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Revised Work: If ICT and Modernization is development, how are we going to use them to develop our people and culture? Marked

 

 Submitted By: Emmanuel  Morris J.  1720

 Registration No: 2020-01-00387

 Course: Master of Science in Software Engineering

 Course Unit: ICT4D

 Course Code:  ITE 7103

 Year:                1

 Semester:         1

 Session:           DAY

 Lecturer:         Prof. Muwanga Zaake

 Submission Date: December 7, 2020

 Question: If ICT and Modernization is development, how are we going to use them to develop our people and culture?

Technology and Modernization have become the bare rack for every sector and society in the 21 century. Technology and Modernization should be used to improve and aggressively better the lives of our people in a more positive direction, however, technology and modernization shouldn’t be used in any form or manner that will threating the existing of our people and culture. 

 ICT and Modernization in Agriculture

We can develop new methods and techniques in helping our farmers to improve the ways in which they farm and preserve their crops through technology and modernization. Technology like Drones and modern earth moving equipment can be used to monitor large farm areas, live stocks, inaccessible agro culture facilities, etc., we can also teach our farmer modernized methods and techniques in preserving their crops and live stocks from damages before getting to the market place. However, these technology and modern methods and techniques should confirmed to our people ways of live and culture, taking into consideration our environment and cultural values should have a place and be preserved and not eliminated to only confine with Western values and erasing or not respecting our people and culture values.

 ICT and Modernization in Health Care

New technology like 3D microscope, EMR machines, Wireless Thermometer guns and other similar infrared body temperature measuring devices, medications, etc., can be introduced into our health care facilities that will improved health care delivery for our people. Modernized methods and techniques in health services for example: Modern methods and techniques of training for midwifery that are involved into home delivery in the rural areas where access to health facilities are inaccessible can be introduced to reduce the numbers of infant and maternal mortalities. But those technologies, modern methods, and techniques should also take into consideration our environment and culture values of our people. For instance, an EMR machine that will worked under certain normal temperature in Great Britain will not work under that same temperature in Uganda due to environmental and temperature changes. We should now start thinking in advance on how to adapt or develop our own technology and modern ways and procedures that confine to our environment and talking into consideration our people and culture values.

 Using Information & Communication Technology (ICT) to improve our People and Culture

ICT has been and will always be an instrument for developing our People and Culture. We can encourage the uses of cell phones in a more convincing and agreed manner, especially in rural areas where there is a low-cost for communication. Our people in those villages should use these cell phones to transact their business by means of communicating with one another during and after business transactions. Farmers can also be encouraged to use ICT to track their crops information such as: When will be the next harvest, weather updates from those cell phones will helped our farmers to have a clear idea on their projects and plans for days and weeks ahead. Farmers should also be encouraged to use tracking devices to monitor their livestock’s locations and safety from harms. Agriculture farmers, Livestock’s farmers, and Agro farmers should be encouraged to use electronic payment system for all of their goods and services, transactions between sellers and buyers. Modern payment medium like electronic payment techniques can be negotiated with our people and introduced within our culture, transactions of money for goods and services for our people that have unreachability bank issues will be things of the past.

 Since Modernization is interpreted as the social transformation from agrarian societies to industrial ones, it is important to look at the technological viewpoint; however, societal changes should not be imposed, but rather it should be discussed, agreed upon, and gradually integrated into our people culture and ways of life. Development makes it possible for more innovative society and social changes to take place between and among our people, but those changes should not be forced on our people, but rather it should be defined and understood by our people for their own forward march. Development had been characterized as the engine of innovative change in ideas and thoughts, its implications on our people and culture should not reflect negatively on our people lives and culture. ICT and Development should not be used to discourage our people from their culture ways of life, but rather its should improve their ways of life through agreed integration of programs that will not abolished our people culture but rather improve our people life and culture values.

 ICT and Modernization in Education

Technology and modern techniques like Google virtual class, Zoom virtual conferencing, Cloud conferencing, augmented reality, are all technologies that are the forefront leaders to ensure that our people adapt to new and modern life style of learning. These technology and modern techniques should also be tailored to address language barrier issues for our kids and adults who only speak and understand our local languages or vernaculars. These technology and modern advances shouldn’t be tailored to Western values and needs and then be imposed on our people on the receiving end that have the propensity of diminishing their culture values and way of life. When considering these new technology and advances, we should take into consideration preventive and adaptive measures that will confine to our cultural and environmental setting and not just adapting to new technology and modern ways of life that will destroyed our people and their cultural values systems. Provisions should be may in those technologies and modernized methods and techniques that will translate general languages like English, French, Spanish, etc., to our local languages and vernaculars that will not be diminished or leave behind people who  have language barrier issues.

In conclusion, if we must use or adapt to ICT and Modernization in development to improve our people and culture, we should start thinking out or the box as Africans to either invent or advocate for those technologies and adapt to modernized development that will not violate, diminish, disrespect, or ignore our people and their cultural values. We should now start to think to become our own producer of our kind of technology and development plans rather than recipient.     

 

 

 

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