Excitement and skepticism ahead of ICT4Ag

I'm currently somewhat of a (twisted version of) a seasonal migrant worker.  I've been on the road for most of the working week for some time now, and will continue to do so pretty much till the end of the year.  This means every Monday (or Sunday) I board a flight somewhere, and return Friday  (or Saturday).  While all these trips are useful and important for my work, when the taxi rolls up to take me to the airport at 5am on a Monday morning, I'm usually not bursting with excitement. 

My upcoming trip will be somewhat different.  I am actually really looking forward to traveling to Kigali, Rwanda tomorrow for The ICT4Ag conference.  Reading the the conference program, it looks like one of the most interesting conferences I've seen in a long while.  What's more, with no official hosting/planing/facilitating duties, I can be more of a free agent, attending the sessions I am interested in and exploring innovative partnerships around ICT in Agricultural Development.  It should be a lot of (productive) fun! 

I didn't need to read the detailed program to know that M-everything (money, learning, etc. etc.)  will dominate the agenda.  Mobile is sooooo sexy right now, especially in East Africa.  The killer app of development.  It fuels just about any innovation that becomes the flavor of the year - the current craze around cash transfers (interesting posts also here and here) is just one point in case, with M-Pesa transfers being one of the major enablers of Give Directly's experiments in Kenya.   I'm looking forward to meeting and exploring some really cool potential projects that involve mobile with a number of partners.  

Along with the excitement, I also have some serious doubts about all most of the hype around M-everything.  For one thing, for all its noise, mobile is still FAR behind the real king of ICT4D - its older and more boring cousin, the radio.  For instance, according to a 2012 study of small-scale farm households in Kenya, radio is used by 95% of the households. Even though two-thirds of the households also have access to mobile phones, only 11% of mobile phone owners use these devices to access to agricultural applications such as ‘iCow’, which registered farmers use to receive information on, for example, optimal feeding regimes and gestation cycles for their particular cows. The authors also note that the quality of the messages is still far from optimal - though more research is needed on this. Personally, I think we need to take such findings very seriously.  Too few mobile-based initiatives (that I know of) are actually looking to tap into and complement existing channels such as radio.  Why is that?   Is it not interesting enough?  Are we looking for a complete paradigm shift?  Is this a funding issue?   Am not sure, but will hopefully get some answers in the coming week.  

Finally, on a lighter note, the buzz around mobile in developed countries is becoming more balanced of late, with more emphasis being placed on some of the socially negative side-effects of M-everything, anytime anywhere societies.   See this Slate article from yesterday entitled Smartphones are killing us — and destroying public life - I particularly enjoy the reference to Kit-Kat (a chocolate brand) sponsored benches with Wi-Fi blockers in Amsterdam to allow busy city-dwellers  an escape from the constant connectivity.

What MOOCs Will Really Kill Is...

Came across an article in Forbes today who's headline read "What MOOCs Will Really Kill Is The Research University".  

Nice article, with the gist of it basically saying 

"...time to get a little Adam Smith on this professor. The sole purpose of any production is consumption: and we should listen and consider the interests of the producer only to the point that said interest is essential to the interests of the consumer. And I’m afraid that if MOOCs do indeed produce the technological revolution which lessens our demand for professors then that’s just too bad for professors. Our only concern here is and should be the interests of the students. If they can get a better education through technology, the same but cheaper education, or even a worse and much cheaper education and that trade off seems acceptable to said students then that’s just the end of the matter. The students’ interests win."

MOOCs are the most significant technological revolution in higher eduction in a long time (as in several generations) The established higher-ed industry has not come to terms with it yet (a bit like the very early days of digital photography).  In fact the biggest players are either Universities (e.g  edX) or emerged from universities (e.g. Coursera who's founders hail from Stanford).  Despite lots of hype and money being invested in the idea, the business model isn't clear or proven yet - but what a potential...   In any case, the trend is already  giving way to a wave of innovative startups looking to tap into this technological disruption.  For instance, Spire Kenya is about to launch a new model for undergraduate education that harnesses MOOCs, and combines them with placements in companies, mentoring and peer-leaning, to produce graduates that are better suited to match the needs of employers.  With a degree from an accrediated US university, and at a fraction of the price of private universities (e.g. less than $1000/year) - one could see that if such startups get it right, we could really have an appealing alternative model on hand.

To be sure, societies looking to get ahead will need to keep investing heavily in R&D, and universties will certainly continue to have a place in that picture.  So am not convinced the Research University is about to go the way of the dinosaurs.  However, many (in some contexts most) students in higher education are not on track for research careers.  Yet becuase of the way academics (prof.) are hired, promoted and remunerated - essentially based on their publications record - advances in teaching and learning have suffered.  It is this academic caste system whereby prof. in mainstream subjects (e.g. business, social sciences etc) shy away from great teaching (which sometimes pays less than janitorial work in the same institutions) in favor of often irrelevant research that's likely to be the first to go.

That might be a very good thing for most students.