ICTs: empowering Western Australian women?

The idea that women are empowered through their learning and use of ICTs (ICTs are defined as computers, the Internet, and e-mail for the purposes of this thesis) has been adopted by international development agencies and the governments of most nations throughout the world. Hence, many agencies and governments have made courses on computers, the Internet, and e-mail available to women with the aim of empowering them. Empowerment is defined variously and has at its core the social, political, and economic development of women to create equality and challenge patriarchy. Women's empowerment seeks to bring about societal change that will create conditions and structures that foster and maintain gender equality in all facets of life. This thesis examines the notion of women's empowerment through ICTs. The first section of the thesis uses development and empowerment literature to define, explain, and critique women's empowerment and the conditions under which it is supposed to operate. The second section presents, analyses, and discusses the data collected from a questionnaire answered by some Western Australian women on their experiences of ICTs courses offered by the Western Australian government and their subsequent life changes. The questionnaire was designed to establish whether or not women are empowered to create societal change and challenge patriarchy, as suggested in literature. The results from the questionnaire show that the majority of the women in the cohort were empowered to the intrapersonal (or micro-) level only. Hence, there was little evidence for the majority of women of the interpersonal (or meso-) level and no evidence of the societal (macro-) level empowerment of the women through ICTs. Therefore, this study does not support the contention that women are empowered through ICTs

A social capital framework to assess ICTs mediated empowerment of environmental community organizations in Western Australia

The potential of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in empowering generally under-resourced community organizations has increasingly been acknowledged in recent years. While organizational empowerment refers to the capability to fulfil its mission by overcoming resource-scarcities, measuring the contribution of ICTs towards organizational empowerment remains an exigent task. Two different theories, ‘resource dependence’ and ‘social networks’ provide a framework to examine how harnessing social capital leads to organizational empowerment. It is in this context that this work-in-progress paper will explore the implications of ICTs adoption on organizational social capital as a proxy indicator of ICTs mediated empowerment. Based on survey responses from 81 Environmental Community Organizations (ECOs) in Western Australia, the findings indicate: (a) the capability to maintain social capital is strongly correlated with the capability to acquire human and financial capital; (b) the trend of access to ICTs (more than one-tenth ECOs not having an access to the Internet) as well as ICTs adoption (less than one-third and one-tenth ECOs hosting websites and posting blogs respectively) is generally weak; and (c) ICTs tend to benefit ECOs already with higher social capital. Apart from illustrating the usefulness of a social capital framework to gauge ICTs mediated empowerment, the findings also exposed the extent of organizational divide amongst ECOs. This paper therefore acknowledges that access to and adoption of ICTs without the necessary skills and support mechanisms will impede empowerment and suggests ways to make ICTs mediated empowerment genuine

Feminist Empowerment Through the Internet

The University of Richmond\u27s upper division Political Science course, Women and Power in American Politics, has several ambitions. Among these is an exploration of the power of information technology to foster political research by and about women and to advance feminist political aims

Pemberdayaan Santri melalui E-Farming Pesantren berbasis Internet of Think: Studi Kasus di Ecopesantren Ittifaq Bandung

This study aims to analyze the empowerment of students through the Internet Of Think-based E-Farming, which was conducted at the Ittifaq eco-Islamic boarding school in Bandung. The methodology in this study uses qualitative methods. Through a qualitative approach, several things were found; first, ittifaq Islamic boarding school Bandung, is a role model for empowering e-Farming students based on the Internet Of Think (IoT); second, empowerment of students is carried out through the steps of the empowerment process, starting with collecting state data, analyzing state data, identifying problems, selecting problems to solve. Solved, and formulation the objectives of the Ittifaq eco-Islamic boarding school problem. The empowerment of E-Farming students based on the Internet Of Think is carried out through three stages of empowerment: training programs, collaboration, and groups. Third, the Internet Of Think-based santri E-farming empowerment model carried out by the Ittifaq Islamic boarding school including using the precision farming model, the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), and Smart GreenHouse.Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk  menganalisis pemberdayaan santri  melalui E-Farming berbasis Internet Of Think, yang dilakukan di ecopesantren Ittifaq Bandung. Metodologi dalam penelitian ini menggunakan metode kualitatif  Melalui pendekatan kualitatif, ditemukan beberapa hal; pertama, pondok pesantren ittifaq Bandung, adalah role model pemberdayaan santri e-Farming berbasis Internet Of Think (IOT), kedua, pemberdayaan santri dilakukan melalui langkah-langkah proses pemberdayaan, diawali pengumpulan data keadaan, analisis data keadaan, identifikasi masalah, pemilihan masalah yang dipecahkan, dan perumusan tujuan dari persoalan ecopesantren Ittifaq. Adapun pemberdayaan E-Farming santri berbasis Internet Of Think dilakukan melalui tiga tahapan pemberdayaan, yaitu: program pelatihan, kerjasama dan kelompok. ketiga, Model pemberdayaan E-farming santri berbasis Internet Of Think yang dilakukan pesantren Ittifaq diantaranya menggunakan model precision Farming,  penggunaan unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) dan Smart GreenHouse

UTILIZATION AND EMPOWERMENT OF SCHOOL LIBRARY FOR STUDENTS IN GRADE XI ACADEMIC YEAR 2010/2011 IN SMK N 2 DEPOK

This research aims to 1) understand the utilization of the school library for students in grade XI academic year 2010/2011 at SMK N 2 Depok 2) know the empowerment of the school library for students in grade XI academic year 2010/2011 at SMK N 2 Depok. This is considering the institution of education should provide learning resources. Learning resources which is referred to the school library. In terms of improving the quality of education, the library had a role as a provider of essential learning resources. The existence of libraries is not optimal in the utilization and empowerment. This research is a descriptive research to collect information on the status of an existing symptoms, which is symptoms under any circumstances the existence during research which aims to create a systematic explanation, factual, and accurate information on the facts and the properties of a particular population or region. Respondents in this research were 165 students in grade XI. The research data obtained of student questionnaires and documentation about the library. The number of samples in this research are determined by using proportional random sampling. The validity of the instrument based on the judgment experts as much as two people and reliability measured using Cronbach alpha formula. The methods to analyze the data is descriptive quantitative method. The results showed that the utilization of the library is still less for the collection of library materials (6.67%) and internet facilities (20%). This is because the less interesting collections and the Internet are often disconnected. Respondents use the the library as a place of discussion (46%). Utilization of the collection is still less due to the empowerment of the library was still less realized for students. the library promotion efforts for students not yet been done (80%). In this case, promotional efforts can be made according to the ability of schools such as providing brochures and procurement of school the library-themed events. Keyword : descriptive, utilization of the library, the library empowerment, Alpha Cronbach, proportional random sampling

The Fog Makes Sense: Enabling Social Sensing Services With Limited Internet Connectivity

Social sensing services use humans as sensor carriers, sensor operators and sensors themselves in order to provide situation-awareness to applications. This promises to provide a multitude of benefits to the users, for example in the management of natural disasters or in community empowerment. However, current social sensing services depend on Internet connectivity since the services are deployed on central Cloud platforms. In many circumstances, Internet connectivity is constrained, for instance when a natural disaster causes Internet outages or when people do not have Internet access due to economical reasons. In this paper, we propose the emerging Fog Computing infrastructure to become a key-enabler of social sensing services in situations of constrained Internet connectivity. To this end, we develop a generic architecture and API of Fog-enabled social sensing services. We exemplify the usage of the proposed social sensing architecture on a number of concrete use cases from two different scenarios.Comment: Ruben Mayer, Harshit Gupta, Enrique Saurez, and Umakishore Ramachandran. 2017. The Fog Makes Sense: Enabling Social Sensing Services With Limited Internet Connectivity. In Proceedings of The 2nd International Workshop on Social Sensing, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, April 21 2017 (SocialSens'17), 6 page

Mediating towards digital inclusion: the monitors of internet access places

Local dynamics play a key role in individual and collective empowerment for digital literacy and citizenship. This paper presents the results and reflections from a broader investigation into the public Internet access places in Portugal in the inland municipalities of the country's coast, undertaken by ObLID Network. Specifically, we intend to reflect on the actual mission of these places and reveal the actual profile, activities and training needs of their monitors and coordinators. In the first stage of the empirical study, several documents available on the Internet Spaces Network are analyzed. In the second stage, a questionnaire was applied to monitors and coordinators of the Internet access places, in seventeen Portuguese municipalities. The research results warn of the need to redefine and clarify the social and educational value of Internet spaces, indicating that the dominant activities of monitors in the Internet access places do not induce the foster of literacy and digital inclusion of the most vulnerable groups. In this context, actions are proposed that can contribute to improving the mission of Internet places, as well as the training quality of their monitors and coordinators. Internet Access Spaces, made available by municipalities, should be used to promote digital literacy programs, for individuals and groups.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Internet for Empowerment: Access and Usages by the Women in Nepal

Effective communication has the prospective to enhance women's quality of life, protect them in the fragile environment and create a knowledge based society that is more responsive to change and development issues. It can lead to the empowerment of women, enabling them to take control of their lives and participate as equals with men in development activities. The internet has made access to information and communication quick and easy with information. From entertainment to banking to access to resources related to education and health available at their fingertips. Internet services have a potential agent in the empowerment of women. This study found that exposer to the internet can help in gaining knowledge and change attitudes, which indirectly helps women gain freedom on all fronts. However, internet services have a very limited penetration among women in Nepal thereby limiting its impact on women empowerment. Keywords: Access and Information, Communication, Gender, Internet, Peak using time, Prime using hours. DOI: 10.7176/RHSS/11-2-01 Publication date: January 31st 202

Gender, mobile and development: The theory and practice of empowerment

This introduction to the Special Section sets out the rationale for our focus on gender, mobile, and mobile Internet. We explain our aims in planning a dedicated section and introduce each of the four selected articles across different country contexts. We examine how these articles juxtapose the theory and practice of empowerment. Finally, we raise issues with the way that empowerment is used and applied in ICTD work and we draw on Cornwall’s framework to support our view that access for women (an often-used variable) is not always accompanied by changes in law, policy, or men’s and women’s consciousness or practices; therefore, access does not de facto lead to empowerment. It is this space that we believe needs further exploration. A focus on access and digital literacy for women, while important, is not in itself a sufficiently meaningful criterion for empowerment through mobiles and mobile Internet