Smart Morning in an African Village: Diversifying Technologies within a Tanzanian Context

Abstract

Information technology (IT) can make a difference in a developing country only if it is designed in close collaboration with its users. The experiences from an ethnocomputing-based IT education initiative at Tumaini University, located in the rural area of Southern Tanzania, indicates promising opportunities for engaging children and students as creative co-designers and users for diversifying, novel information technologies. The local context with its needs was taken into account when using robotics (I-Blocks) and culture-based learning materials and implementing students’ village outreach projects in local schools and hospitals. The CATI model suggests the steps Contextualize, Apply, Transfer, and Import for sustainable, inductive IT design. Together with the concept of ethnocomputing, the CATI model proved useful for building and starting a new needs-based, contextualized IT undergraduate program at Tumaini University in Tanzania in 2007.