Weitzenegger's ICT for Development Report

Regulating Transformational Branchless Banking: Mobile Phones and Other
http://www.microfinancegateway.com/files/46734fileFocusNote43.pdf
This CGAP paper recommends a regulation to help in the advancement of branchless banking. The note is based on research in seven countries from Asia, Africa, Central Asia, Europe and Latin America.

Centre for technology, innovation and culture TIK – University of Oslo
http://www.tik.uio.no/english/
The Centre studies production and dissemination of knowledge - broadly defined as the development of and interaction between science and technology, innovation and entrepreneurship - through inter-disciplinary linkages between the social sciences and the humanities.

World Bank: Global Economic Prospects 2008: Technology Diffusion in the Developing World
http://www.worldbank.org/gep2008
Rapid technological progress in developing countries has helped to raise incomes and reduce the share of people living in absolute poverty from 29 percent in 1990 to 18 percent in 2004, says the World Bank's Global Economic Prospects 2008. ''Technological progress increased 40 to 60 percent faster in developing countries than in rich countries between the early 1990s and early 2000s,” said Andrew Burns, Lead Economist and main author of the report. ''Nevertheless, developing countries have a long way to go, given that the level of technology that they use is only one quarter of that employed in high-income countries.” Subtitled ''Technology Diffusion in the Developing World,” the World Bank report notes that recent progress reflects increased exposure to foreign technologies. As a share of GDP, high-tech imports and foreign direct investment levels have doubled since the early 1990s. ''Rising trade and investment contacts with high-income countries, often facilitated by migrant groups, have been central to technological progress in developing countries.” said Uri Dadush, Director, World Bank Development Prospects Group. ''However, openness alone is not enough. To continue catching up, countries need to strengthen educational achievement, governance, basic infrastructures, and links to migrant groups.”

Building E-competence: Enabling Small Business to Access Opportunities through Information and Communication Technology, UNIDO
http://www.unido.org/file-storage/download/?file%5fid=84587
The challenge in many developing countries is to combine the SMEs employment potential with increasing productivity. This means shifting from low-value, price-driven to higher value, knowledge based services. To prosper, SMEs need an environment to facilitate growth, including easy acess to business information and ICT.

Google.org names TechnoServe a Strategic Partner in International Development
http://www.technoserve.org/pressroom/googlegrant.aspx
Google.org has named TechnoServe a key partner in a new strategic plan it unveiled last week. Google.org has also awarded TechnoServe a new multi-year grant of $3 million to expand the organization's private-sector development efforts. The focus of the strategic partnership is to spur the growth of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which are vital to ending the cycle of poverty in developing countries. SMEs create the bulk of new ideas and jobs in most developed economies, but they are scarce in other parts of the world, mainly due to a lack of access to business training and capital. ''Small and medium enterprises are a powerful engine of growth, jobs and opportunities,'' says Google.org manager Rachel Payne. ''We have chosen TechnoServe as a strategic partner because of the organization's long track record of working with entrepreneurial people to give them the tools, training and access to capital that they need to create viable businesses.''

UNCTAD's Information Economy Report 2007-2008
Science and Technology for development: the New Paradigm of ICT
http://www.unctad.org/press
The Information Economy Report 2008 reveals that although most developing countries remain far behind industrialized nations in availability and use of information and communication technology (ICT), some are emerging as major global suppliers of ICT products and services. The report analyses the current - and potential - contribution of ICT to knowledge creation and diffusion. It provides latest figures on the global digital divide and looks at how developing countries use ICT to improve the livelihoods of the poor and support enterprise competitiveness. The Report also explores the links between ICT use by enterprises, innovation and development, the role of mobile telephony, e-banking, and e-commerce legislation in developing countries. The Report will contribute to a roundtable debate planned for UNCTAD XII (20-25 April in Accra, Ghana) with the theme ''Harnessing knowledge and technology for development''.

Information and Knowledge Management: IKM Emergent Newsletter
http://www.ikmemergent.net
The quarterly newsletter will be a vehicle to inform both Programme members and non-members on the developments taking place within the EADI Programme ''Emergent Issues in Information and Knowledge Management (IKM) and International Development''. It presents both work that is being undertaken and approaches that are being developed.

Alternative Channel Inc., Montreal, Quebec, Canada,
http://www.alternativechannel.tv/achannel/articles/about.html
Alternative Channel is international, interactive, and deeply committed to the ideals of journalism in a brave new world of media. The place of citizen journalism in our lives is still being explored.

Downloadpedia points you to the best free software
http://downloadpedia.org
Downloadpedia calls itself ''a Web-based, free content software encyclopedia'', along the lines of Wikipedia, and it's an all-volunteer effort. Just click on a category (''Best Free Software'', ''Best Freeware Utilities'', etc.), and you'll see scores of free software reviews, with links to the sites where you can download the programs. I was amazed at what was available -- just about any program you can run on your computer is available free somewhere. (Source: FITA)

ICT and Local Economic Development
http://topics.developmentgateway.org/businessenvironment/rc/filedownload.do?itemId=1113812
ICT and Business development will be influenced by the extent to which people have access to ICT as clients, employees and citizens. Development may also influenced by the municipal approach to stimulating local economic growth. Without a critical mass of empowered users, the impact of ICT to stimulate local eco-nomic development will be limited. Similarly, training programmes to help SMEs access the market by the creative use of ICT will fail if many potential clients are on the wrong side of the digital divide.

ICT and Business Development
http://topics.developmentgateway.org/businessenvironment/rc/filedownload.do?itemId=1113801
This short briefing note provides guidance for material or presentations on the topic of ICT and the local economy. They set out examples to illustrate the ICT impact on business, including web sites, e-mail, finance software, Internet networks and a range of technologies enabling work out of the office. They also give a broad vision of the role of the public sector in business development through ICTs, including through a legal framework, connectivity and innovation

ITC's Market Analysis Services (MAS)
http://www.intracen.org/mas/welcome.htm
Market Analysis Services (MAS) are part of the Programme of Product and Market Development of the International Trade Centre (ITC) UNCTAD/WTO. Through MAS services, ITC provides on-line tools, disseminates market research and trade analysis, and conducts training programmes in market analysis for trade support institutions and the business community in developing countries.

Website Launch Checklist
http://www.weitzenegger.de/en/to/launchlist.pdf
When deciding to launch a website, you should first check certain things listed here. If there are problems in any of these areas, your website's functionality will be greatly reduced. Frankly, sending traffic to unfinished website only defeats the purpose of advertising in the first place. If you do check them, however, your website has a greater chance of attracting visitors and becoming successful.

Enterprises in Information Society
http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/library/lib-informationsociety/libr-infosociety.html
This is a reference source for European Commission information society related publications with a special focus on the ICT environment within which European Enterprises act. The publications are grouped by type: Studies and conference proceedings, Periodicals, Guides, Statistics and Official documents. Titles are given in English, but other language versions often exist as well. When available, we have added a link to the electronic format edition.

An Economic Development Model for IT in Developing Countries
http://www.acts.or.ke
Information Technology (IT) has revolutionized the world economy in the past few decades by practically changing the economic activities globally. Given its applicability in various manufacturing and services sectors, IT has significantly affected the economy by providing information and development content on products and processes. Accordingly, faster rates of output and productivity growth have become the trends of information processing and communications. For instance, India and Ghana have yet to achieve significant economical advancement through the use of IT. To address this issue, we propose: An Economic Development Model Based on IT for Developing Countries (EDM-BITDC).