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This study aims to assess the contribution of telecenters in expanding the capabilities of rural women to achieve their development outcomes in three rural districts in Tanzania.

The study conducted 12 focus group discussions with 37 rural women users and 36 rural women non-users of telecenters and semi-structured interviews with telecenter managers in the selected districts. The framework for the study is based on Sen’s capability approach.

The study noted that telecenters may enable rural women to build some capabilities (social, financial, human and political capabilities), and inhibit others, resulting in diverse development outcomes, based on the choices made and conversion factors. These conversion factors included institutional factors (inadequate computers, space and personnel, unreliable electrical power and slow internet connectivity) and individual factors (multiple responsibilities, status, low-level of education, language barrier, lack of information and communication technology (ICT) skills and technology efficacy and inability to afford ICT short courses). Other conversion factors (e.g. availability of affordable ICTs) enabled rural women to build their capabilities.

This is a comprehensive study that provides findings for rural telecenters to plan and allow rural women to expand their capabilities and achieve their development goals in Tanzania or other settings with similar conditions.

The paper aims to: assess the situation of rural population in Pakistan and information facilities available to them including telecommunications, computers and public libraries; document the community information initiatives in terms of objectives, institutional framework, staff, services, use, finance, technology and lessons learned; understand challenges and opportunities regarding the establishment of multipurpose community telecenters (MCTs) in rural areas of Pakistan; and to propose a model for the establishment of MCTs in Pakistan in terms of policy formulation, planning, management, funding, building, equipment, technology, services, target groups, marketing and sustainability.

The study is based on literature review and interviews of persons involved in activities of providing information to the rural community in Pakistan selected from the telecommunications sector, libraries and national and local non‐governmental organizations.

The paper highlights the role of MCTs in rural development. It assesses the situation of the rural population in Pakistan and information facilities available to them including telecommunications, computers and public libraries. The paper documents existing community information initiatives in terms of objectives, institutional framework, staff, services, use, finance, technology and lessons learned. It presents challenges and opportunities regarding MCTs in rural areas of Pakistan. A model is proposed for the establishment of MCTs in Pakistan in terms of policy formulation, planning, management, funding, building, equipment, technology, services, target groups, marketing and sustainability. The paper also discusses how MCTs can be an alternative to rural public libraries.

The paper presents a model for the establishment of MCTs in Pakistan in terms of policy formulation, planning, management, funding, building, equipment, technology, services, target groups, marketing and sustainability.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the access to community telecenters (CTs) and the resulting changes in people's livelihood by focusing on the gendered use of computers and the internet in two Thai CTs.

Qualitative methods through participant observation and interviews of 37 respondents are privileged. The assessment of the findings in this study is made by analyzing preset indicators created and adapted from a literature review of telecenters, livelihoods, and gender.

Findings suggest that livelihood changes in specific areas, with a rise in self‐esteem being one of the most noticeable changes. Moreover, financial opportunities, including career enhancement and product development, have expanded as a result of accessing CTs. In regard to gender, although it is found that there is only a small difference in financial opportunity between women and men, the findings point to more positive changes for women than men in terms of health enhancement and social connectedness, while men benefit slightly more in self‐esteem and education.

The paper verifies the possibility of information and communication technology (ICT) as a tool for enhancing the lives of people. It demonstrates that adults in a rural community can get the benefits of ICTs only if they have the opportunity to learn and have access to use. Furthermore, gender differences identified in the paper can support gender‐sensitive projects using ICT for development.

In this paper, we examine the social stratification in the favelas, urban slums, both in general and how it correlates with technology. The analysis is based on Weberian stratification theory, since it provides for a broad understanding of the different factors that make up the digital inequalities.

Based on a 10-month critical ethnographic research dealing with LAN houses and state supported telecenters in the favelas of Vitória, Brazil, we analyze how the use of technology by residents of such marginalized areas expands our understanding of Weber’s axes of stratification, namely class, status and political power. The data was drawn from user observations, Facebook interactions, and 76 semi-structured interviews.

The drug cartel members belonged to the higher class of favela residents due to their access to material resources and ability to afford smartphones and data plans. However, in terms of status groups, they did not represent the pinnacle of the community. Where status was concerned, the highest stratum of the community was composed of the “Facebook’s celebrities,” the few teenagers who knew how to produce content online, such as images and videos. An additional axis of social differentiation, related to political power, was observed during the 2013 protests in Brazil. Favela residents arrived late to the event and found themselves “fighting” for demands stipulated previously by the organizers who belonged to upper classes.

We highlight what access to ICTs can, and cannot, accomplish in a “highly disorganized,” conflict-ridden, and institution-poor environment. With that we hope to encourage academics and practitioners to do a better job in developing appropriate policies and technologies.

This paper aims to present the research methodology for the global study “Landscape of public access to ICT in 25 countries” (referred to as the Landscape study), a study conducted in 2007‐2009 by the University of Washington's Center for Information and Society, with a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The study looked at public access venues (public libraries, telecenters, cybercafés, other) that offer public access to information, especially through information and communication technologies (ICT), in 25 countries around the world.

The paper describes here the criteria for the country selection, selection of local research partners in each country, research design considerations, data analysis, and limitations of the study.

The scope of the research undertook meant sacrificing some depth in exchange for breadth resulting in a broad blanket of understanding over a variety of topics, but not enough depth to really understand their intricacies, causes or effects. In future steps the authors intend to explore ways to adapt the research framework to apply it to in‐depth studies of a particular country or context.

This paper presents a research methodology example that is transferrable to other multi‐national surveys.

Community wireless networking has become a growing trend in both metropolitan and rural areas around the world. However, few studies have sought to understand what motivates people to use community wireless networks and the unintended effects that those technologies have on communities, particularly for rural users. The purpose of this paper is to explore the benefits and usage of an asynchronous wireless internet system in a rural village of Cambodia to examine the issues and challenges in the acceptance of a new technology in a less-developed country.

By employing qualitative methods of in-depth case analysis, the authors revealed various usage motivations and unintended effects of the system.

The authors identified five reasons that motivated users to use the system: avowed identity, a means to an end, maintaining personal ties, power and influence, and psychological commitment and ownership. The unintended effects of the system included increased number of interactions among actors and other uses of the system, including internet commerce, telemedicine, and e-government.

This study explores the wireless internet project known as the “Internet Village Motoman Project” that was initiated by a non-governmental organization with funding from private donors, supplemented with matching funds from the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank.

This study contributes to the academic understanding of rural regions of Cambodia and its evidence supports the current theoretical assumptions that user behaviors are not determined only by users’ decisions alone (as proposed by traditional cognitive IS research), but also by users and their social interactions as stated in the four-dimensional social actor framework proposed by Lamb and Kling (2003). The latter provides better explanation of the motivation for internet use in the region. The theoretical contribution of this study is the useful adoption of the actor-network approach in a non-organizational setting. The findings also contribute to the literature on how practical internet engineering can bridge the digital divide. Fulfilling the needs identified in the research and understanding unintended effects of the system will contribute to the successful implementation of new internet projects in other rural areas.

This chapter is a narrative account of a Ford Foundation sponsored project from mid-2005 through 2008 for investigating into the causes and engineering a solution to the migrant workers education access problems in manufacturing areas in Shanghai, China. The project team was comprised of faculty members and students from East China Normal University, consulted by two professors from Columbia University. This chapter describes how the team arrived at a solution to the problem by investigating the problems, socializing with the migrant workers, and doing experiments that helped us to make adjustments on the proposed solution from time to time. Unlike the popular understanding of the educational needs of the migrant workers that the workers just need some short-term training for a job, our finding is that the workers need degree and certificate programs too. They need further education for personal and career development, not just a job that can feed them. The workers are Internet fans too, most of those who want further education would prefer a blended learning. We ran quite a few courses and a learning center to observe the learning behavior of the workers, which allowed us to actually interact with the workers and see how they respond to our experimental stimuli. While most of the migrant workers show an interest in learning, we did not observe much active learning involvement of the migrant workers. We identified seven factors that limit access to learning engagement: (1) inadequate transportation means; (2) very long work days and weeks and irregular shifts; (3) difficult living conditions; (4) restricted computer and Internet access; (5) inaccessibility of information; (6) unsupportive social environment; (7) lack of educational infrastructure. As a solution to the identified problem, we propose a learning center based community college network in all the manufacturing areas. A learning center serves as a social learning incubator to nurture the learning practices of the academically less prepared learner, the migrant workers.

Access to electronic information requires a well‐developed information infrastructure currently lacking in the developing countries. To compound the problem, prospects of achieving lifelong learning are increasingly dependent on access to information held across electronic networks. Uganda's population, similar to much of Sub‐Saharan Africa, never had the opportunity to attend formal school, rendering lifelong‐learning prospects as the last resort to meaningful integration into the knowledge society. To many in developing countries, universal access to ICT‐based information, as a social justice, is a feasible remedy to society's lifelong learning challenges. This paper reports on a case study of the school‐based telecenter (SBT) model to assess appropriateness of the school‐centered approach to universal access, currently under implementation by SchoolNet Uganda. The SBTs, established on a pilot basis, utilize VSAT‐based technology to connect schools and neighbouring communities to the internet. This paper documents the appropriateness of school‐based access points for neighbouring communities at two selected SchoolNet‐Uganda site schools. School‐based access has policy implications for developing countries' approach to universal access and lifelong learning in the emerging knowledge society.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the main features of smart work centers (SWCs) and show how these innovative offices would support the implementation of smart working and related changes in workspaces (“bricks”), technologies (“bytes”) and organizational practices (“behaviors”).

In this study, scientific literature is combined with white papers and business reports and visits to 14 workplaces, including offices designed as SWCs, co-working spaces, one telecenter, one accelerator and one fab lab. Primary data were collected through interviews with managers and users and non-participant observation, whereas secondary data included web-sites, brochures, presentations, press releases and official documents.

The authors developed research propositions about how the design of spaces and the availability of technology within SWCs would support the “bricks” and “bytes” levers of smart working. More importantly, the authors assumed that this new type of workplace would sustain changes in employees’ behaviors and managers’ practices, thus helping to overcome several challenges traditionally associated with remote working.

The exploratory nature of the research only provides preliminary information about the role of SWCs within smart working programs. Additional qualitative and quantitative empirical investigation is required.

This study provides valuable knowledge about how the design of corporate offices can be leveraged to sustain the implementation of smart working.

This study advances knowledge on workplaces by focusing on an innovative design of traditional offices (SWC). It also lays the foundations for future investigation aimed at testing the developed propositions.