Leapfrogging and technology diffusion

The focus of the World Bank’s “Global Economic Prospects” this year is “Technology diffusion in the developing world”. Not surprisingly, this has generated a lot of discussion about the “leapfrogging” concept, i.e. accelerating development through the adoption of cheap new technologies, as evidenced by recent articles in the Economist (and here) and on various blogs. Judging from these commentaries, the new report has cast a shadow of doubt on the whole leapfrogging approach to development. Although mobile phones remain the posterchild of leapfrogging development, they seem to be something of an anomaly. Other information and communication technologies (ICTs), especially computers, have not had as much of an impact (or maybe just not as noticeable an impact). This is largely blamed on the lack of communications and power infrastructure in developing regions which limits the useability of computers. I would suggest that many of these criticisms reflect an unfounded technological determinism and are based on a very limited view of the relationship between ICTs and society in that they overemphasize the “leapfrogging” and technology aspect and ignore the “leapfrogging” and development aspect.
Many efforts to introduce and diffuse ICTs, computers in particular, in developing countries assume that ICTs have become well-defined tools with well-defined roles and “appropriate” interfaces suited to those roles, and therefore, a “tried and true” “westernized” ideal of these technologies are promoted. In fact, there is little evidence to support such assumptions. In the past few decades computer interfaces have changed dramatically and existing metaphors (esp. the desktop metaphor) become increasingly unsuitable as computers have taken on roles that may have been somewhat unexpected by mainstream users ca. 10-15 years ago, ex. social networking, vehicles for personal commentary, media centers, etc. It would seem more reasonable to say that computers have served as a flexible platform that each generation of users has been able to shape to meet its own needs and expectations. What’s more, these types of changes, or expansions, of the roles of computers have become increasingly rapid as their use has become more widespread. So, why the tendency to expect new users in developing regions to embrace technology presented in a manner so far removed from the experience of others? I think it may be, at least in part, due to a tendency to focus on anticipated general results of widespread diffusion of computers rather than focusing on the way things are done with computers and what is done with them.
From an educational point of view there are a few notable trends that can be identified where computers have achieved considerable diffusion (this is not to be taken as a claim that computers in education have been a raging success). Over the last four decades, the most notable impact that computers have had in a very general sense is obviously that the flow of information has increased, is more diverse, and has become more rapid. Over the same period, changes in thinking about education have corresponded with the impact that computers have had such that there is now a greater trend toward individual-based learning, constructivism and lifelong learning. This makes perfect sense when we consider the ways that use and manipulation of information flows has developed. For example, increased information flows have challenged existing notions of “truth” and we now generally accept that even seemingly well grounded scientific “truths” may be more relative to social and cultural norms than was previously assumed. This has become one of the primary justifications for individual-based and constructive learning, i.e. that “truth” is, at least in part, subject to individual conceptualizations and understandings of the elements involved. This in turn has underlined the importance of lifelong learning, which has evolved into a concept that not only encourages continuous learning, but also acknowledges that learning is an inherent aspect of human life, i.e. we are always learning and what, where and how we learn affects the way we internalise information that we receive in formal and non-formal interactions (I take this to be the gist of the Delors’ report’s definition of learning as “lifelong, life-wide and life-deep”).
ICTs didn’t change education overnight. We can identify trends, as I’ve done above, and in hindsight it may seem to us that the impact of ICTs was rapid and dramatic. But, I think that this is mostly because they have been very effectively rationalised, i.e. they have subtly changed whole conceptual frameworks, which in turn bounces back to effect ICTs. So, to get back to leapfrogging, do we introduce ICTs to promote novel forms of social interaction that may accelerate development or do we highlight the aspects of social interaction that may accelerate development and introduce ICTs to facilitate these? The ICT for development agenda is commonly referred to as ICT4D, but I’m going to make a distinction here and refer to the former path described above as ICT2D, i.e. ICT to develop – the assumption being that ICTs will spur on development, and the latter path I will refer to as ICT&D, i.e. ICT and development – ICTs can augment other development initiatives.
The question I raise above is not one that I am prepared to answer. But, I think that ICT2D carries a risk of introducing ICTs that are not relevant to the existing social fabric in the community involved because, at any point in time, technologies tend to reflect the societal values from which they emerge, and current ICTs have primarily emerged from western societies (obvious examples that come to mind are initiatives that are based on the “we need Windows” assumption). Therefore, outcomes ranging from total failure to diffuse the technology to cultural homogenization would hardly be surprising. However, ICT&D would launch ICTs in an environment where there may already be a perceived need for the types and levels of communication and information exchange that ICTs can provide, making for a more “organic” integration of the technologies into existing societal structures (examples would include initiatives in countries where they already have well educated computer scientists, like in Estonia and India). ICT&D is no less a potential “leapfrogging” path than ICT2D even though the diffusion of the technology itself may be somewhat delayed because it seeks to accelerate development in the same way as the former. The problem is that ICT2D is undeniably the easier to implement quickly and progress can be easily measured by simply counting cell phones and computers, measuring fiber optic cables, etc. (whatever that’s supposed to tell us about levels of development…). I think it is this “easier” path that is usually envisioned in regards to leapfrogging development. In light of recent experiences we might want to take a better look at the other path.