Disruptive Leadership

The year started with the Mother of All Disruptions as the world teetered toward economic and financial collapse. The technology industry withered in general due to lack of demand. Intel, for example, reported its first loss in 21 years in the second quarter.  As we head in to 2010, things seem to be on the mend, albeit slowly.

I thought I’d jump on the new near “top trends” bandwagon and provide some observations of my own for information technology for development (ICT4D).

Netbook fever and 1:1 computing in education begin to fade into the background.

Ever since Nicholas Negroponte launched the One Laptop per Child project and Intel followed with the Classmate PC, the buzz has been about netbooks for classrooms, or 1:1 computing (one computer for each student).  The reality is that the majority of netbooks sold are not sold to schools, but to middle class  consumers who are looking for a smaller notebook form-factor.  In my 2009 travels, ministries of education in Latin America seemed to be the most notebook centric.  Peru had purchased 150,000 XO laptops.  Chile wouldn’t even consider anything that wasn’t mobile.  As governments’ emerge from budget lockdown, I predict that they will look for more affordable and realistic options, such as PC labs and desktop computing.

[Read the rest of this entry...]

Over the last five years, the public and private sectors have introduced a plethora of initiatives aimed at bridging the digital divide and bringing computers to underserved markets.

Intel launched the World Ahead program in 2006, a sweeping initiative to encompass all activities Intel was driving to bridge the digital divide.  Microsoft launched Unlimited Potential in 2007. AMD was ahead of the curve, introducing 50×15 in 2005.

International and regional development agencies have also gotten into the game.  The United Nations introduced the UN Global Alliance for ICT Development (UN GAID) in 2006. Africa had the New Partnership for Africa Development (NEPAD), which included bringing ICT to schools throughout Africa.

There are many more public and private initiatives, but I will use these few to answer the question: have these initiatives, having been in place for five years or more, made an impact accelerating ICT for Development?

My view?  Mixed. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Any blogger worth his or her salt has a Google Alert set to the title of their respective blog.  Today I was referred to a brand new course at UC Berkeley on Disruptive Leadership.  The abstract is below.

Managers work in a world where expectations are off the charts, commitments are tenuous, priorities shift, and responsibility is given with marginal authority. In this highly interactive course, learn proven disruptive leadership practices to keep your customers out of harm’s way, leverage personal strengths, stimulate creative solutions, and inspire innovation. Learn how to apply out-of-the-box management techniques to solve performance problems, promote creativity, encourage innovative thinking in your team, improve communication, and unleash your personal potential.

A pretty good description of disruptive leadership from a management development perspective.  Disruption can always be a good thing.

Recently I participated in an online debate sponsored by Infodev and UNESCO on technology in education with Walter Bender, CEO of Sugar Labs, the non-profit organization that provides the software for the XO laptop of One Laptop Per Child.   The debate was focused on which model was better for schools in the developing world.  I am re-publishing my part of the debate here in two  parts.  This is part 2.

In Walter Bender’s post, For Real Learning, Mobility and Saturation Matter, one of his concluding statements was:

“I echo Dukker in being supportive of whatever means we can deploy to get great software into the hands of children, inexpensively.”

I completely agree.  Shared computing vs. 1:1 is a false dichotomy. Is it better for every student to have a computer at their fingers at school and at home? Absolutely. But pushing 1:1 as the short-term objective vs. long-term goal sets up unrealistic expectations with schools and governments that just don’t have the funding. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Recently I participated in an online debate sponsored by Infodev and UNESCO on technology in education with Walter Bender, CEO of Sugar Labs, the non-profit organization that provides the software for the XO laptop of One Laptop Per Child. The debate was focused on which model was better for schools in the developing world. I am re-publishing my part of the debate here in two  parts.

As Wayan appropriately points out in his opening post, a computer is merely a learning tool, albeit an increasingly important tool, in enabling higher quality education.  And as Walter Bender pointed out in the insightful WSJ debate (Will Low-Cost Laptops Help Kids in Developing Countries?) with the CEO of NComputing, Stephen Dukker, “… computing is not a cure; it is an agent that will enable children to engage in learning.”

So the debate we’ve been asked to participate in is to posit which computing model is better suited in the developing world to proliferate computers to enhance learning and education. [Read the rest of this entry...]