Factors influencing branchless banking for microfinance in Sudan: Theoretical perspectives and future directions

In Sudan more than 40% live below the poverty line and getting basic financial service poses a challenge to financial institutions. Most of these unserved populations live in far-flung areas that make it difficult for microfinance institutions to reach them. But the enormous growth of mobile technology industry has created new opportunity to expand financial services to this unserved population. Branchless banking is one of the latest technologies that have been employed in different developing countries to expand financial services to the unbanked poor. Despite the potential benefits and relevance of Branchless banking to Sudan, there are still very few studies on Branchless banking in Sudan. To address this gap in the literature, this study aims to investigate the factors that are essential to the development of branchless banking in Sudan using mobile technology. This is a research-in-progress paper, the critical review of the literature so far revealed that there are essential factors for the success of branchless banking in Sudan e.g. the identification of the industry key players and their roles, the enabling regulatory environment, the infrastructure readiness and Sudanese cultural values. The paper will provide regulators and policy makers in Sudan a way forward to expedite the development of suitable Branchless banking for microfinance in Sudan

Investigating knowledge management factors affecting Chinese ICT firms performance: An integrated KM framework

This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in the Journal of Information Systems Management, 28(1), 19 - 29, 2011, copyright Taylor & Francis, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/10580530.2011.536107.This article sets out to investigate the critical factors of Knowledge Management (KM) which are considered to have an impact on the performance of Chinese information and communication technology (ICT) firms. This study confirms that the cultural environment of an enterprise is central to its success in the context of China. It shows that a collaborated, trusted, and learning environment within ICT firms will have a positive impact on their KM performance

Research Project as Boundary Object: negotiating the conceptual design of a tool for International Development

This paper reflects on the relationship between who one designs for and what one designs in the unstructured space of designing for political change; in particular, for supporting “International Development” with ICT. We look at an interdisciplinary research project with goals and funding, but no clearly defined beneficiary group at start, and how amorphousness contributed to impact. The reported project researched a bridging tool to connect producers with consumers across global contexts and show players in the supply chain and their circumstances. We explore how both the nature of the research and the tool’s function became contested as work progressed. To tell this tale, we invoke the idea of boundary objects and the value of tacking back and forth between elastic meanings of the project’s artefacts and processes. We examine the project’s role in India, Chile and other arenas to draw out ways that it functioned as a catalyst and how absence of committed design choices acted as an unexpected strength in reaching its goals

The impact of national culture on e-government implementation: A comparison case study

Over the past decade there has been increasing interest in the IS research literature on the impact of cultural differences on the development and use of information and communications technologies (Ives & Jarvenpaa, 1991; Shore & Venkatachalam, 1995; Tractinsky & Jarvenpaa, 1995, Myers and Tan, 2002, Ali and Brooks, 2008). In this paper the authors explore the influence of national culture on eGov implementation. The authors have conducted a comparative case study in two different countries the UK as a developed country and Sari Lanka as a developing country. The research findings highlight the potential influence of cultural differences on eGov implementation

Conceptual framework for telehealth adoption in Indian healthcare

India is a developing country with a large landmass and a huge socio-culturally, economically and, ethnically diverse population. The healthcare system for such a diverse and complex country could entail challenges and difficulties in execution and outreach. Here, the emerging area of Telehealth could afford a place for itself in providing healthcare and health education to a large section of people residing in areas where there is acute shortage of healthcare professionals. Almost, seventy per cent of the population in India are rural. The infrastructure in India, similar to other developing countries, is erratic and differs throughout the country. Similarly, the ICT infrastructure is developed in the urban areas whereas there are insufficient ICT facilities in the rural areas. As telehealth depends on the utilisation of ICT infrastructure it is essential to conduct a study to find out the determinants of ICT adoption in the Indian telehealth environment. Moreover, as evident from relevant literature, telehealth is in a nascent stage in India, with most of the projects currently in a pilot study level. As such, it would be practical to conduct the study from an organisational point of view because the organisational adoption of ICT will eventually foster the implementation of telehealth in the domain of Indian healthcare. The study focuses on developing a conceptual framework of ICT adoption in the Indian telehealth environment, as limited research has been conducted in this area. The study highlighted the drivers and barriers of telehealth around the world, reviewed the relevant models of ICT adoption and generated themes to develop the conceptual framework. Empirical testing of the conceptual framework may have the potential to establish and confirm the determinants of ICT adoption in the Indian telehealth environment. The conceptual framework may be utilised for governmental and non-governmental policy level decision making

Cyber maturity in the Asia-Pacific Region 2014

Summary: To make considered, evidence-based cyber policy judgements in the Asia-Pacific there’s a need for better tools to assess the existing ‘cyber maturity’ of nations in the region. Over the past twelve months the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s International Cyber Policy Centre has developed a Maturity Metric which provides an assessment of the regional cyber landscape. This measurement encompasses an evaluation of whole-of-government policy and legislative structures, military organisation, business and digital economic strength and levels of cyber social awareness. This information is distilled into an accessible format, using metrics to provide a snapshot by which government, business, and the public alike can garner an understanding of the cyber profile of regional actors

Pioneers, subcultures and cooperatives: The grassroots augmentation of urban places

About the book: There have been numerous possible scenarios depicted on the impact of the internet on urban spaces. Considering ubiquitous/pervasive computing, mobile, wireless connectivity and the acceptance of the Internet as a non extraordinary part of our everyday lives mean that physical urban space is augmented, and digital in itself. This poses new problems as well as opportunities to those who have to deal with it. This book explores the intersection and articulation of physical and digital environments and the ways they can extend and reshape a spirit of place. It considers this from three main perspectives: the implications for the public sphere and urban public or semi-public spaces; the implications for community regeneration and empowerment; and the dilemmas and challenges which the augmentation of space implies for urbanists. Grounded with international real -life case studies, this is an up-to-date, interdisciplinary and holistic overview of the relationships between cities, communities and high technologies

Using ODL and ICT to develop the skills of the unreached: a contribution to the ADEA triennial of the Working Group on Distance Education and Open Learning

Innovation in technology is occurring at rapid pace thus shrinking the distances and making information and knowledge more than ever accessible to everyone irrespective of where the person resides. This paper consists of four main articles. The first one deals with technological trends. The second one focuses on the deployment and use of open and distance education mode in rural areas by documenting initiatives that embrace information and communication technologies (ICTs). Due to challenges faced in rural areas only a few success stories/cases currently exist and some of these are cited in this article. The challenges faced in the deployment of ICT enhanced ODL have been highlighted as well as the potential of developing and delivering effective and relevant ODL programmes in rural areas in order to ensure that issues of educational equity and social exclusion rural communities are adequately addressed. ICTs in ODL are perhaps the greatest tool to date for self-education and value addition to any community’s development efforts, yet poor rural communities particularly in Africa do not have the necessary awareness, skills or facilities to enable themselves to develop using ICTs. Inadequate ICT infrastructures in rural areas remain a major source for the digital divide in Africa and for under-performance of distance learners. The third one analyses the support provided to ODL learners who often encounter difficulties in completing their studies through the distance education mode due to loneliness, uncertainties and de-motivation. ICT has not been able to sufficiently support distance learners in overcoming those obstacles efficiently. An investigation regarding those learning supports has been conducted in ten distance learning institutions, along with an intensive literature review with the aim of understanding the high percentage of dropout rates of distant learners. The learners’ interactions have been scrutinized through content analysis of their synchronous exchanges, during a completely online course. After taking into account the limited technical and human resources in Africa, a technological virtual environment along with a pedagogical framework has been proposed with the aim of giving adequate educational support to them. The fourth article has explored The Open University (UK) and its efforts to use new technologies to deliver online courses to difficult-to- reach learners in prison environments. The case study analysed here is an international course (called, B201- Business Organisations and their environments) which also touches an African cohort of learners. The implications for designing and delivering online ODL to the complex unreachable environments of prisons anywhere, and particularly in Africa, have been discussed