What caught our eye last week
An interesting article on the BBC news looks at how some entrepreneurs from East Africa are using mobile apps as loyalty cards that are easily tied to social media and require only a standard text to use – no smartphone necessary! See ‘Kenyan and Ugandan start-ups make location pay its way’ (Fiona Graham, BBC).
Caroline Wagner (SciDev.Net) looks at the challenge of making the outcomes of scientific research (especially publications) available to all potential users. See ‘Uncovering the world’s ‘unseen’ science’.
‘“Developing” countries arrested development’ (Hector Torres, Project Syndicate) is a somewhat controversial article on the possibility of revising the group of countries defined as “emerging” and subject to a less restricted regime by the WTO. As a similar point of interest, our own Rebecca Bailey recently posted ‘How do you measure development?’, which questions whether HDI and GNI are good indicators of a country’s development.
Finally, Simon McGrath wrote ‘Beyond the impoverishment of vocational education and training for development’ which looks at common misconceptions of vocational education and training (VET).