The Amy Mahan Research Fellowship Programme to Assess the Impact of Public Access to ICT has announced the winners of the awards. Twelve teams from 12 different countries - four each from Africa, Asia and the Latin America and Caribbean region - will receive up to € 22 000 in funding plus specialized mentoring guidance to enable them to carry out an original research project that addresses one or more critical questions regarding the impact of public access to ICTs.

The program's main goals are to deepen and strengthen the capacity of researchers in developing countries to promote rigorous studies on public access to ICTs, as well as to stimulate the commitment to this issue of qualified academics in developing countries. To this end a call for proposals was launched last year.

Dr Abi Jagun, a visiting researcher at the LINK Centre, was the regional coordinator for the Africa and Middle East region during the pre-selection and selection stages of the programme and will act as an adviser to two of the recipients during their research.

The LINK Centre is proud to be associated with this initiative, both in honour of the late Amy Mahan, and as a contribution towards stimulating and strengthening public access to ICTs, in Africa and across the global south.

The winning projects and their affiliated institutions are:

• Impact of public Internet access on the strengthening of social organizations in the Peruvian Andes.Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, Peru


• The Internet Shops/Centers: Empowering Women Migrant Workers and Refugees in Thailand – NGO WEAVE - Women's Education for Advancement and Empowerment, Thailand


• Understanding Cybercafe Users' Willingness to Pay in Mainland China - Chinese Academy of Sciences, China Rural Internet Centers (RICs)


• Patterns of Utilization and its Impact on the Users' Sense of Connectedness - Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia


• The Impact of Public Access to ICTs on Lower Class Urban Youth in Argentina - Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina


• Women and New Technologies in Chile: the Impact of community and public access on digital gender inclusion - Universidad Diego Portales, Chile


• Influence of Network Roles on Public Access ICT Venues Capacities in Uganda - UgaBYTES Initiative, Uganda


• Nature and Impact of Shared Public Access to Internet in Towns and Rural Areas in Developing Countries: A Case of Cybercafés and Telecenters in India - Institute for Human Development, India


• An Assessment of the Impact of Commercial Internet Centers (Cyber Cafes) on Users in Jamaica - University of Technology, Jamaica


• Multipurpose Community Telecentres: tools for improving universal access and change in rural Cameroon - NGO Protege QV, Cameroon


• The Socioeconomic Impact of Internet Cafes on the Jordanian Community - University of Jordan, Jordan


• Public Access to IT skills/training and users job prospects - National University of Rwanda, Rwanda
  

The Amy Mahan Research Fellowship Programme to Assess the Impact of Public Access to ICTs is a project lasting eighteen months sponsored by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and administered by the University Pompeu Fabra (UPF - Barcelona, Spain), in collaboration with academics from the University of San Andrés in Buenos Aires (Argentina), the University of the Philippines in Manila and the LINK Centre at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa. The program is coordinated by Prof. Francisco Proenza and David Sancho of the Department of Political and Social Sciences of the UPF. The program is part of the Global Impact Study of Public Access to Information & Communication Technologies.

Contact the LINK Centre for more information.

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