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Course Description

Summary

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can play a pivotal role in the developing world by helping to reduce poverty, broaden and equalize access to fundamental human rights, lessen environmental harm and alter environmentally harmful practices, and promote social and economic justice. ICT projects in the developing world, while often well-meaning, can also be implemented very, very wrong, or simply be misconstrued as silver bullet to the developing world's problems. In this class, we will study the past, present and future of ICT projects for the developing world, and learn to analyze and critique projects and proposals using a framework developed from discussion of relevant literature, scenarios, outcomes and technologies. The class will also be organized around a central large-scale systems design and deployment project where students build a demonstration wireless mesh network in a simulated rural and urban environment.   This project will help familiarize students on a practical level with some of the technical, social and logistical challenges related to this area of work.