Computers

On the commercial side, artificial intelligence applications are powering many sectors. Globally, governments are exploring how to comprehend, incorporate, apply, and use artificial intelligence technologies. The scope of government use of artificial intelligence technology goes beyond that of commercial organizations and is far more complex. In government, the challenges will be as follows: (1) How can governments use artificial intelligence technology to improve their efficiencies? (2) How can governments become more citizen-centric, service based, accessible, and responsive? (3) How can governments protect their citizens from the misuse of artificial intelligence  (e.g., alleged Russian bots’ interference in U.S. elections)? (4)  How can governments use artificial intelligence technology to make better policy decisions and avoid wrong decisions  (economic, social etc.)? (5) How can governments develop new standards to govern and manage the deployment of artificial intelligence technologies (e.g., autonomous cars, financial markets and trading, healthcare bots)? (6) How will the legislative bodies respond to the rise of intelligent machines? (7) How will the use of artificial intelligence in the military change the arms race? (8)  What roles governments will need to play in developing global standards related to artificial intelligence (United Nations)? (9) How can governments improve their countries’ productivity with artificial intelligence? (10) How can governments handle the upcoming unemployment that would result from AI automation? All the above questions are at an early stage of exploration and many have not been addressed comprehensively. This book deals with all the above issues and provides the first guide to governments and policy makers of the world on artificial intelligence.

Digital technologies are an indispensable facet of every aspect of our society. Even in the developing world, mobile phones have transformed the lives and livelihoods of average citizens. Yet, two decades ago, when there were more phone lines in Manhattan than in most of Sub-Saharan Africa, only a few visionary institutions could have imagined that computers, the Internet and mobile phones would be so prominent in poverty-stricken environments. One of these visionary institutions was the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), which recognized the important but complex role that information and communication technologies (ICTs) would have in fostering human development and reducing poverty. IDRC-supported projects critically examined the ways in which ICTs could be used to improve learning, empower the disenfranchised, generate income opportunities for the poor, and facilitate access to healthcare in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. Their research focused on development priorities that were defined in collaboration with researchers from the Global South, civil society organizations, government officials and policymakers. By supporting research in this field since 1996, IDRC has become one of the leading institutions and key contributors to the growth of the “ICTs for development” (ICT4D) field, specifically because of its strategic decision to focus on building the capacity of Southern researchers and policymakers to explore how ICTs can continue to change people’s lives in the developing world.

Considering that most development institutions and governments are currently attempting to integrate ICTs into their practices, this is an opportune time to reflect on the research findings that have emerged from working alongside researchers in this area. In particular, this book examines how research has helped IDRC contribute to building the ICT4D field based on a nuanced understanding of the relationship between ICTs and development goals. It also discusses programmatic investments made by IDRC since the late 1990s in a wide variety of areas related to ICTs, including infrastructure, access, regulations, health, governance, education, livelihoods, social inclusion, technical innovation, intellectual property rights and evaluation.

Each chapter in this book analyzes how the research findings from IDRC-supported projects have contributed to an evolution of thinking, and the successes and challenges in using ICTs as a tool to address development issues. Each chapter also presents key lessons learned from ICT4D programming and makes recommendations for future work. The book illustrates how IDRC’s focus shifted over time from looking specifically at issues of access to understanding the implications of ICTs in the lives of citizens in the developing world. 

Digital technologies are an indispensable facet of every aspect of our society. Even in the developing world, mobile phones have transformed the lives and livelihoods of average citizens. Yet, two decades ago, when there were more phone lines in Manhattan than in most of Sub-Saharan Africa, only a few visionary institutions could have imagined that computers, the Internet and mobile phones would be so prominent in poverty-stricken environments. One of these visionary institutions was the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), which recognized the important but complex role that information and communication technologies (ICTs) would have in fostering human development and reducing poverty. IDRC-supported projects critically examined the ways in which ICTs could be used to improve learning, empower the disenfranchised, generate income opportunities for the poor, and facilitate access to healthcare in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. Their research focused on development priorities that were defined in collaboration with researchers from the Global South, civil society organizations, government officials and policymakers. By supporting research in this field since 1996, IDRC has become one of the leading institutions and key contributors to the growth of the “ICTs for development” (ICT4D) field, specifically because of its strategic decision to focus on building the capacity of Southern researchers and policymakers to explore how ICTs can continue to change people’s lives in the developing world.

Considering that most development institutions and governments are currently attempting to integrate ICTs into their practices, this is an opportune time to reflect on the research findings that have emerged from working alongside researchers in this area. In particular, this book examines how research has helped IDRC contribute to building the ICT4D field based on a nuanced understanding of the relationship between ICTs and development goals. It also discusses programmatic investments made by IDRC since the late 1990s in a wide variety of areas related to ICTs, including infrastructure, access, regulations, health, governance, education, livelihoods, social inclusion, technical innovation, intellectual property rights and evaluation.

Each chapter in this book analyzes how the research findings from IDRC-supported projects have contributed to an evolution of thinking, and the successes and challenges in using ICTs as a tool to address development issues. Each chapter also presents key lessons learned from ICT4D programming and makes recommendations for future work. The book illustrates how IDRC’s focus shifted over time from looking specifically at issues of access to understanding the implications of ICTs in the lives of citizens in the developing world. 

This book explores the history of hypertext, an influential concept that forms the underlying structure of the World Wide Web and innumerable software applications. Barnet combines an analysis of contemporary literature with her exclusive interviews with those at the forefront of the hypertext innovation. She tells both the human and the technological story, tracing its path back to an analogue device imagined by Vannevar Bush in 1945, before modern computing had happened.

‘Memory Machines’ offers an expansive record of hypertext over the last 60 years, pinpointing the major breakthroughs and fundamental flaws in its evolution. Barnet argues that some of the earliest hypertext systems were more richly connected and in some respects more flexible than the Web; this is also a fascinating account of the paths not taken.

Barnet ends the journey through computing history at the birth of mass domesticated hypertext, at the point that it grew out of the university labs and into the Web. And yet she suggests that hypertext may not have completed its evolutionary story, and may still have the capacity to become something different, something much better than it is today.

This book explores the history of hypertext, an influential concept that forms the underlying structure of the World Wide Web and innumerable software applications. Barnet combines an analysis of contemporary literature with her exclusive interviews with those at the forefront of the hypertext innovation. She tells both the human and the technological story, tracing its path back to an analogue device imagined by Vannevar Bush in 1945, before modern computing had happened.

‘Memory Machines’ offers an expansive record of hypertext over the last 60 years, pinpointing the major breakthroughs and fundamental flaws in its evolution. Barnet argues that some of the earliest hypertext systems were more richly connected and in some respects more flexible than the Web; this is also a fascinating account of the paths not taken.

Barnet ends the journey through computing history at the birth of mass domesticated hypertext, at the point that it grew out of the university labs and into the Web. And yet she suggests that hypertext may not have completed its evolutionary story, and may still have the capacity to become something different, something much better than it is today.

Unfortunately, developing countries and less developed countries in general have not yet entered the digital era. Most of them have not yet developed the back-office components that are fundamental prerequisites for conducting e-applications. In many situations, e-government systems have been adopted solely as window dressing, as it is considered improper for governmental agencies not to have a web portal, email address and/or a Facebook or Twitter account. But these government web portals are of no real use to the citizens. This volume seeks to help rectify this issue.

Drawing lessons from the eFez Project in Morocco, “E-Government for Good Governance in Developing Countries” offers practical supporting material to decision makers in developing countries on information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D), specifically e-government implementation. It documents the eFez Project experience in all of its aspects, presenting the project’s findings and the practical methods developed by the authors (a roadmap, impact assessment framework, design issues, lessons learned and best practices) in their systematic quest to turn eFez’s indigenous experimentations and findings into a formal framework for academics, practitioners and decision makers. The volume also reviews, analyzes and synthesizes the findings of other projects to offer a comparative study of the eFez framework and a number of other e-government frameworks from the growing literature.

Given the lack of practical books that target decision makers guiding the design and implementation of e-government for good governance and any other sector-specific ICT4D, the authors hope that the eFez Project’s great success in Morocco, and the outcomes and methods described in this volume, will prove a useful model for practitioners and decision makers in other developing countries around the world. 

Unfortunately, developing countries and less developed countries in general have not yet entered the digital era. Most of them have not yet developed the back-office components that are fundamental prerequisites for conducting e-applications. In many situations, e-government systems have been adopted solely as window dressing, as it is considered improper for governmental agencies not to have a web portal, email address and/or a Facebook or Twitter account. But these government web portals are of no real use to the citizens. This volume seeks to help rectify this issue.

Drawing lessons from the eFez Project in Morocco, “E-Government for Good Governance in Developing Countries” offers practical supporting material to decision makers in developing countries on information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D), specifically e-government implementation. It documents the eFez Project experience in all of its aspects, presenting the project’s findings and the practical methods developed by the authors (a roadmap, impact assessment framework, design issues, lessons learned and best practices) in their systematic quest to turn eFez’s indigenous experimentations and findings into a formal framework for academics, practitioners and decision makers. The volume also reviews, analyzes and synthesizes the findings of other projects to offer a comparative study of the eFez framework and a number of other e-government frameworks from the growing literature.

Given the lack of practical books that target decision makers guiding the design and implementation of e-government for good governance and any other sector-specific ICT4D, the authors hope that the eFez Project’s great success in Morocco, and the outcomes and methods described in this volume, will prove a useful model for practitioners and decision makers in other developing countries around the world. 

The book considers the role social media platforms play in facilitating dissent as a function of cultural, and associated hegemonic, transformation. In this context, social media is one of the locations of dissenting practices used to interrogate and potentially change the dominant cultural discourse, and, therefore, our experience of everyday life. Dominant cultural discourse is both created and maintained in established social institutions such as the linguistic, educational, legal, political, economic and religious institutions. The function of dissenting practices in this cultural structure is suggested in Raymond Williams’s model of culture that illuminates the dynamics of cultural formation. In his essay “The Analysis of Culture,” Williams examines the common thinking about culture, noting that we often use any of three categories when analyzing culture: the “ideal,” in “which culture is a state or process of human perfection in terms of certain actions or absolute values, ” the “documentary” in “which culture is the body of intellectual and imaginative work, in which . . . human thought and experience are variously recorded ” and the "social " in "which culture is a description of a particular way of life, which expresses certain meanings and values not only in art and learning but also in institutions and ordinary behavior.” He argues that the concept of dissent unifies these three categories revealing how the dynamics of culture actually function to establish the “affective, dominant culture.” Different social media platforms engage culture in these different ways.
Williams finds value in each of these categories, but when taken separately, as they often are, critiques tend to analyze culture as though it were static over time, providing a consistent discourse in regard to social values and normative behaviors. Instead of focusing on individual cultural phenomena, Williams argues that a more effective definition of culture would contain all three of these aspects of culture, thus indicating that culture is dynamic, always in the process of forming. In Marxism and Literature, he develops a framework that helps us perceive the dynamic interactions through which cultures change, revealing in these models the function of dissent, which this book argues is the mechanism by which this change is achieved. The contemporary use of social media is a mechanism by which dissent engages with cultural institutions and interrogates the discourses that define them.
The dynamics of a culture are informed by the interactions of three types of discourse, which are inhabited by social media. First is the dominant cultural form, which is defined by the discourse of established social institutions. This discourse is continually ruptured by competing cultural ideas: emergent ideas —“new meanings and values, new practices, new relationships”—and residual ideas—“elements formed in the past.” A change in the dominant cultural discourse is accomplished through dissent, which represents the push and pull practices through which change is observed in our everyday lives. Social media is an increasingly important location to observe these push and pull practices that co-opt emergent and residual cultural discourse into that of the dominant social institutions.