ICTs for Development blog
Catch up on the most recent posts from our Centre for Development Informatics blog.
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Big Data and Healthcare in the Global South
Negar Tabrizi
31 August 2018
The global healthcare landscape is changing. Healthcare services are becoming ever more digitised with the adoption of new technologies and electronic health records. This development typically generates enormous amounts of data which, if utilised effectively, have the potential to improve healthcare services and reduce costs. The potential of big data in healthcare Decision making in […]
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Is Digital Transformation in Nigerian Agriculture a Myth or Reality?
ezeomahbookie
31 July 2018
There is a lot of hype about digital agriculture as the ‘next big thing’ after crude oil in Nigeria. Currently, there is hardly any debate on agricultural development in the Nigerian news and on social media platforms without the use of buzz words such as ‘digital disruption’ or ‘digital transformation’ in describing the future of […]
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Cloud Computing in China
pinggao
29 June 2018
In the last decade, cloud computing has become an important information support technology in different countries. According to research by Synergy Research Group shown in the following figure, the global cloud computing market has been dominated by a few big players, and most of them are from developed countries especially the US. The Chinese firm […]
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Measuring the Big Data Knowledge Divide Using Wikipedia
Alfonso Rivera-Illingworth
23 May 2018
Big data is of increasing importance; yet – like all digital technologies – it is affected by a digital divide of multiple dimensions. We set out to understand one dimension: the big data ‘knowledge divide’; meaning the way in which different groups have different levels of knowledge about big data [1,2]. To do this, we […]
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Social Media Analytics for Better Understanding of the Digital Gig Economy
rbbatista
27 April 2018
Owing to the proliferation of digital platforms facilitating online freelance work such as Upwork, Fiverr and Amazon Mechanical Turk, the number of digital gig workers has been continuously increasing worldwide. In 2015, there were as many as 48 million digital gig workers [1]; between 2016 and 2017, a 25% increase in the number of such workers […]
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Industry 4.0 to Digital Industrialisation: When Digital Technologies meet Industrial Transformation
Ryo Seo-Zindy
23 April 2018
As digital technologies increasingly permeate all aspects of our physical world, many believe that we are moving into a hyper-connected, intelligent society and economy. One of the emerging concepts underpinning this potential transformation is the Fourth Industrial Revolution, or Industry 4.0. What is Industry 4.0? According to the proponents of Industry 4.0, each industrial revolution […]
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Why is it Important to Know about the Origins of ICT4D Champions?
Jaco Renken
28 March 2018
At the most recent gathering of information and communication technology for development (ICT4D) scholars in the North of England I asked how important and significant it is to research the origins of champions and leaders in international development. Understanding the origins of key development actors appeared to be a pressing matter to me when researching […]
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Big Data and Urban Transportation in India
Richard Heeks
12 February 2018
What effect are big data systems having on urban transportation? To investigate this, the Centre for Internet and Society was commissioned by the Universities of Manchester and Sheffield, to conduct a study of the big data system recently implemented by the Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC). The “Intelligent Transport System” (ITS) took three years to […]
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Can Proximity WiFi Networks Offer An Alternative Distribution Channel To Publishers?
clarecookonline
29 January 2018
Facebook’s changing its algorithm, again. For news publishers it exposes their vulnerability of relying on a platform that will always put its own interests first. So the scramble goes on to reach audiences in meaningful ways. It draws the focus to how alternative, decentralised technology infrastructure can challenge these powerhouse gatekeepers of the Internet, offering […]
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Do Outsourcing Clients Want Decent Digital Work?
Richard Heeks
22 December 2017
There are growing concerns that digital gig work – supplied by platforms like Mechanical Turk, Upwork, Freelancer, etc – falls short of decent work standards. (For further details see the working paper, “Decent Work and the Digital Gig Economy”.) To address this, and as discussed previously in this blog, there are plans to encourage new […]
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