From Consumers to Creators: Empowering the Digital Generation

Transcription

1 From Consumers to Creators: Empowering the Digital Generation

2 Executive Summary Growing access to technology has created an opportunity to provide services to hundreds of millions of developing country citizens who have lacked it. Yet realizing this potential requires increasing the ability of these people to constructively use this technology, and increasingly, to create it. A variety of initiatives around the globe are focused on digital literacy and digital fluency, though obstacles remain in building an environment where the beneficiaries of innovation are also its creators. This briefing examines these and initiatives and obstacles and includes a Call to Action for the technology community to contribute to making this potential a reality. Special Thanks The World Economic Forum acknowledges the work of Vital Wave Consulting in assembling this briefing and the extensive research conducted by partners such as the World Bank, Dimagi, Pace University, and Codecademy on the development of digital learning and resources and their contributions to this document. 1

3 From Consumers to Creators: Empowering the Digital Generation Thanks to the application which shows her commodity prices on her mobile phone, an Indian farmer can now access real-time information to sell her crops at a fair price. With a few swipes on the supply chain app on their mobile phones, aid workers prevent stock-outs of emergency food rations in Ethiopia. Everyday, in so many areas, the benefits of innovative mobile applications are on display throughout the developing world. Yet these tools are only useful in the hands of users able to comprehend and navigate this new digital landscape. While improving the skills we associate with traditional literacy like reading and writing has been the focus of many programs and policy initiatives in the developing world, the concept of digital literacy, or the ability to understand and use technology, has been gaining ground for some time, and is now being followed by what might be called digital fluency, or the ability to create as well as consume mobile and other digital services. Initiatives associated with these concepts are becoming more common around the world in a variety of formats led by governments, nonprofits, and multinational technology companies. If mobile services created by and for people in the developing world are to continue improving lives, then investing in such programs is an imperative requiring cooperation and coordination by all of these actors. phone applications for finding a job, accessing health services, and obtaining price information, adoption rates increase, making the services more profitable. This in turn encourages the development of more apps and services, creating the scale that is so necessary for their expansion but elusive in many environments. Sustainable mobile ecosystems, however, require more than just consumers able to use technology for their benefit; they also require individuals able to create applications and services. Recognizing this, some programs are aimed at building citizens mobile development and business skills to transform consumers of data into viable producers of data applications and services. Building small businesses around mobile application development provides the most valuable opportunities of all: income security and job creation. This is especially crucial because formal sector job creation levels in many countries are too low to keep pace with the huge cohort of young people entering the work force in the next five to ten years. Because most application development requires relatively little start-up capital and overhead cost, it provides excellent, low-risk possibilities for entrepreneurship. A Digital Virtuous Cycle Many digital literacy programs focus on basic technological literacy, teaching participants how to use computers, mobile phones, and social media. Learning these basic skills has a multiplier effect. When people know how to use 2

4 Building the Foundation for Digital Literacy There are a number of obstacles to transforming citizens from the developing world into software developers and business leaders. Weak educational systems and lack of technological infrastructure provide challenges that must be overcome. The following items represent the prerequisites for building digitally literate citizens: Basic Literacy: Before a person can learn to write software code, he or she must acquire basic reading and writing skills in their native language. While increasing basic literacy skills is a priority for governments and donors, many developing countries have literacy rates below 50% (26% in Mali, for example). Access to Technology: Access to technology, namely, to computers, mobile devices, and either fixed or mobile Internet, is also a requirement for digital literacy. While mobile penetration is skyrocketing in developing countries, access to computers and broadband Internet connections remains quite low. Technological Literacy: Active digital citizens need to be comfortable using mobile phones and computers. There is a growing awareness in the development community that any technologyrelated intervention will require significant user training on basic mobile or personal computer usage before someone can advance to writing software code. Critical Thinking: In order to recognize societal or business problems that can be addressed with mobile solutions, successful developers must be able to think critically, recognize problems and imagine solutions. The educational systems in many countries do not emphasize these capabilities, meaning developers may need to be taught basic problem solving skills. Software Literacy: Finally, developers must learn how to write software code using programming languages specific to their intended mobile operating system. For example, applications for feature phones and Android-based smartphones must be written in Java, while Nokia smartphone apps must be compatible with Symbian and written in C++. Software Literacy Creative Thinking Technological Literacy Access to Technology Basic Literacy Learning the Basics: Initiatives in Digital Literacy Some of the most prominent efforts in digital literacy focus on basic technology skills. One such program is run by Telecentre, a non-profit dedicated to the creation of sustainable and publicly accessible telecommunication centers. Partnering with Intel, the organization has launched the Telecentre Women: Digital Literacy Program, which seeks to teach one million women basic information technology skills. By February 2012, the organization had trained over 200,000 women i. The program uses Intel s Easy Steps curriculum, which teaches basic digital literacy in easy, understandable language. Intel offers the curriculum at no charge to governments and NGOs worldwide ii. A similar program, the Jordan Education Initiative, is a public-private partnership between the Jordanian government, the World Economic Forum, UNESCO, USAID, Microsoft, Intel, Cisco and other technology companies. The initiative equips schools with electronic teaching tools and teaches students the skills to use the technology and thrive in a digital economy. 3

5 Financial Literacy: A Key to Mobile Financial Services Improving digital literacy increases the potential user base for mobile financial services (MFS) in emerging market countries, providing these services the potential to reach the critical mass necessary to become sustainable and profitable. The risk of fraud is a common concern preventing potential consumers from using mobile financial services. As they become more familiar with the technology, consumers should gain a greater awareness of digital security issues and how to protect themselves. Besides greater levels of consumer protection, MFS will also depend on a growing financial literacy among these consumers, a base of knowledge that allows them to make sound financial decisions on products that help them save their money, invest, make payments, create budgets, or obtain insurance. For example, work by the U.K. s Department for International Development (DFID) revealed that many consumers in developing countries do not use financial products because they lack basic financial capabilities. In response, DFID created the Financial Education Fund (FEF) to start educational initiatives in selected African countries. One such initiative, delivered by Camfed, an international aid organization, taught young women in rural Zambia basic financial skills like savings, credit, financial entitlements and control of household resources. Camfed's experience has shown that when young women are empowered with financial skills, they assume responsibility over budgeting and expenditure within their families. This project began training in November 2009 and, upon completion in 2011, had trained over 10,000 women in rural Zambia. Other programs focus on training for specific applications or programs, often in support of technology deployments, because the bestdesigned programs with the most innovative technologies will fail if local capacity building is not a key component. For example, the One Laptop per Child initiative has demonstrated that the training is as important as the hardware, with many teachers in the program having felt they had received inadequate training on how to use the devices to enrich their students education. From this frustration came the Digital Literacy Project, which is working to create training programs and curricula centered on the laptops and how to incorporate them into the classroom. iii Training the Digital Workforce The projects described above are designed to teach participants how to be successful consumers of technology. But a series of programs, some created by large technology companies seeking to strengthen the ecosystems that support them, are going a step beyond. For example, Cisco, the global provider of networking equipment, requires well-trained local workforces to maintain its dominance in the markets it serves. To address this need for skilled workers, the company has set up over 10,000 Networking Academies in 165 countries. Participants receive training on building and maintaining computer networks using a number of innovative techniques, including simulation, gaming and social networking. These Networking Academies have trained over one million people and are continuing to grow rapidly, increasing the potential for innovation and improving human capital around the world iv. Microsoft, meanwhile, has its own Digital Literacy program, which takes users through basic computer skills, from using a mouse to creating a resume to conducting research on the Internet, in a five-course series v. Creative initiatives in digital literacy abound in the NGO space as well, and many of them encourage creative thinking in addition to focusing on technology. YTECH is a community- 4

6 based initiative in the Seattle area that teaches teens how to use digital media technology. The program encourages students to use their media production skills to draw attention to and voice their opinions about community issues, thus increasing not only their technological prowess, but their confidence and sense of civic duty at the same time vi. Similarly, the Voices for Africa Media Foundation trains young Africans interested in media careers how to use mobile phones for video reporting. Over the course of the six-month program, participants learn about mobile video reporting, video editing, interviewing techniques and other related skills through a combination of face-to-face and online trainings vii. From Digital Literacy to Digital Fluency While all of the ingredients above are necessary for building citizens with the ability to be active digital citizens, the local development of applications, mobile or otherwise, depends on the availability of software coding talent. Many innovative mobile services, from health to education, were created in the developed world, and many existing programs depend on the availability of coding skills outside of the countries they are meant to serve. In order for indigenous development of mobile services to scale, more efforts dedicated to improving the local coding base must be made. Fortunately, several initiatives are underway in this area as well. Codecademy is a free service that launched last year that offers free lessons in JavaScript to anyone with an Internet connection. The service, started by Columbia University students Zach Sims and Ryan Bubinski, attracted an immediate following, with 200,000 people signing up for lessons in seven days. Low- or no-cost options such as this will be especially important in developing countries, where formal higher education opportunities are more limited than in the developed world. Other mobile service providers have launched drives to sustain their operations with local talent as well. The health technology company Dimagi has started an initiative called Coded in Country in the developing countries where it operates. The initiative encourages local programs to put more than 50% of their programming funding toward local coders, in recognition of the critical role of local capacity to the survival of mobile health projects. Dimagi co-founder Neal Lesh says, It s important to have local capacity to maintain and extend complex software-- if you are going to deploy an electronic medical record system, you want to have people around who can modify and support it. Lesh sees the building of ehealth development shops in developing countries as more effective than the use of foreign experts to do the same work because of their capacity-building benefits. Consumer to Producer: Training Tomorrow s Entrepreneurs Yet to build sustainability in local application development, churning out enough adept software programmers is not enough. For entrepreneurs to turn their ideas into a reality they must also have basic business skills, like building sustainable financial plans and marketing their products. In many areas, business incubators focused specifically on mobile applications have stepped in to fill this role. The Grameen Foundation has opened AppLabs in Uganda, Indonesia and Ghana. Thus far, these labs have produced applications that distribute weather information, educate farmers about agricultural best practices, and assist local residents in finding the nearby medical clinics viii. Another such program, a joint venture between infodev, Nokia and the Government of Finland, opened its first mlab in Kenya in 2011, with more slated to open in Armenia, Pakistan and Vietnam. mlabs select individuals who may have good ideas for mobile solutions but may lack technical skills, business acumen, or funding. Operating as an incubation program, the mlab provides training where needed and access to the local business start-up ecosystem to help these entrepreneurs develop their ideas into sustainable businesses ix. 5

7 Tim Kelly, the Lead ICT Policy Specialist who has led the development of the mlabs initiative, sees digital literacy initiatives as either promoting depth or breadth of the mobile talent ecosystem. The mlabs initiative promotes depth by focusing intensive resources on a small number of promising digital mobile entrepreneurs, while other InfoDev programs, centered around what are called mobile social hubs, are focused on achieving breadth through the organization of social gatherings and online networking. Both aspects are critical to improving the survival rate of budding mobile entrepreneurs. Mobile Senegal, a mobile technology network led by Christelle Scharff, a computer science professor from Pace University, offers mobile bootcamps, training Senegalese students to write mobile applications and hone their skills, as well as app competitions and faculty trainings x. Scharff notes that a key component of the bootcamps is a visit to see local artisans at work, so developers can get a ground-level view of the problems they could help to solve. A Call to Action: Nurturing the Roots of Sustainable Ecosystems Digital literacy initiatives are in everyone s best interest. For large technology companies, they expand their potential customer base and train potential employees. Governments benefit from improving the digital capabilities of their citizens as this provides the basis for delivering services through Internet and mobile applications, while addressing the problems of local communities and creating the jobs of the future. In order for these ecosystems to thrive, more needs to be done, especially by the technology community. Scharf, of Mobile Senegal, says that many technology companies invest in one-off competitions or trainings but fail to invest in follow-up, which is sorely needed. The training they do is scattered and one-off; it needs to be more sustained and there needs to be consistent follow up when entrepreneurs encounter problems down the road. She also notes that app stores that require a credit card for registering an app discourage developers from developing countries, many of whom do not have credit card accounts. Mobile operators and other ecosystem actors could remove these relatively small obstacles by tailoring these systems to developing world realities. Donors and funders can also help to build local ecosystems by insisting that part of the funds spent on projects go toward local capacity. Lesh, of Dimagi, notes that the pressure to deploy projects quickly often results in the use of foreign developers, to the detriment of both local human resources and the long-term survival of projects. In the short term, building local software and application development talent may increase competition for many firms, but over the long term the development of these skills is critical for a healthy global technology ecosystem. By contributing to digital literacy programs that not only teach people how to be consumers of mobile data, but also producers of mobile data applications, the technology community can plant the seeds of its own future success. For more information please visit: World Economic Forum ICT for Growth World Economic Forum Mobile Financial Services Development Report i ii ps/ htm iii iv v nship/giving/programs/up/digitalliteracy/eng/gettingstarted.m spx vi vii viii ix x 6