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In a world where the notion of ‘sharing of knowledge’ has been gained much prominence in the recent past, the importance of information and communications technologies (ICTs) to promote sustainable agriculture, especially when combined... more
In a world where the notion of ‘sharing of knowledge’ has been gained much prominence in the recent past, the importance of information and communications technologies (ICTs) to promote sustainable agriculture, especially when combined with mobile and open source software technologies is discussed critically. On this rationale, this study was carried out to explore the applicability of the concept of converging ‘Free and Open Source Software (FOSS)’ to promote sustainable knowledge sharing amongst the agricultural communities in Sri Lanka. A multi-stage community consultative process with a set of designated officials (“Sponsors”) and a series of semi-structured questionnaire survey with a cross section of smallholder agriculture farmers (n=246), were carried out in the Batticaloa, Kurunegala and Puttalam districts to gather the baseline data. This was followed by a number of field experiments (“Campaigns”) with the farmers (n=340) from same geographical areas. The two FOSS, namely:...
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Mobilization of scientific and indigenous knowledge in support of sustainable agriculture has been identified as a vital activity that faces numerous challenges today, yet constraints and limitations on traditional agricultural extension... more
Mobilization of scientific and indigenous knowledge in support of sustainable agriculture has been identified as a vital activity that faces numerous challenges today, yet constraints and limitations on traditional agricultural extension methods as well as high costs of information provision have been cited as barriers to improving the livelihood of farmers in developing countries, particularly those residing in the lowest socioeconomic category known as ‘base of the pyramid’. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have long been regarded as forces for positive change in agriculture and rural development despite a track record of modest success with many initiatives. This paper describes the approach and initial results of an ongoing initiative involving researchers from Sri Lanka and Canada to create a community-university partnership intended to establish local capacity for inclusive innovation using low cost ICTs that can support knowledge mobilization within agricultu...
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Research Interests: Geography and Agriculture
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This chapter puts forward 'technology stewardship' as an approach for training and supporting individuals and teams who engage their agricultural communities to encourage and support innovative practices with low-cost, widely... more
This chapter puts forward 'technology stewardship' as an approach for training and supporting individuals and teams who engage their agricultural communities to encourage and support innovative practices with low-cost, widely available digital technologies. The chapter draws upon theoretical ideas of 'communities of practice' to analyse a stewardship initiative that has been implemented in Sri Lanka, presenting preliminary results of an ongoing action research project involving pilot studies of technology stewardship with partner organizations. The chapter outlines plans for a Joint Education and Training Initiative for technology stewardship that includes community engagement, rapid prototyping, evaluation and impact assessment, which was launched in September 2016.
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Commercial social media (CSM) play a vital role in support of community outreach and engagement. Despite the apparent benefits of CSM, its widespread use raises important concerns about privacy and surveillance, limits on innovation, and... more
Commercial social media (CSM) play a vital role in support of community outreach and engagement. Despite the apparent benefits of CSM, its widespread use raises important concerns about privacy and surveillance, limits on innovation, and data residency for the organizations that increasingly rely on them. This chapter will consider these concerns in relation to an international research collaboration involving technology stewardship training. Technology stewardship is an approach adapted from the communities of practice literature intended to promote effective use of digital ICTs for engagement. The program currently focuses on using commercial social media platforms for introductory capacity building, but this chapter will suggest important reasons to assist them in exploring non-commercial alternative social media (ASM) platforms. The chapter describes how the technology stewardship model offers a pathway for communities of practice interested in adopting ASM for outreach and enga...
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This paper reports on a recently concluded empirical study into the development of Wireless E9-1-1 (emergency service) in Canada that initially focussed on privacy concerns raised in the context of an emerging location based service (LBS)... more
This paper reports on a recently concluded empirical study into the development of Wireless E9-1-1 (emergency service) in Canada that initially focussed on privacy concerns raised in the context of an emerging location based service (LBS) for mobile phone users. In light of existing regulatory arrangements this paper concludes that in Canada the emerging Wireless E9-1-1 system establishes a reasonable level of protection for the privacy rights of mobile phone users who choose to contact emergency services. However, an important and surprising issue was raised in the proceedings regarding the obligation of wireless service providers offering prepaid mobile phone service to obtain verifiable subscriber records from their customers. This paper provides details regarding the issue and contributes a number of points to an emerging debate concerning the right to anonymity for customers who elect to use prepaid or other services provided over commercial networks.
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... while directing service providers to ignore
the temporary denial or absence of consent ... Recent news about the Swiss government's move to eliminate anonymous prepaid mobile phone service (Swissinfo, 2004) illustrates the... more
... while directing service providers to ignore
the temporary denial or absence of consent ... Recent news about the Swiss government's move to eliminate anonymous prepaid mobile phone service (Swissinfo, 2004) illustrates the problematic nature of requiring consent during the ...
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Page 1. Canadian Telecommunications Policy and The National Disaster Mitigation Strategy: Observing Wireless Enhanced 9-1-1 by Gordon A. Gow MA University of Calgary, 1997 BA Simon Fraser University, 1995 THESIS ...
The sex industry occurs in many venues, ranging from the highly visible survival sex trade on the street to venues such as regulated massage parlors and strip clubs, to less visible escort agencies making use of hotel venues, and the... more
The sex industry occurs in many venues, ranging from the highly visible survival sex trade on the street to venues such as regulated massage parlors and strip clubs, to less visible escort agencies making use of hotel venues, and the highly invisible exploitation that occurs through trick pads and microbrothels operating out of homes, apartments, or condos. In many communities, outreach efforts have focused primarily on direct face-to-face contact with individuals in the survival sex trade. However, in recent years, there has been a marked decrease in the street survival sex trade as the use of the Internet to buy and sell sites has become widespread. In this article, we describe the design and outcome of a multiphase community-university collaboration in Edmonton, Canada, to explore the use of Short Message Service (SMS) text messaging to initiate outreach with individuals advertising on the adult services section of the Web site Backpage.com. The article describes the impetus behind the project, the project goals and design, as well as results thus far. We also reflect on the results and present a set of emerging best practices, including the contribution of two-way text-based interaction for establishing trust between outreach organizations and the individuals seeking support. Overall, results from the project provide evidence to show that SMS is a cost-effective and important complementary communication strategy for outreach organizations seeking to initiate outreach to victims of human trafficking and sexual exploitation.
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... Time Biosurveillance Program in Sri Lanka and India Gordon A. Gow University of Alberta Edmonton, Canada Nuwan Waidyanatha LIRNEasia Colombo ... A software interface and associated application (s) to support manual message creation... more
... Time Biosurveillance Program in Sri Lanka and India Gordon A. Gow University of Alberta Edmonton, Canada Nuwan Waidyanatha LIRNEasia Colombo ... A software interface and associated application (s) to support manual message creation will need to be implemented for the ...
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South and South-East Asian countries are currently in the midst of a new epidemic of Dengue Fever. This paper presents disease surveillance systems in Sri Lanka and India, monitoring a handful of communicable diseases termed as... more
South and South-East Asian countries are currently in the midst of a new epidemic of Dengue Fever. This paper presents disease surveillance systems in Sri Lanka and India, monitoring a handful of communicable diseases termed as notifiable. These systems typically require 15-30 days to communicate field data to the central Epidemiology Units, to be then manually processed (Prashant & Waidyanatha, 2010). Currently used analyses rely on aggregating counts of notifiable disease cases by district, disease, and week. The Real-Time Biosurveillance Program (RTBP), a multi-partner initiative, aims at addressing those challenges by developing affordable paradigm-changing Information Communication Technology (ICT), implementing and field-testing them in India and Sri Lanka. Key components of the proposed solution include real-time digitization of clinical information at hospitals and clinics with the mHealthSurvey mobile phone software (Kannan et al., 2010), detecting anomalies in large multiv...
Research Interests: Emerging disease and E
... in the use of FS/OS Software: the experience of the European SME sector Panayiota TSATSOU, Gordon GOW, Silvia ELALUF-CALDERWOOD, Kristina GLUSHKOVA London School of Economics and Political Sciences (LSE) Houghton Street, London WC2A... more
... in the use of FS/OS Software: the experience of the European SME sector Panayiota TSATSOU, Gordon GOW, Silvia ELALUF-CALDERWOOD, Kristina GLUSHKOVA London School of Economics and Political Sciences (LSE) Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, UK ...
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Research Interests: Technology Acceptance, Sri Lanka, Technology and Society, Mobile Computing, Business Communication, and 14 moreDeveloping Country, Information and Communication Technologies, Real Time Systems, New Information and Communication Technologies, Internet Access, Mobile phone, Real Time, Disease Outbreak, Early Detection, Formative evaluation, Communications Technology, Health Workers, Internet, and Application Software
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Page 1. Canadian Telecommunications Policy and The National Disaster Mitigation Strategy: Observing Wireless Enhanced 9-1-1 by Gordon A. Gow MA University of Calgary, 1997 BA Simon Fraser University, 1995 THESIS ...
The Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004, as well as the false warnings and evacuations in the months following highlighted the need not only for a reliable tsunami detection system in the region, but also the ongoing and difficult... more
The Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004, as well as the false warnings and evacuations in the months following highlighted the need not only for a reliable tsunami detection system in the region, but also the ongoing and difficult challenges of establishing community-based hazard warning systems that will reach the most vulnerable populations with reliable and timely risk information. One tragic fact of the 2004 tsunami is that information about the hazard was available on the Internet minutes after the earthquake occurred and almost two hours before the waves reached the shores of countries like Sri Lanka. This is an instance that underscores the insidious nature of the global digital divide and one that highlights the need to establish innovative governance structures that will connect local communities to global flows of information. However, to be effective community-based hazard warning also requires a governance structure that will encourage locally managed and socially sust...
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... 4547) including: (i) spatial database of in-frastructure assets, (ii) spatial depiction of traffic flows over telecommunications networks, (iii) spatial depiction of telecommunications infrastructure in proximity to ... According to... more
... 4547) including: (i) spatial database of in-frastructure assets, (ii) spatial depiction of traffic flows over telecommunications networks, (iii) spatial depiction of telecommunications infrastructure in proximity to ... According to the NCS methodology, the application of GIS to study ...