Locally produced laptops a vehicle for change in Bangladesh?
The Daily Star newspaper of Bangladesh has published the news that a low cost laptop is now being assembled in Bangladesh, thus paving the road for boosting the Digital Bangladesh 2021 strategy. The IB Times article below mentions that laptops will be distributed to administrative workers first, which could also cause interesting developments, cf our current project at Dhaka University, ePolicyInPractice
http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=206111
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/229737/20111012/bangladesh-laptop-computer-doel-130.htm
The ePolicy in Practice project has been conducting workshops and fieldstudies at Dhaka University, Bangladesh. Two workshops were carried out with both teachers from various departments, and with admin staff from various offices around the university. Of particular interest to us was to see how participatory methods would work in these settings. We had three very good days, and found that the participants in all workshops came up with very good ideas for further development of their workpractices. We have brought back a lot of data (field notes, photos, products from the workshops, interviews), and I am looking forward to analysing it together with my colleague, Pär-Ola Zander.
Visit from Dhaka University - signing, seminar, and setting out for future collaborations
Vice chancellor of Dhaka University, professor Arefin Siddique, has been in Denmark to visit Aalborg University and set the road for future collaborations. A formal MOU was signed, and meetings were held between the official AAU and prof. Siddique. From the perspective of eLearning Lab, a meeting was held to discuss ways of starting the work in proposed project ePolicy in Practice, formulated by PO Zander from eLL and Sikder Murshed from Dhaka University.
On Friday May 6th, the Faculty of the Humanities hosted a research seminar on the role of ICT and new media in the development of Bangladesh. A number of local Ph.D.-students and researchers presented ongoing work in Bangladesh and neighbouring countries.
