2017 ICT4D Conference

In February, 2016 the presenter travelled to Nigeria to visit with members of the Feed The Future Nigeria ICT4D project. During the visit he trained project staff on mobile device management software and visited the project sites to see how the devices were being used. By speaking directly with the people who had the devices in their hands for work in the project, John was surprised to learn about the challenges they faced--challenges they accepted as the way it is, but of which John had never been informed of until he left his cubicle and travelled to the villages where the devices were used.

This presentation covers not only the lessons learned about the challenges of using advanced technology in remote areas for ICT4D such as rolling out hundreds of devices in limited bandwidth areas, providing device security, and implementing MDM when Internet connectivity may not be accessible, but also encourages participants to avoid the easy trap of making administrative decisions from a headquarters office that does not communicate directly with the project staff operating in the field.