Info 290-17: Graduate Reading Seminar on ICT and Development

 

Professors Isha Ray (ERG) and Anno Saxenian (I School)

Mondays 12-2pm, Rm. 205 South Hall

 

 

2/4 -- Week 1:  Technology and Development: A Background

2/11 -- Week 2: Technology and Development in Practice: The Green Revolution

2/25 -- Week 3: The Postwar Project: Theories of Economic Development 

3/3 -- Week 4: New Paradigms in Economic Development 

3/10 -- Week 5: The Digital Divide and the Bottom of the Pyramid

3/17 -- Week 6: Technology in Emerging Regions: Low Cost and Shared Access Computing

3/31 -- Week 8: Technology in Emerging Regions: Telecommunications and Network Infrastructure

4/7 -- Week 9:  Technology in Emerging Regions: Mobile Devices as Platform

4/14 -- Week 10:  Applications: Agriculture and Health Care

4/21 -- Week 11: Applications: E-governance and Micro-finance

4/28-- Week 12: The Future of ICTD

 

 

 

Week 1:  Technology and Development: A Background -- 2/4

 

Basu, Kaushik. "On the Goals of Development" and Paul Streeten and Michael Lipton "Comments" in G. M. Meier and J. E. Stiglitz, eds. Frontiers of Development Economics: The Future in Perspective. Washington, DC: World Bank, 2001: 66-101  [URL]

 

Jasanoff, Sheila. "New Modernities: Reimagining Science, Technology, and Development". Environmental Values. Vol. 11, No. 3 (2002), pp. 253-276  [URL]

 

Marx, Leo. "Technology: The Emergence of a Hazardous Concept". Social Research, Vol 64. N. 3, Fall 1997. [URL]

 

Kammen, Daniel and Michael Dove. "The Virtues of Mundane Science". Environment. Vol. 39. N. 6, July/August 1997 [URL]

 

 

Week 2: Technology and Development in Practice: The Green Revolution -- 2/11

 

Prahladachar, M. “Income Distribution Effects of the Green Revolution in India: A Review of Empirical Evidence.” World Development. Vol 11 (1983), p 927 – 944. [URL]

 

Parayil, Govindan. “The Green Revolution in India: A Case Study of Technological Change.” Technology and Culture, vol 33 (1992), p 737 – 756. [URL]

 

Kohli, Deepali and Nirvikar Singh. “The Green Revolution in Punjab, India: The Economics of Technical Change.” Mimeo, UCSC,1997. [URL]

 

Evenson, RE and D. Gollin. “Assessing the Impact of the Green Revolution, 1960 to 2000” Science, Vol 300, 2 May 2003. [URL]

 

 

Week 3: The Postwar Project: Theories of Economic Development -- 2/25

 

Helpman, Elhanan, The Mystery of Economic Growth, Chs. 1-5 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004) [URL]

 

Adelman, Irma “Fallacies in Development Theory and Their Implications for Policy” in Meier & Stiglitz, eds. Frontiers of Development Economics: The Future in Perspective (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2001) [URL]

 

Dreze, Jean and Amartya Sen "India and China" in India: Economic Development and Social Opportunity, New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1995. pp. 57-86 [URL]

 

Williamson, John. "What Washington Means By Policy Reform." Latin American Adjustment: How Much Has Happened? ed. John Williamson. Washington, D.C.: Institute for International Economics, 1990. [URL]

 

 

Week 4: New Paradigms in Economic Development -- 3/3

 

Rodrik, Dani. "Goodbye Washington Consensus, Hello Washington Confusion? A Review of the World Bank's Economic Growth in the 1990S: Learning From a Decade of Reform." Journal of Economic Literature. 44, 4, 2006: 973-87. [URL]

 

Helpman, Elahanan The Mystery of Economic Growth Ch 7 “Institutions and Politics” [URL]

 

Evans, Peter “The Challenges of the ‘Institutional Turn’: New Interdisciplinary Opportunities in Development Theory” Nee and Swedberg, eds. The Economic Sociology of Capitalism Princeton University Press, 2005 [URL]

 

Mitchell, Tim. "America's Egypt: Discourse of the Development Industry." Middle East Report. 169, 1991: 18-34 [URL]

 

 

Week 5: The Digital Divide and the Bottom of the Pyramid -- 3/10

 

Keniston, Kenneth “Introduction: The Four Digital Divides” in Keniston and Kumar, eds. Experience in India: Bridging the Digital Divide, Sage Publications, 2004 [URL]

           

Warschauer, Mark. "Reconceptualizing the Digital Divide." First Monday. 7.7, 2002 [URL]

 

Prahalad, C.K., and Allen Hammond. "Serving the World's Poor, Profitably." Harvard Business Review. 80.9, 2002: 48-57. [URL]

 

Karnani, Aneel G., "Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: A Mirage"  Ross School of Business Paper No. 1035, November 2006. [URL]

 

Kuriyan, Renee, Isha Ray and Kentaro Toyama ‘Information and communication technologies for development: The bottom of the pyramid model in practice.’ The Information Society, 24. 2008. [URL] [Download]

 

Week 6: Technology in Emerging Regions: Low Cost and Shared Access Computing -- 3/17

Guest Speaker: Jenna Burrell

 

Patra, Rabin et. al. “Usage Models of Classroom Computing in Developing Regions” ICTD 2007 Bangalore, India [URL]

 

Kumar, Richa “eChoupals: A Study on the Financial Sustainability of Village Internet Centers in Rural Madhya Pradesh” Information Technologies and International Development. Vol. 2:1. Spring 2004  [URL]

 

Salvador, Tony, John W. Sherry, and Alvaro E. Urrutia. “Less Cyber, More I: Enhancing Existing Small Businesses Across the Digital Divide With ICTs.” Information Technology for Development. 11.1, 2005: 77-95. [URL]

 

Burrell, Jenna “Problematic Empowerment: West African Internet Scams as Grassroots Media Production” Information Technologies and International Development (forthcoming) [URL]

 

Week 8: Technology in Emerging Regions: Telecommunications and Network Infrastructure -- 3/31

Guest Speaker: Eric Brewer

 

Brewer, Eric et. al. “The Challenges of Technology Research for Developing Regions” IEEE Pervasive Computing April-June 2006 [URL]

 

Pitroda, Sam “Development, Democracy and the Village Telephone” Harvard Business Review, Nov-Dec 1993 [URL]

 

Subramanian, Lakshminarayan et. al. “Rethinking Wireless for the Developing World” Hot Topics in Networks, November 2006 [URL]

 

Surana, Sonesh et. al. “Beyond Pilots: Keeping Rural Wireless Networks Alive” ACM USENIX NSDI, 2008 [Download]

 


Week 9:  Technology in Emerging Regions: Mobile Devices as Platform -- 4/7

 

Robert Jensen “The Digital Provide: Information (technology), market performance and welfare in the South Indian fisheries sector” Quarterly Journal of Economics, August 2007. [URL]

 

Parikh, Tapan and Edward D. Lazowska “Designing an Architecture for Delivering Mobile Information Services to the Rural Developing World” WWW 2006, Edinburgh  [URL]

 

Donner, Jonathan “M-Banking and M-Payment Services in the Developing World: Complements of Substitutes for Trust and Social Capital?” MSRI, June 2007 [URL]

 

Slater, Don and Janet Kwami. "Embeddedness and escape: Internet and mobile use as poverty reduction strategies in Ghana". ISRG Working Paper 4, June 2005. [URL]

 

Week 10:  Applications: Agriculture and Health Care -- 4/14

 

Veeraraghavan, Rajesh, Naga Yasodhar, and Kentaro Toyama “Warana Unwired: Replacing PCs with Mobile Phones in a Rural Sugarcane Cooperative” ICTD2007, Bangalore, India [URL]

 

Gandhi, Rikin et. al. “Digital Green: Participatory Video for Agricultural Extension” ICTD 2007, Bangalore, India  [URL]

 

Donner, Jonathan “Innovations in Mobile-Based Public Health Information Systems in the Developing World: An Example from Rwanda” Mobile Technologies and Health: Benefits and Risks, Udine Italy 2004 [URL]

 

Constantinides, Panos and Michael Barrett “Negotiating ICT development and use: The case of a telemedicine system in the healthcare region of Crete” Information and Organization 16, 2006: 27-55 [URL]

 

Williams, Kimberley M. "Assessment of the utility of technology transfer guidelines as determined by the evaluation of the RESCUER program in rural Uganda" International Symposium on Technology and Society, 2004. ISTAS '04: 156-164 [URL]

 

 

Week 11: Applications: E-governance and Micro-finance -- 4/21

Guest Speaker: Tapan Parikh

 

Parthasarathy, Balaji et. al. “Information and Communications Technologies for Development: A Comparative Analysis of Impacts and Costs from India” Ch. IV. Drishtee’s soochana kendras: Sirsa Haryana;  VII. Sustainable Access in Rural India (SARI) project: Madurai, Tamilnadu; VIII. Bhoomi and the political economic of land: Peri-urban Bangalore, Karnataka” X. Conclusions IIIT-Bangalore, 2004. [URL]

 

Parikh, Tapan, Kaushik Ghosh and Apala Chavan “Design Studies for a Financial Management System for Micro-credit Groups in Rural India” Proceedings of the Conference on Universal Usability 2003 [URL]

 

Brett E. Coleman “Microfinance in Northeast Thailand: Who Benefits and How Much?” World Development V 34, N 9, 2006: 1612-1638. [URL]

 

 

Week 12: The Future of ICTD -- 4/28

 

Sein, M. and Harindranath G. "Conceptualizing the ICT Artifact: Toward Understanding the Role of ICT in National Development" Information Society Vol.20.1: 15-25, 2004 [URL]

 

Sen, Amartya K. “What is Development About?” in Meier and Stiglitz, eds. Op cit pp. 506-513  [URL]

 

Sabel, Charles F. ”Bootstrapping Development: Rethinking the Role of Public Intervention in Promoting Growth” in Nee and Swedberg, eds. On Capitalism, Stanford University Press, 2007 [URL]