Future of Technology for Good in Communities

This is when things begin to get real.

In my first post, I shared my original research question: “How might the boys perceptions of technology change after using technology for good to create meaningful opportunities for underserved populations?”. After completing a few literature reviews and much deliberation, I’ve slightly modified the original question to the following: “How might perceptions of technology amongst St. Albans boys be influenced after using a community developed technology product?”

Literature review:

Notes and Themes from Literature

Theme 1 — Impact of service learning projects on students

• When students are provided with authentic learning opportunities, in this case, the application of technology skills, projects tend to be more impactful to the student

Theme 2 — The Future of Technology for Good in Communities

• The notion of “social good” will obviously depend on the community. Communities have to be able to identify what social good looks like for them and not have solutions imposed upon them.
• Identifying needs would come through a series of empathy-building activities and interviews posed by groups attempting to address these problems.
• In any service project, student reflection is required in order to deepen learning.
• Product design and development should be localized and pushed far down the line in order to address “hyper-local” needs. Developing adaptive, flexible solutions around a localized community environment should be a priority when creating for a community.
• To test send out to groups of 2–3 people for a first localized push during methodology

Theme 3 — Using technology to mitigate accessibility barriers to treatment and care

In order for this happen, several changes in the following areas need to occur:

• Policy development
• Infrastructure enhancement
• Opening up and broadening of the lines of communication for service providers and data-sharing
• Opening up possibilities for interstate social work practice and online service-delivery