Question Box Poster Presenting at ICTD2010 London in December

Open Mind—Question Box has been selected as a poster presenter for the 2010 International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies. This is our first published paper!

The ICTD is a conference on ICT4D (Information and Communication Technologies for Development). The conference is “a forum for researchers, practitioners, and all those with interests in the use of information and communication technologies for development practice”. Click here to read more about the ICTD201: http://www.ictd2010.org/

We will be presenting a paper titled, AppLab Question Box: A Live Voice Information Service in Rural Uganda, as a poster. The paper was coauthored by Nathaniel F. Futterman, the Uganda Project Coordinator, and Rose S. Shuman, the Founder and CEO of Open Mind. It is an overview of a pilot program where we set up a hotline in two districts in rural Uganda from April through September 2009. The pilot tested the interest and viability of a live agriculture/general hotline in rural Mbale and Bushneyi, gathered information on the informational needs and interests of the target population, and compared a live, voice-delivered information system against an alternative, SMS-based (text messaging) system. The pilot proved the possibility of running a live, local-language hotline using a simple and inexpensive infrastructure. It also showed a unique perspective of the issues of trust surrounding information provision and the role of intermediaries in facilitating trust in this setting.

The ICTD conference is being hosted by the UNESCO chair in ICT4D and the multidisciplinary ICT4D Research Centre at Royal Hollowy, the University of London, this December 14^th and 15^th, 2010. Come check out our presentation if you’re around!