Despite being a profound technophile I've always been - and still remain - ambivalent about the potential role of information technology in Haiti and other Third World countries. My mom bought our first home computer (an Apple II/C) when I was about 8 and I've been tinkering with the beasts since. Though everyone from high school remembers me as "that girl who loved computers", I specifically avoided studying in information technology because I wanted to be in a field that touched the lives of the Haitian working class and rural majority.
Over the last 20 years there have been a number of initiatives aiming to either make information technology more useful for "development" and, in the other direction, make conventional IT more accessible to traditionally marginalized communities. Mobile applications may be the missing piece of the puzzle - widespread cell phone adoption across Haiti, Africa and the rest of the Third World finally puts computers1 and contemporary communications tech in the hands of moun andeyò - geographically, the rural folk, but socially, economically (and literally): the outsiders.
That said, in Haiti the intertwined histories of class, culture and language complicates things further. Information technology in general is unaccessible to a working or poor majority that struggles to get by on approximately 14 000 gourdes ($350US) a year. Why translate Ubuntu or Wikipedia into Haitian Creole when nearly all the people who overcome the multiple hurdles between themselves and a computer will most likely be relatively fluent in French? Moreover: why translate that little slice of data into Creole, when most everything else you can access, information-wise, is in English?
I don't actually have a rational and well-argued answer to that question. My sentimental, nationalist answer is: well, cause we can. Its the symbolism of the thing. Its the hope that its the start of something different.
Which is why I signed up to be a TED translator2. My first talk will be Mae Jamison's - at first I had just looked her up because she's an astronaut, and my son had said just last week that he wanted to become one. Then I saw that it was on teaching arts and sciences together, which just sealed the deal. Then I found out that Jamison is also a dancer which is like cherry, chocolate syrup AND sprinkles on the Sunday!
I'll also be contributing to efforts to translate Wikipedia into Haitian Creole (ht.wikipedia.org), an initiative spearheaded by the ever-so-mysterious haitimaster.
And of course, I'll be keeping you, my adoring public, up to date on all of this.
- 1. Cell phones are significantly more powerful (in terms of memory and processing speed) than that first Apple II/C my mom bought - and sell at a fraction of the cost.
- 2. The schpiel: "TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an invitation-only event where the world's leading thinkers and doers gather to find inspiration."
