ICT4D projects in rural communities face many challenges to successful execution. These include the development of an ICT artifact which is suited to the needs of a specific community, as well as a complex socio-cultural context which can have unexpected impacts on an ICT4D project. In Mafarafara, a remote rural community in South Africa's Limpopo province, researchers who were using a Design Science Research framework to guide the development of an ICT platform recognized the importance and potential impact of unvoiced social and political issues. Managing these dynamics are important for not only a better understanding of the community, but also for the success and sustainability of the project. Activity theory is used to complement the DSRM to make these social aspects visible, thus contributing to the success of the project. Two examples of the socio-political dynamics are described using the activity theory concepts of tension and hierarchical activity.
The Digital Doorway is a joint initiative between the Meraka Institute of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and South Africa‘s Department of Science and Technology (DST), with a vision of making a fundamental difference to computer literacy and associated skills in the South African population. Underpinning the project is the idea of people’s inherent cognitive ability to teach themselves computer skills with minimal external intervention. For this to happen, computers must be easily accessible to potential learners in an environment conducive to experimentation. Given the low percentage of communities in disadvantaged areas in South Africa with access to computer infrastructure, Digital Doorways are installed in communities where the need is greatest. The systems are extremely robust and employ open source content. The project team has moved from an action research to a design-based research paradigm, simultaneously deploying and improving the systems over the past six years. The novel method of instruction (unassisted learning) and the challenging operating environment call for both innovation and careful engineering of all aspects of the system. User interaction at the sites has been carefully observed. Numerous challenges, complexities and controversies, both social and technological, have surfaced and continue to surface as the project progresses. Valuable learning has been acquired around community engagement, ownership and site acquisition and numerous ‘soft’ issues that ultimately determine a project’s success or failure. Both qualitative and quantitative research have been conducted. Feedback from users has been mostly positive and there is a demand both from government and private sector companies for many more Digital Doorways to be deployed throughout South Africa and worldwide. Sustainability, community ownership and maintenance remain the greatest challenges to the long-term success of the project. Despite the challenges, unassisted learning can be effectively used to provide basic computer literacy training in rural and impoverished communities in South Africa.
In South Africa, elderly rural women is the most socio-economically disadvantaged population group: their age, gender and rural location all contribute to their disempowerment. For this reason, an ICT4D project was undertaken by the CSIR with the aim of supporting elderly rural women in their livelihood activities. An ICT artefact was established and implemented in a women's Community Centre in Mafarafara, a remote rural village in the Limpopo province of South Africa. The ICT artefact was a rugged information kiosk based on Digital Doorway technology, and was populated with information to assist the women in their farming activities. As part of the women's empowerment, they were involved as co-creators of the ICT artefact and its contents. The study employed a Design Science Research Methodology (DSRM). During the project the strong influence of the local social dynamics on the design of the artefact became apparent. To this end, Giddens' structuration theory was incorporated in the study, to make visible the social dynamics that influenced and in turn were influenced by the design process. In this paper, concepts from structuration theory are applied to qualitative data from the Mafarafara interviews and site visit reports. The value of using structuration theory alongside DSRM to acknowledge the social nature of design is demonstrated. Structuration theory also provides a means to show how the participating women were empowered.
The active involvement of rural women in ICT4D initiatives is essential to ensure that they benefit from the initiative in general, and the technology artefact in particular. Usually ICT4D projects are male centered and the relevance of ICTs to the women within their contextual realities are not always considered. The purpose of this paper is indicate how an ICT artefact was co-created with rural women in South Africa in a resource constrained context. Participatory approaches like co-creation are important when implementing ICT4D initiatives aimed at rural women. Through the application of Design Science Research as the methodology an ICT artefact was co-created in a specific context in South Africa with rural women only. It is a longitudinal study that is still evolving. The lessons learnt and process that was followed will be shared. The main finding was that the active participation and feedback of the users of a system are essential when aiming to address their immediate and long term needs. If this is not the case the ICT artefact will not be used and it will yet again become part of the statistics of why Information Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D) projects fail.
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