A1. Pakreport: Crowdsourcing for Multipurpose and Multicategory Climate-Related Disaster Reporting

A2. Role of ICTs in Early Warning of Climate-Related Disasters: A Sri Lankan Case Study

A3. Using Mobile Phones to Reduce the Adversities of Climate Change in Rural Nepal

These cases studies are from the University of Manchester Climate Change Research Group in the School of Environment and Development - http://www.niccd.org/

BY Kit EatonFri Oct 21, 2011

The world is swiftly adapting to mobile internet solutions, and in industrialized nations the era of dumbphones and 2G tech is all but over. This represents a huge opportunity for Swedish firm Ericsson, because though you may not know it, Ericsson’s technology underpins much of the hardware that makes cell phone networks actually work.

After a very strong showing for the quarter, the company expects to sell some $41.3 billion in wireless infrastructure gear around the world this year, and Gartner expects this figure to hit $48 billion by 2015. Ericsson is big, much bigger than its partnership with Sony would suggest. Both before and since the company’s decision about 10 years ago to partner with Sony to make cell phones–a move that saw both firms shutting their own production efforts in favor of joint designs–the company has concentrated less on the consumer space and more on making money from the behind-the-scenes tech that makes the phones connect to the voice network, and mobile Net. They have innovated and earned money where others have left a gap in the market–around the whole world, not just industrialized nations.

CEO Hans Vestberg spoke to Fast Company about Ericsson’s future in the global communications game this week.

With China currently being feted as Apple’s biggest opportunity for growth, Vestberg noted that Ericsson had in one form or another been operating in China for over a Century: “We came to China in 1892, we’ve been there a long, long time and we’re definitely the biggest international vendor in China–we have a high market share”, he said.

In particular being the “biggest” 3G tech supplier to China Mobile, and the “second biggest” for China Unicom, Ericsson serves both the world’s largest cell phone provider, and the world’s third biggest. With China’s middle classes embracing mobile technology (and loving the iPhone, it seems) Vestberg sees the head-to-head competition with Apple on the phone front as immaterial, and beneficial.

“With more smartphones on the market, there are more users of the network,” he said. Even if the iPhone becomes as popular in China as it is in the West, that could represent increased demand for Ericsson’s infrastructure and services. On the other hand, Vestberg sees Apple as competition for Sony-Ericsson, but is confident their offerings are in squarely different market segments with the iPhone at the high-end, and SE on the “high-end of the mid smartphone range.” He suggests, “We can probably live with each other.”
While Ericsson’s role in the developed world revolves around infrastructure overhaul, in the U.S., and in Europe (where the company’s mainly involved in network upgrades and coverage boosting today) a case-study for its future growth exists in standardizing billing systems, which have not been standardized in the telecom space, yet Vestber says.

A move toward smartphone wave-and-pay systems, billed via carrier fees rather than credit card-based systems, plays into Ericsson’s plans: “We roughly have 50% of all pre-pay customers in the world [using] the Ericsson platform, and of course many of those people don’t have a bank account,” Vestberg pointed out. As cell phone payment systems expand in wealthy nations, parallel systems like wave-and-pay will also also gain traction in places like Africa. Vestberg notes: “There’s a big social impact,” because non-bank account holders will, in effect, “have a bank account,” albeit a portable electronic one via their phones.

The company’s map for the future is centered on the intersection between increasing use of smartphones, and the emergent internet of things. Vestberg proudly pointed out that his company is doing “a truckload of research” about how these technologies “impact society, in terms of everything from sustainable GDP growth to how much it creates net jobs.” The “next twenty years is going to be what we call the network society,” the CEO thinks, “where anything that benefits from being connected [to the Net] will be connected, and that’ll be transformative for many, many industries.”

It’s also tempting to see huge promise in Ericsson’s use of its patent portfolio, and an example for other telecoms and tech firms currently bickering about IP infringements in the courts. Ericsson, has one of the larger patent portfolios in the industry, but “we basically cross-license it with all players in the industry,” Vestberg reports, “If you want to be a part of this industry you have a cross-license with Ericsson. If not, it’s quite hard to make a phone or make infrastructure for mobility.”

Read More….

Anthropology (ANT) is the science that deals with the origins, physical and cultural development, biological characteristics, and social customs and beliefs of humankind. The Science of humans and their works.

The ANT Approach means, outcomes (people needs) and strategy BEFORE Tactics!

In social media, the focus should be on how humans interact, act, discuss, and share their social and common interests on a technology enabled platform. By understanding how these social actions evolve you can better identify which technologies or applications/tools to use to empower them. This said, we should social media to achieve specific outcomes which are measurable or connected to specific organizational goals. In effect, social media should recognize that people are central or the pivot…. businesses are developed for users… not for the existence of the business and its owners. Thus in the ANT approach, one moves away from the tactics to “knowing the customer’s goal”. Know why the customer is with you and you will understand what to do. Google is designed for users…. and not for businesses… Amazon also tapped into social behavior – making buying books easier.

Download Slides:

a) Social Media For Executives

b) ANT Approach

c) Case Study on Woolworth

This was contained in a document dubbed: “ Right to Information Bill-Frequently asked questions,” produced by the Coalition on the Right to Information-Ghana.

The Coalition is a group of civil society organisations and human rights activists working to promote good governance and transparency through the mechanism of a freedom of information law, with support from the Open Society Justice Initiative of West Africa.   The document said the Bill was designed to give the Ghanaian public the right to access official information and  enforces the fundamental human right of the Right to Information, a right given in Article (1) (f) of the 1992 Constitution of Ghana.

The information consist any data or facts, regardless of its form, be it printed document, a computer record, an audio recording, or any other format. It will give Ghanaians the right to request for information, which is held by a government agency. This however subject to exemptions set out in the Bill. It will also mean that Government agencies have to disclose such information to the public even in the absence of any formal requests from the public.

The Right to Information gives Ghanaians citizens the right to access information from the Government. This will allow the public to know what is taking place in public offices, and the ability to observe  policies, decisions and the conduct of civil servants. The Right to Information law strengthens democracy by increasing citizen participation through empowerment and promotes transparency and accountability in public offices. In the Bill, anybody including non-citizens has the right to apply to access information as stated in Article 21 (1) (f) of the 1992 Constitution of Ghana. Anybody can apply to any Government agency or body for access to information, according to the Right under the Right to Information Bill.

The public can be given any information unless is it exempted under the Bill. Section 20 of the Bill gives guidelines on how an application for information can be made, which explained that it must be done in writing, sufficiently describing the information being requested for.

• It must also describe how one would like to access the information, either by seeing a hard or electronic copy, or by viewing images or hearing sounds if it is visual or audio information.
•  The person making the application must give his or her address for contact.
•  Application for access to information can be made orally when the would-be applicant cannot make the application in writing due to illiteracy or disability.
•  In this case the applicant can speak-out the request to an officer who will put it in writing. A copy of the request will be given to the applicant.
•  Application for access to information can be made on behalf of someone else as long as the one submitting the application on behalf of the applicant states the capacity in which the person seeks to act to the satisfaction of the officer dealing with the request.
•  An applicant will have to pay a fee determined by agency guidelines. The amount will be determined by any costs incurred in retrieving the information, such as computer access and postage costs.
•  The cost will also be affected by the amount of time taken to retrieve the information. However an agency cannot charge fees for a manual search for information, which takes two hours or less. Each additional hour will attract a price to be determined at the time.
• Once a valid application for access to information has been made, it will be dealt with by either the information officer, or another officer who has been designated with the task.
•  The officer will then make a decision on the application and send a written notice to the applicant within 21 working days from the date of receipt of the application.
• This will state whether or not access to the information, or part of the information, can be given. If accepted, it will state further details about accessing the information. If rejected the notice will list the reason or reasons for refusing access.

GNA

Definition: Security of a Computer System

• A state of being free from
1. unauthorized use of the system and its resources,
2. misuse of the system and its resources, and
3. disturbance of the system’s operations
• The field of study about techniques for achieving and maintaining such a secure state

Download Notes:

The most unbelievable part of Microsoft’s eye-catching Productivity Future Vision video, released earlier this week, isn’t the see-through refrigerator, the software app that discovers a product design breakthrough on its own, or the plants growing on the wall of the ethereally white office. (That last one, actually, is a real office on the Microsoft campus.)

Watch the video, then read on to get the details on how that future works.

Culled from Engadget – Read more…

1. The objectives of the session are to:

1. Identify the three main sources of data that e-marketers use to address research problems.
2. Discuss how and why e-marketers need to check the quality of research data gathered online.
3. Explain why the internet is used as a contact method for primary research and describe the main internet-based approaches to primary research.

• Marketing Research Handout

Knowledge Management - How Do Organisations Learn?How Manage Knowledge with IT

a) Communication skills

b) Skills for negotiation

InterpersonalSkills HandOut

Negotiation Skills

The Framework of Negotiations

A systematic application of techniques to negotiation might take the following steps (Fowler 1998, Gillen 1999):

• Preparation: getting as much information as possible not just in relation to the topic under discussion but also in relation to the objectives and values of other parties; being clear about one’s own ‘bottom line’.
• Initial exchange: drawing out other individuals and probing with questions to develop a better sense of their objectives and values; weighing up relative bargaining powers.
• Negotiation: being assertive; using and observing body language; identifying issues that can easily be agreed and issues that are low-cost to one side but high benefit to the other; being creative about what can be traded; exploring possible compromises.
• Agreement: summarising the discussion; avoiding/dealing with last minute conditions
• Implementation: setting out a clear schedule of tasks and responsibilities

Negotiation Case Study

Class Discussion of Case Study