Post: The problem of silos

I posted a comment to an ICTworks post - Which University Department Should Have ICTD Studies?

The original post at ICTworks

Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICTD) research brings together a community researchers from such varied fields as computer science, cognitive and social psychology, design, anthropology, development theory, economics and public policy.

That ICTD is inherently interdisciplinary nature is its main weakness in the academic world, as interdisciplinarity is viewed suspiciously by academic disciplines that believe they are pursuing "pure" research in a well-circumscribed field. Therefore it is important to decide which university department is best suited to leverage the entire resources of the university to impart ICTD education. more at http://www.ictworks.org/news/2012/01/18/which-university-department-should-have-ict4d-studies#comment-1346

My comment

This is a useful paper, relating to a long-standing problem that needs to be addressed.

I'm not an academic, but I am deeply involved in various practical projects related to ICTD and am strongly in favour of closer academic-practioner collaboration. I therefore attended ICTD2010.

I went to a keynote which clashed with my regular online UK-Africa team meeting - http://www.dadamac.net/network/uk-nigeria-dadamac-team. I sat near the back so I could attend the meeting while listening to the speaker (one of the many benefits of typed skype meetings). it struck me as ironic that while I was working in real time with collaborators in rural Nigeria the speaker was explaining why people in different faculties in the same university could not collaborate with each other in the name of ICTD.

I came away completely disillusioned, but with a better understanding of the reasons why ICTD research is the way that it is. Thank you for keeping this issue in front of people.

The problem of silos January 22, 2012