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Professionals from seven public Yemeni Universities participated in a training program in October-November focusing on management of Information and communication Technologies (ICT) with special emphasis on capacity building for ICT Centers at universities in Yemen.

SPIDER has been the technical and collaborating counterpart for the ICT project at the Autonomous National University of Honduras, UNAH, which is supported by Sida as part of the bilateral agreement on research collaboration with Honduras. The project started in 2006 and has just signed an agreement with Sida for support for a second phase of research collaboration.

SPIDER is supporting the development of alternative livelihood opportunities through the implementation of ICT and folkbildning – Swedish concept of adult education. The project which is being implemented in villages in the Tamil Nadu region in south-east India and near Mombasa on the Kenyan coast has the objective to support socio-economic development whilst protecting and managi

Professor Love Ekenberg, Christer Marking and Afzal Sher participated in the conference "Technology - A Platform for Development?" that was organized by Chatham House in London in October 2008. Major part of the discussion focused on the role of ICT in development with presentation of concrete projects that have led to positive results.

The ICT livelihood project being implemented in Kenya and India seeks to alleviate poverty in the coastal villages of both countries through an integrated approach. The two main partners in the project, CORDIO and SDMRI have each worked for over a decade on coastal and marine research, conservation and management. In this project they focus on reducing poverty among coastal villages by improving livelihood activities in women’s groups through providing opportunities for further adult education, and access to ICTs. The project collaboration which began in 2007 planned to start implementation of ICT and folkbildning right from the beginning in India as there already exist well Developed networks of Self Help Groups (SHGs).

Students from the De La Salle University-Manila, College of Computer Studies (CCS) won 1st place in the recently concluded Globe Labs 2008 Challenge held in Makati City last Dec. 05, 2008. With their project entitled, “Imus Farm Animals Healthcare Portal (IFAHP)”, the group’s entry was awarded category winner for Enhanced SMS/MMS applications.

During discussions with the Ministry of ICT and the Ugandan Communication Commission (UCC) in August 2008, SPIDER was asked to support the development of eHealth in Uganda within the context of rural development.

SPIDER has a memorandum of understanding with The Swedish Environmental Secretariat for Asia (SENSA) for supporting ICT4D activities related to environment and climate change. SPIDER participated in SENSA annual conference Cambodia in Feb 2008.

In the last call for applications in 2007, SPIDER received a few proposals that were focusing on ICT and gender. None of the proposals were however granted funding at that time. Nevertheless, the assessment group unanimously agreed on the importance of the subject area and suggested that SPIDER would promote gender specific project proposals.

A lot has been said about mobile phone usage and its potential to spur development in Africa. But have we really seen anything interesting that goes beyond voice communication and simple SMS? Well, many may have heard about the developments in the Philippines, and in Kenya the m-banking application called M-PESA is fairly well known, and a few might have heard of the innovative usage of FrontlineSMS (a SMS bulk tool and management system that allows mass-messaging to mobile phones) by civil society organisations in the region. Apart from that, what else? The first M4D Workshop in East Africa, sponsored by Sida and organised by DICTS at Makerere University, Knowledge Consulting Ltd and UPGRAID, clearly showed that there are far more applications around than the well known m-banking and mass-messaging tools.