Who
The Swedish Program for ICT in Developing Regions (Spider) is a resource center for ICT for Development (ICT4D). Spider was established in 2004 and is based at the Department of Computer and Systems Sciences (DSV) at Stockholm University. Spider is primarily financed by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), with complementary funding from Stockholm University. Annual turnover is around 15-20 MSEK.

What
Our thematic focus is aligned with Sweden's ICT4D priorities, crosscutting issues reflect our vision and mission.

Thematic areas
- democracy
- education
- health

Crosscutting ICT issues
- low cost and high quality technology
- free and open source software (FOSS)
- mobile technology for development (M4D)

Crosscutting development issues
- youth empowerment
- cultural creativity
- capacity development

Why
Vision
Our vision is an interconnected world built in the spirit of digital solidarity for future generations.

Mission
Our mission is to support the innovative use of ICT for development and poverty reduction through synergistic partnerships, while strengthening the global ICT4D knowledge base through networking, brokering, and open sharing of information.

How
Spider is a network organization that serves as an ICT4D broker. We function like a node in a network of actors from academia, civil society, government, and business. We combine networking and knowledge brokering with support to innovative ICT4D projects and ICT4D research in partner countries.

Where
We focus primarily on the twelve priority countries for Swedish development cooperation: Bangladesh, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia.

The geographical scope is narrower for our ICT4D projects in partner countries and broader for the Spider network.

The Spider center is based at the Department of Computer and Systems Sciences (DSV) at Stockholm University, Sweden.