IT for Change | Bridging Development Realities and Technological Possibilities

Our Work

An equitable information society can flourish only through inclusive and informed debate, involving not merely actors from the technology arena but all actors in the development sphere, especially from the South. Current information society and 'ICTs for development' or ICTD approaches predominantly represent Northern realities and perspectives, tending to favour market-fundamentalist thinking and valorising technology per se. IT for Change attempts to de-construct the dominant approach and concepts in relation to ICTs and development and articulate alternatives, based on information provided by field work.

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Technologies are social constructs which embody the values and interests of their makers. Questions on what forces shape ICTs today and whether there are alternative trajectories along which ICTs could develop which could relatively be more advantageous to the marginalised sections, are not very commonly asked. As Lawrence Lessig famously said: in the digital arena, code is law and architecture is policy. The current models of ICTs are thus laying out the contours of new power structures in the emerging world, and therefore require intense socio-political examination. Our work in the area of Technology Governance interrogates the dominant models of ICTs vis-à-vis considerations of equity and social justice. It also provides avenues for progressive policy interventions and models of practice which can help shape ICTs in more desirable directions. Some key themes in this area of our work are Internet Governance, open standards and public software.

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IT for Change (ITfC) focuses on theory-building and policy research, adopting a pro-South feminist approach. ITfC seeks to build a theoretical framework of gender and information society that problematises women’s citizenship in the changing social order. ITfC’s research and advocacy have critiqued market-based approaches in policy making – globally and nationally – and have pushed for new frameworks based on citizenship and rights-based approaches.

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IT for Change's work in the area of governance looks at how new technology paradigms open up novel opportunities for deepening democracy while also presenting challenges to many conceptions of democratic governance. We engage with policies in the area of e-governance, public information systems, decentralisation and community based governance structures. We also engage with demonstration projects to explore bottom-up, participatory designs of governance systems that centre on divergent and dynamic priorities of local communities and engage their ongoing active participation.

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IT for Change (ITfC) believes that ICTs can help to shape participatory and collaborative processes of learning as well as teacher professional development in education, and is concerned by the attempts to use ICT programs in schools to justify, without any basis, the privatisation of both curriculum and pedagogy in the Indian public education system.

ITfC undertakes research aimed at gathering evidence regarding the relative performances of different ICTs in education models. We engage with education policy makers through advocacy campaigns. We work on capacity building for educators and policy makers to promote alternative, more progressive, ICT in education models. We work on demonstration projects which show the appropriateness of such alternative models for the Indian public education system.

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The field of what has been called as ICTs for Development (ICTD) is still mostly in an experimental phase, and seems to be facing some structural difficulties in mainstreaming into core development activities. In this context, it is important that a new approach to ICTD theory and practice is based directly on close interactions with community-based ICTD projects, done with equal partnership with CBOs and grassroots NGOs with a long experience of community work, and that are specifically designed for such learning. Such experimentation will then provide the basis of developing appropriate ICTD concepts, suggesting generic techno-social processes and systems appropriate to development activity, which then need to be contextually adapted in different development situations.

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