to educate, entertain, and connect people in remote regions have in common? It is the field of information and communication technology for development (ICTD), based on the belief that technology can have a large and positive effect on billions of individuals by helping them overcome the challenges so prevalent in developing regions. ICTD is not new—numerous important though relatively
low-profile projects have been building the foundations of ICTD for many years. What’s new are its name and, more important, the increased recognition the field has lately been receiving and its potential for exerting greater influence.
In this article we explore ICTD and examine the role that computer scientists can play in it. Our objective is to convince readers that although achieving all the goals of ICTD will not be easy, even their partial realization could have tremendous impact.
The motivation for this field comes from a new awakening to the vast gap in quality of life between the richest billion people on earth (who enjoy a variety of luxuries, including Internet access) and the poorest billion (who just barely eke out a living—and sometimes not). The base of the world’s economic pyramid has an estimated population of four billion—over half of our planet’s people—living on less than $2 a day.
In response to this awakening, scholars and practitioners have begun to explore the transforming power of information and communication technology when applied to the problems traditionally addressed in development. Can mobile phones provide income generation and facilitate remote medical diagnosis? How can user interfaces be designed so they are accessible to the semiliterate and even the illiterate? What role can computers play in sustainable education for the rural poor? What new devices can we build to encourage literacy among visually impaired children living in poverty? What will a computer that is relevant and accessible to people in developing regions look like? These are just a few of the questions being addressed in ICTD.
In other words, ICTD can be seen as harnessing the power of information and communication technologies, or ICTs, to take up many of the challenges of development. ICTs include technologies ranging from robotic tools and state-of-the-art computers to desktop
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