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Grant Cambridge shares his expertise |
CSIR researcher Grant Cambridge, a member of the team that developed the Digital Doorway, a robust, standalone system for self-learning of computer and information literacy, was called to share his expertise and learning with a group of international post-graduate students at the University of New York (NYU) during a two-week sojourn in the US.
Part of Cambridge's time in the US was spent at the fifth annual Web4Dev Conference and co-hosting the Improving Access to Information & Communities of Practice Workshop. The three-day Web4Dev event was hosted by UNICEF and the Digital Doorway went on display where it was visited by South African Ambassador to the United Nations, Dumisani Kumalo. The Digital Doorway was also mentioned in the opening address by Ann Veneman, UNICEF's executive director.
Cambridge's co-presenters at the workshop were Clay Shirky from NYU and Steve Vosloo from South Africa's Shuttleworth Foundation. It was Shirky, an adjunct Professor at NYU Faculty at the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP), who invited Cambridge to address the group of NYU Master's students as a guest lecturer.
Cambridge was intrigued by the course on offer, "It's an interesting course, which requires the class of 25 students from all over the world to work in groups and build something useful using a multitude of technologies. The class consisted of engineers, graphic designers, law students, technologists and software developers."
His talk on the Digital Doorway and design for implementation of systems was well received, "One of the groups will be working with UNICEF on the African Union Youth Forum and has asked whether I can be contacted for advice and to test ideas."
His remaining time was spent at UNICEF to continue work on the BEE version of the Digital Doorway. The BEE (as in honey bee) is a portable version of the Digital Doorway developed jointly between UNICEF and the Meraka Institute.
Enquiries: CSIR Communication
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