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It’s amazing how quickly a year went by.

It seems as if I told you about becoming the 2008-09 Yahoo! Fellow in International Values, Communications, Technology, and Global Internet at Georgetown University only last week and it’s already time to announce the call for applications for the 2009-10 Yahoo! Fellow.

The Yahoo! Fellow at Georgetown University pursues educational and research activities that explore the interplay between international values and new communications technologies, with a focus on BRIC countries: Brazil, Russia, India and China.

The projects explore how the use of new communications technologies, like internet and mobile, is shaped by national and socio-cultural context, and how such technologies, in turn, often change that context itself. The projects may also explore how new communications technologies are enabling the formation of virtual public spheres to support human values like democracy, citizenship, freedom of expression and empowerment of disadvantaged communities, but also raising serious questions related to personal privacy, homophily, propaganda and censorship. Projects can draw on insights from many disciplines, including politics, economics, business, and socio-cultural research.

The appointment is for one academic year, from August 15, 2009 to May 15, 2010.

The Yahoo! Fellow can come from the government, corporate, non-profit and academic sectors, but preference is given to individuals with interests in China, India, Russia and Brazil.

You get a $50000 stipend, a $5000 travel allowance, office space and two MSFS graduate students as Junior Yahoo! Fellows. At the minimum, you are expected to produce a publishable paper at the end of the residency. In addition, you may also have the opportunity to teach a graduate course across the MSFS and CCT departments at Georgetown. Both Irene Wu (the first Yahoo! Fellow) and I have taken that opportunity and taught a course, apart from doing our research.

Applicants should submit a letter of interest and curriculum vitae, along with a statement describing a proposed research topic(s) and methodology (not to exceed 2,500 words) to The Institute for the Study of Diplomacy. Materials will be reviewed beginning on March 6, 2009 and will be considered until a final applicant has been selected and accepted.

Once again, here’s the the call for applications for the 2009-10 Yahoo! Fellow. It’s a great fellowships, so do help us spread the word by writing a post on your blog, mailing it to friends who may be interested, or sharing it on relevant mailing lists.

Cross-posted at International Values and Communications Technologies.

(Cross-posted on my fellowship blog – How International Values Shape Communications Technologies)

Here’s a brilliant TED presentation by Hans Rosling on how to look differently at development indicators across countries and continents, using Gapminder’s trend visualization tool Trendalyzer –

I spent an hour playing around with Gapmindmer and discovered some interesting trends related to the diffusion of communications technologies in BRIC countries.

In all these charts comparing Brazil, Russia, India, China and United States, the X axis represents the income per person (in fixed PPP$) on a logarithmic scale while the Y axis changes. By pressing the ‘play’ button, you can see how the variable changes for these five countries over years.

Let’s start with the Y axis representing the number of cell phones users on a logarithmic scale. It’s fascinating how each country seems to stay close to the X axis until something happens and it rises vertically. It happens to the USA in 1980, China in 1986, Brazil in 1989, Russia in 1990 and India in 1994. As of now, these five countries have the biggest cell phone user bases across the world¹ (China at #1 with 601 million, India at #2 with 305 million, USA at #3 with 260 million, Russia at #4 with 172 million and Brazil at #5 with 135 million).

If you change the Y axis to represent the number of cell phones per 100 people on a logarithmic scale, you see a similar trend but the years are different — USA (1985), Brazil (1993), China (1994), Russia (1995) and India (1998). Do notice that the lag for China is 8 years but the lag for all other countries is around 4-5 years, indicating that China was almost weighed down by its high population.

In both the charts for the number of personal computers and the number of personal computers per 100, there are no such break-out years and the growth is diagonal rather than vertical.

We see these break-out years again in the chart for the number of internet users per 100 on a logarithmic scale — Russia (1994), Brazil (1995), China (1997) and India (1998) — but the vertical climb is slower than cell phone penetration.

Finally the chart with the number of broadband subscribers has a different breakout sequence — Brazil (1997), China (1998), India (2000), Russia (2001) — a trend also seen in the chart with the number of broadband subscribers per 100 — Brazil (1997), China (2000), India (2001), Russia (2002).

I’m not even sure if looking for breakout years on a logarithmic chart is a valid way of looking at technology adoption, but it does suggest some interesting stories. It will be fun to look beyond the data and string together these stories, but that’s another evening, another post.

References

- 1 Wikipedia: List of countries by number of mobile phones in use.

(Cross-posted at my fellowship blog — How International Values Shape Communications Technologies)

In the introductory episode of our weekly fellowship podcast, Ben, Pavneet and I explain why our research on social media in BRIC countries is uniquely interdisciplinary, share the personal biases with which we are approaching our research, summarize what we have learned so far, and share our plans for the rest of the year.

The starting point of our research is to understand how differences in culture, access and language in BRIC countries impact the three core values of social media usage — collaboration, community and user generated content — across tools and devices. Pavneet’s focus is on the community and he explores two really important use cases for social media — consumer advocacy and civic engagement. Ben’s focus is on the individual and he explores issues of identity and privacy in the context of social media usage. My role is to pull it all together into a meaningful framework.

So, our research really lies at the intersection of three worlds that (surprisingly) don’t really understand each other — the web 2.0 world, the technology policy world, and the ICT4D world. But, beyond that, it’s really rooted in the tradition of cultural studies and borrows heavily from research related to business, government and development.

Our personal research scopes also tie in neatly with our personal biases. Ben’s experiences as a warblogger partly explain his interest in identity and privacy. Pavneet’s focus on business and government explains his interest in how both of them are being transformed by social media. Finally, my own user-centric approach to the research is biased by my previous avatar as ‘the marketer who understood social media’.

The subsequent episodes of the podcasts will be based around interviews. We already have 2.5GB of audio material waiting to be edited and we have some really interesting interviews lined up for the coming weeks. So, do subscribe to the podcast in iTunes or elsewhere and do stay tuned.

Rob Pongsajapan at The Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship (CNDLS) at Georgetown University totally delighted me yesterday by setting up the official “ISD Yahoo! Fellow Blog” within hours of our discussion.

How Global Values Shape Communications Technologies is a group blog co-authored by the 2008-09 Yahoo! Fellows — Ben Turner, Pavneet Singh and myself. We will be writing between 5 to 10 posts every week on how international values apply to the development and use of new communications technologies, especially in BRIC countries. I’ll mostly focus on how social media will be used differently by individuals and institutions in BRIC countries as compared to their first world counterparts, but also riff frequently on the broader theme. Ben and Pavneet will also write mostly about their own research areas (to be announced soon) but also contribute to the bigger conversation on the blog.

From mid-September, we will start a weekly podcast with thinkers and practitioners from the Georgetown University community and beyond on social media in BRIC countries and how to use social media for social change.

In December, we will invite contributions for a crowd-sourced paper (or even a crowd-sourced e-book!) on how global values shape communications technologies.

I urge you to subscribe to How Global Values Shape Communications Technologies in a feed reader or by e-mail and look forward to your active participation in this blog’s community.