Professor Tim Unwin will talk on Technology and development: the contribution of OER

This seminar will explore the roles of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in development.  All too often these are seen as a silver bullet that has the potential swiftly to lift people out of poverty.  Instead, it is argued that, as with many other technologies, they normally serve primarily to enhance the positions of those in power.  Of even more concern, they tend to be used primarily to impose external solutions on 'recipient' communities.  Open Education Resources (OERs) are widely championed as being an alternative way through which ICTs can indeed be used by such communities for their own benefit and development.  However, the reality is that advocacy of OERs all too often falls into the same traps that other ICT for development initiatives have previously encountered.  The seminar closes with some suggestions as to how such programmes may be able to overcome this challenge, and draws on initiatives currently being implemented by the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation.  

Tim Unwin is Chief Executive Officer of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (http://www.cto.int), Chair of the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission in the UK (http://cscuk.dfid.gov.uk), UNESCO Chair in ICT4D, and Emeritus Professor of Geography at Royal Holloway, University of London

This seminar is open to all and refreshments will be available from 4.15.  Booking is not required but it would be helpful to have an idea of numbers.

Please contact Sally Roach for more information: saer2@cam.ac.uk.