Web portal seeks to expand South African skills

30 August 2006

From left: Professor Don Schauder; Professor Krithi Ramamritham from the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay, India; Dr Graeme Johanson; Dr Jacques Steyn; and Professor Peter Sullivan from the Faculty of Education, Clayton campus.

A Development Informatics workshop held at the South Africa campus last month has led to plans to develop and evaluate a web portal that will attract young South Africans to engage in skills, training and job placements.

Development Informatics links community-based information and communications technologies in developed countries with initiatives in developing countries.

The workshop was attended by the Chair of Monash University's Centre for Community Networking Research, Professor Don Schauder; the centre's Director, Dr Graeme Johanson; the Head of the School of Information Technology at Monash South Africa, Dr Jacques Steyn; as well as aid agencies, charitable foundations and businesses.

Dr Johanson said development informatics used information and communications technologies to promote skills, training and practical peer-to-peer learning.

"Development informatics endeavours to elicit local know-how and promote its dissemination, as well as engage rural, agricultural and small business stakeholders on an ongoing basis to expand their contributions nationally and internationally," he said.

"Rather than imposing strategies from abroad, policies, models and answers must derive from the bottom up.

"An overarching aim is to serve national economic, social and learning needs and ultimately to help reduce poverty."

Development informatics uses technologies such as radio and mobile phones as well as emails, faxes, CDs, multimedia and worldwide web resources.

Dr Johanson said the South Africa project would make use of existing infrastructures and access points.

"The new portal will focus on the 2010 Soccer World Cup as a vehicle to relate to the business opportunities, tourism, logistics, leisure, games, simulations and other activities that football fervour will inevitably attract in the lead-up to the 2010 event," he said.