Bio

I grew up in South Africa (SA), studying Information Technology in tertiary education. After working locally for a couple of years I moved to London where I contracted as a web developer during the dot-com boom on many interesting and high-level projects.

Five years ago, on the flight returning to SA (to settle in Cape Town), I read about a number of ICT for social upliftment projects. I was immediately interested and since then ICT for Development (ICT4D) has been my passion. Given my technical background in commercial web development, my areas of work have included accessibility (for users with disabilities), community informatics, and the development of local digital content. My specialisation is web usability in e-government. Below are a few projects that I’ve undertaken in ICT4D.

I have a strong belief that the non-profit sector is an important 'info'mediary between Government and citizens. Through the University of Cape Town, in 2004 I conducted an e-readiness survey of non-profit organisations (NPOs) in and outside of Cape Town. My colleagues at the Centre for e-Innovation (Ce-I), which is the e-government unit of the Provincial Government of the Western Cape, have used that research to advocate ICTs to, and build relations with, NPOs. At Ce-I, I continue to use NPOs for usability tests for Cape Gateway (www.capegateway.gov.za), the main e-government portal in the province, and on which I’m the Design and Usability Team Leader. I’m very proud to have worked on this project for 3 years, in which time it has received widespread recognition, including a Special Mention in the World Summit Awards (for local content) and being selected as a Stockholm Challenge finalist for 2006.

Another project that I’m proud of was sponsored by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) (Canada) in 2005 to develop research and negotiation skills amongst young ICT4D practitioners in developing countries. The project brief was to identify a link between the information society (IS) and sustainable development (SD) in your country, facilitate national workshops with key people from both IS and SD communities to discuss this issue and write a 30-page research paper. Countries included Brazil, Costa Rica, Philippines, India, Egypt, Kenya and SA, which I covered. The project was a great success; I presented the research findings at the World Summit on the Information Society PrepComm-3 in Geneva (September 2005) and at the actual Summit in Tunis (November 2005). A book of the papers has been published (http://www.iisd.org/publications/pub.aspx?pno=740).

On the more fun side of ICT4D, I’m on a one-year contract with Amnesty International to raise awareness in SA around their Make Some Noise campaign (noise.amnesty.org). Thanks to a donation of the rights to John Lennon’s songbook by Yoko Ono to Amnesty, this campaign sells John Lennon cover songs done by contemporary artists.

Living and working as a development practitioner in SA has given me a very good understanding of local conditions, in terms of poverty, literacy and e-literacy levels, telecomms infrastructure, socio-economic needs of communities, etc. I’ve been formally studying and researching this field (part-time) at the University of Cape Town for a number of years.

As a DV Fellow I hope to make a significant contribution to alleviating the effects of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in East and Southern Africa, using ICTs. My usability expertise in a developing country context, along with an ongoing academic focus, means that I have the necessary skills to achieve this through my proposed project.

When not working or studying, I enjoy hiking on Table Mountain.