All posts by Sean Kearns

3 ICT4D terms you need to think about

It’s easy to get lost in development-related terminology, and ICT4D has no shortage of complex terms used by different actors, in different ways, and in different contexts. In this post, I’ll look at three of those terms: Participation, the digital divide, and community. The idea is not to provide a definite explanation of the terms (as there is no such thing!) but to show that these terms are complex and should not be taken for granted within ICT4D – or development discourse more generally. Continue reading 3 ICT4D terms you need to think about

FireChat – Revolutionizing Activism?

Hong Kong’s 2014 Democracy Protests (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

When pro-democracy activists took to the streets in Hong Kong in September, the sheer number of protestors disrupted phone networks in the protest area enough to make mobile communication impossible. Enter: FireChat, a relatively new messaging app that relies on Bluetooth instead of wifi or 3/4G internet used by popular messaging services like Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger.  Continue reading FireChat – Revolutionizing Activism?