IDIA2009 Conference
The Role of Community in Technology R&D
Kagiso Chikane
Abstract
The Meraka Institute is a South African national strategic initiative in the ICT space, established to address challenges in the first economy (well developed and integrated with the global economy) and the second economy (characterized by informal economic activity and poverty). The Institute is facilitating social and economic development through human capital development and needs-based research and innovation, leading to products and services based on ICT. This presentation discusses how the Institute is performing on these objectives and in particular lessons on involving communities in projects like the Digital Doorway. The Living Labs methodology is introduced and suggested as a way to achieve community-involved and community-driven ICT innovation. The presentation ends with the challenges the community informatics researchers need to address, and how these will evolve over the next several years.
Bio
Kagiso Chikane has 24 years of experience in academia both in South Africa and internationally. She has, during the past 6 years, also established her career in business and has held senior management positions at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), South Africa. She is currently Centre Manager at the Meraka Institute, CSIR.
She is a director of a number of companies including Brait South Africa Ltd. Kagiso holds a BA and UED from the University of the North (Limpopo), BA (Hons) from University of South Africa (UNISA), BA Education (Hons) from the University of Witwatersrand (WITS), Master of Arts degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA , Management Advancement Programme (MAP) from WITS Business School and attended the Mastering Technology Enterprise (MTE) programme at IMD, Switzerland IN 2008. She was a senior lecturer at Vista University, now Johannesburg University. Her international experience in academia includes lecturing at Boston University, Massachusetts.
