Laura @ CET

Last week I spent in Dakar at the Acacia Learning Forum. IDRC funded, the programme with its focus on ICTs for Development is just past half way through a funding cycle, marking a good time for reflection and considering the future. It was a stimulating time, and definitely not an ordinary conference.

Premised on the principles of communication and connectedness, the event was facilitated to ensure participation and engagement. With almost 150 people, there were numerous interesting development interventions, research projects and networks to be discussed and discovered.  There is so much I could mention; here I only focus on highlights: the small group events, the effective bilingualism of the whole affair and the excellent communication strategy.

(It goes without saying that it was encouraging, and often inspiring, to hear of innovative projects in diverse contexts, and to get a sense of current trends and debates. Specificities for another blog posting.)

Normal academic conferences impart a lot of information fast, but their format is rigid and makes finding and talking to people with whom one shares specific (and sometimes obscure) interests difficult. At the Acacia Forum, I experienced the Open Space methodology first hand for the first time, and if it is always this useful then I am a convert! One morning was devoted to discussions on issues determined by participants. In this case 150 people, 22 topics. The facilitator was adamant that there are as many topics as needed, that topics should not be clustered because differences of emphasis are relevant, and that the number of people in a group is irrelevant. If you only find one other person interested in your issue, but it’s the right person, then that is an achievement. I went to a group discussion on Youth, Creativity and ICTs convened by Marie-Hélène Mottin- Sylla from Senegal and was absorbed by an in-depth conversation which included concepts of “hyper-modernity” about the juxtaposition of deep seated cultural practices with the affordances of new technologies. The other session I attended was on Theorising ICTs for Development and there were only three of us (don’t know what that says) but it was useful and included research sites such as e-government and public access to information, as well as consideration of the role of theory in enabling and understanding practice.

I now think that every academic conference should reserve a half day of the programme for participants to create discussion spaces of their own choice.

Also useful were the “speedsharing” sessions. Like “speed dating” these sessions had 12 “stations” where 12 projects were reported on, in five consecutive 7-minute long slots. The concise format forced one to be succinct and to the point, which is perfectly do-able as I found after giving the same presentation five times in a row (I got better each time!). It meant talking to smaller groups, and it meant participants could capture a flavour of several projects within a short space of time.

Another highlight of the event was being part of successful bilingualism in action, a real pleasure. This was achieved in several ways including bilingual facilitators who moved seamlessly between languages, slides and posters in 2 languages, simultaneous translators and “whispering translators” who could quietly translate in small group discussions. This went a long way to overcoming the Francophone / Anglophone divide allowing challenges, strategies and outcomes across the continent as a whole to be discussed by all. I knew in theory but experienced in practice that there is a qualitative difference in conversations when people are able to talk in the languages of their own choice.

The last highlight to mention here was the exemplification of an open and wide ranging communication strategy in action. A website- http://www.acaciaforum.net/- was set up in advance in order for conversations to be enabled even before the meeting. Throughout the event, bloggers kept a running update on the site, podcasts were made of presentations and were immediately made available, webcasts were uploaded to YouTube and linked to the site, participants were interviewed and their views shared, and of course pictures were uploaded and shared. Most of the website is in the public domain providing access to an audience beyond the Forum participants, as well as an archive of the events themselves.

These highlights are not accidental and they don’t come cheap. An experienced facilitator Allison Hewlitt was responsible for the overall event design, was on her toes and fully focused at all times; the African Commons team worked hard to ensure the recording and communication; and the translation facilities are an expensive resource.

Are there any downsides? The challenge for this kind of event with communication as a central objective and large numbers is ensuring sufficient depth. While it was a matter of some pride that this was a paperless event, I did wonder whether some supporting documents would have been useful. Perhaps I am too much of an academic but I would have liked a background document which contextualised ICTs for Development as a whole in terms of literature, trends and debates. And a knowledge repository on the site where participants could upload and share documents might have been of value. Maybe I just get antsy with no papers at all (smile).

All in all, I came away having learnt much and in ways quite unanticipated. Ideal.