ICT for Good Opportunities, Challenges and the Way Forward.pdfVIP

ICT for Good: Opportunities, Challenges and the Way Forward Birhanu Eshete, Andrea Mattioli, Adolfo Villafiorita, Komminist Weldemariam Center For Information Technology Fondazione Bruno Kessler-irst Trento 38100, Italy Email: (eshete,amattioli,adolfo,sisai)@fbk.eu Abstract—ICT seems well understood as a tool and an In this paper, we propose a different way of looking infrastructure for delivering information and services for the at the benefits of ICT for society, which we call ICT for society and for allowing communications through interactions Good (ICT4G). We define ICT for Good as the use of ICT among the service users —mostly, the digital society. Using ICT for ensuring better life requires far more than good aiming at preserving and improving life through technology. infrastructure, ICT know-how and the various techniques and Its goal is to look for problems and find solutions, which tools in place. If ICT has to address the real problems of the maximize the best both for the society and individuals. More society, it should be at a rescue being environment-friendly, specifically, it fundamentally focuses on using ICT for ad- with real and tangible impact, sustainable, seamless, down to dressing critical society problems with low ICT penetration the grass-roots and above all with reproducible experiences. in a way that life is impacted for the better. By low ICT