This is an archive of the Dadamac.net website, as it was in 2015, it is no longer being updated.

Pamela's Blog

ICT4D - Nigeria, a ginger crop and the Internet

Submitted by Pamela on 7 July 2013 - 1:39pm
I've been reading "Development and ICT4D - Too many pilot projects and not enough regular service" Amongst the stories of failures and success were references to helping farmers. This reminded me of Veronica (who is a teacher and a farmer in rural Nigeria). I thought I would share the story of her experience of ICT (Information and Communication Technologies). Veronica's story - the very short version The short version of Veronica's story is this. She was growing ginger for the first time and wanted advice on harvesting and marketing it, so she went to the Internet. The outcome she was...

ICT4D - Nigeria, a ginger crop and the Internet

Submitted by Pamela on 7 July 2013 - 1:39pm
I've been reading "Development and ICT4D - Too many pilot projects and not enough regular service" Amongst the stories of failures and success were references to helping farmers. This reminded me of Veronica (who is a teacher and a farmer in rural Nigeria). I thought I would share the story of her experience of ICT (Information and Communication Technologies). Veronica's story - the very short version The short version of Veronica's story is this. She was growing ginger for the first time and wanted advice on harvesting and marketing it, so she went to the Internet. The outcome she was...

ICT4D - Nigeria, a ginger crop and the Internet

Submitted by Pamela on 7 July 2013 - 1:39pm
I've been reading "Development and ICT4D - Too many pilot projects and not enough regular service" Amongst the stories of failures and success were references to helping farmers. This reminded me of Veronica (who is a teacher and a farmer in rural Nigeria). I thought I would share the story of her experience of ICT (Information and Communication Technologies). Veronica's story - the very short version The short version of Veronica's story is this. She was growing ginger for the first time and wanted advice on harvesting and marketing it, so she went to the Internet. The outcome she was...

Our unfolding story

Submitted by Pamela on 3 July 2013 - 12:25am
These initiatives have been chosen to illustrate the development of Dadamac Foundation from its early days as an informal collaboration to the present. A wide range of people have been involved. For simplicity's sake they are referred to as "the Dadamac Community". Our most valuable work doesn't show on a financial balance sheet, but does appear in the story below. These are things like introducing people, helping them to work together, enabling them to learn from each other - all hard to measure things that are to do with information and knowledge. Most of our work to date has been...

Design-reality gap: development projects and ICT

Submitted by Pamela on 2 July 2013 - 10:35pm
I'm constantly baffled and bewildered by the gap that exists between what I read on the Internet about ICT4D, and the reality that I meet on the ground. I long to help bridge the gap between academics and practitioners. I was therefore delighted to discover a student exploring the topic, and saddened, but not surprised at his difficulties. He wrote: I'm currently writing my thesis in the field of ICT4D, it's actually about design-reality gap issues of development projects related to implication of ICT. Since even my professors are not really into this topic, I would like to share some...

Design-reality gap: development projects and ICT

Submitted by Pamela on 2 July 2013 - 10:35pm
I'm constantly baffled and bewildered by the gap that exists between what I read on the Internet about ICT4D, and the reality that I meet on the ground. I long to help bridge the gap between academics and practitioners. I was therefore delighted to discover a student exploring the topic, and saddened, but not surprised at his difficulties. He wrote: I'm currently writing my thesis in the field of ICT4D, it's actually about design-reality gap issues of development projects related to implication of ICT. Since even my professors are not really into this topic, I would like to share some...

Explaining Dadamac Foundation - feedback requested.

Submitted by Pamela on 1 July 2013 - 6:27pm
Following our AGM I've been trying to write a good "about" page for Dadamac Foundation. I'd appreciate feedback on my attempt. Here it is: About Dadamac Foundation Dadamac Foundation has always been placed equally in three, very different, kinds of locations - and that is our unique strength. Our work is to do with education, livelihoods, welfare and development. Our projects are long-term with an emphasis on capacity building, sustainability, and sharing good practice. Our locations are: In Africa Where projects happen in response to local need, and are led by local people who have strong connections with the UK...

Advice to us from Charles Darwin

Submitted by Pamela on 29 June 2013 - 7:07pm
I've just come home, greatly refreshed, from a perfect, "English Summer", day out. It has been one of our rare, treasured, beautiful, sunny days, and I spent it in convivial company wandering around the delightful house and grounds of Charles Darwin - including his sandwalk (or thinking path) The place is such a pleasure to be in, and his ideas are so familiar, that in some ways wandering around felt like visiting a friend. Then the full enormity of his life's work would hit me again, and the privilege of being so close to the life and thoughts of such...

A new community of practice. Join us?

Submitted by Pamela on 22 June 2013 - 1:41am
It's only a few days until the Dadamac Foundation AGM, so I'm doing my final draft of the secretary's report. I'm glad that we've been able to respond to local needs and I'm delighted by the support we've been able to deliver, but there's more to it than that. Building on our success I have a remarkable success story to write for this year's AGM, which is a credit to our tiny core team and wider network, but I don't want my report to simply be a record of our past success, I want to place it in a wider...

First Thursday - sharing the June archive

Submitted by Pamela on 13 June 2013 - 10:06pm
First Thursday is an online meeting that I hold once a month.I go online for an hour and some of my geograhically scattered friends and contacts drop by for a chat, and have the opportunity to meet each other - more about how "First Thursday" works It is a great opportunity to exchange information and knowledge from very different cultural perspectives (this month we have people from Nigeria, USA and UK). We have bandwidth constratints so we don't talk, we type. This means there is a typed archive by the end of the chat. I'm experimenting with ways of picking...

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