COLUMN: Letter from the editors
FREE CONTENT FEATURE
Are you a good match for XRDS?
By Peter Kinnaird, Inbal Talgam-Cohen
Magazine: Winter 2012 | Volume 19, No. 2
The power of technology could improve the lives of millions of people around the world. ICTD (Information and Communication Technologies and Development) addresses some of the most critical societal issues across the globe, including healthcare, education, crime, finance, and agriculture. However the challenge for computer scientists is to not only produce feasible solutions but to do so in the context of the developing world. Not only must technical constraints be accounted for, but also there are foundational issues inherent to the target community that have to be addressed. This issue of XRDS focuses on the unique challenges and opportunities within ICTD.
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COLUMN: INIT
Information technology and international development
By Shikoh Gitau, Nithya Sambasivan
DEPARTMENT: Blogs
The XRDS Blog
The newly launched XRDS blog highlights a range of topics from conference overviews to privacy and security, from HCI to cryptography. Selected blog posts, edited for print, will be featured in every issue. Please visit xrds.acm.org/blog to read each post in its entirety.
By Wolfgang Richter, Dimitris Mitropoulos
SECTION: Features
Seven factors for designing successful mHealth projects
Although mobile technology has the power to vastly improve healthcare delivery in developing regions, many issues can affect the success of mHealth systems.
By Atanu Garai
Designing and developing an open source medical informatics module
Lessons learned in planning and managing a development sprint to build a flexible, open source HL7 query service while successfully collaborating with diverse stakeholders and volunteers.
By Suranga Nath Kasthurirathne
Crime prevention technologies in low-income communities
Using collaborative technology as a grassroots effort to reduce violent crime in Chicago.
By Sheena Lewis Erete
Online education for developing contexts
A personal experience with academia in Pakistan leads to using online education initiatives as an opportunity for massive improvement.
By Arjumand Younos
ICTD at the University of California Berkeley
Several leading researchers from UC Berkeley share their personal research stories, opinions about the field, and advice for students interested in ICTD.
By Nithya Sambasivan
A social scientist sits among ICTD workers
Reflections on the place of qualitative methods in ICTD work.
By Sumitra Nair
Voices in ICT for development
Researchers from around the world tell us about their personal and institutional efforts in international development.
By Nithya Sambasivan
Lessons and opportunities in ICT4D
If ICT4D aims to effectively answer the grand challenges it faces, young researchers, in both design and computer science, must be aware of the consequences of how terminology frames this field, be willing to critique and adjust research methods and attend to neglected, challenging concepts.
By Samantha Merritt
Facing the African ICTD academic divide
This article stitches together the current journey of ICTD researchers based in Africa who formed a virtual network, which hopes to contribute toward the enhancement of representation within the academic ICTD community.
By Kathleen Diga
User experience practices in Nairobi's iHub community
How a forthcoming user experience (UX) lab will meet the needs of the African technology community.
By Mark Kamau, Angela Crandall, Kagonya Awori
Research at Nairobi's iHub
By Angela Crandall, Rhoda Omenya
Matthew Kam: Technology, impact and development
By Ryan Kelly
