One thing amazed me in Tunis, the number of young people attending it, showcasing their products and achievements and promises that ICT4D can bring to the world. Not afraid of the failures or the difficulties that lie ahead, they are the bravest test pilots of the ICT4D revolution.

On the start of it, let’s face it , for the 3 billion people in the world that live on less than USD2 a day, inventions and gadgets such as the internet, personal computer, i-pod and pocket pc are irrelevant towards improving their lives. Most of the technology is designed is for the richest 5% of the world.

As we all know the quest for ICT4D started way back in early 1990s when the financial community and investors were getting swept over by the dot com boom. The development professionals became quite attracted with the idea that information and communications technologies could enable poor nations to leapfrog over many slow, painful stages of social and economic growth. The concept attracted enough attention to earn itself a catchy abbreviation—ICT4D (Information and Communications Technologies for Development). A lot of funding was suddenly made available to projects which were trying to do things ranging from e-governance to reduce corruption and village kiosks to provide local content. Suddenly there were computers, along with the promise of a better life, shipped over to small villages where there had never been electricity or telephone, often not even safe water. And almost everyone fumed at the in-famous Bill Gates statement that medicines and not computers are of use to the world’s poorest people.

Today there are fewer successes but a lot of pilots scattered all across the place.

However the initial euphoria had one positive side effect (there could be many others as well) is the rise of young social entrepreneurs. Just lots of young people trying to make “meaning” and trying to use ICT4D for the same, and not just for the sake of it but because it makes sense. And there are the others who are not using ICT4D but are creating meaning as well from setting up microfinance firms in India to water harvesting systems in semi arid regions of the world.

Young people are well positioned to tip the ICT4D revolution, they can take risks and they are enterprising and innovative. Can we create mechanisms to give them the role of the test pilots and be brave and not be scared of failures? We need people and institutions who will bet on young people, true 9 out of 10 will fail in their ventures, but the one that succeed will create enough brightness and the 9 that fail will bring enough passion enthusiasm and passion to motivate another 100 to create something new.

And what do young people need to be test pilots? Money to start with because that gives them confidence that people are taking them seriously.

Too many times young people are told to find money on their own whilst other kinds of support are available on the table. While capacity building, awareness generation and sensitization are nice things to do, they don’t add up to much if there is no money. May be creating a “fund” that young people can approach for support can help, because at the end of the day many young people get disillusioned that after all this talk and countless workshops no one wants to bet on them.

Other thing that can catalyze many young entrepreneurs is the “idea of celebrating entrepreneurship”, both successes and failures. The fear of failure and the stigma associated with starting something new and of your own brings inaction to many young people. This is most common in the global south, exactly the places where we need our young ICT4D test pilots. Too many young people are conditioned to believe that starting something or your own is a mistake and one should just look for a job, get married and do the right thing as everyone else around us does.

And last not the least, we need a stringent litmus paper test to ensure that the next ICT4D wave is based on sound principles and not just euphoria, and that applies to our young test pilots as well. And this test one needs to apply to themselves and not because so and so donor has asked us these questions. Guy Kawasaki talks about the “make meaning” test in his book the “Art of the start”. Guy says “If you’re going to create an organization and that organization is going to be successful, it is because the founders of the organization want to make meaning. Not money. Not prestige. Not power. Not status. It is about making meaning “.

1. One is to make the world a better place by a product or a service.
2. The second is to increase the quality of life of people.
3. The third is to right something that is wrong, to fix something.
4. The fourth is to prevent the end of something good.