[kictanet] Newest Name for AID ? Impact Sourcing ...

[Chris Foster]

Hi Andrea,

I'm totally in agreement with you that this area is subject to extreme hype,
and I look forward to someone doing some proper research on the likes of
Samasource and txteagle for us to really to see what their outcomes are :)

However, I do think that the idea of impact/social outsourcing has merit
which deserves attention. It starts from the empirical  evidence from Asia
that BPO/outsourcing generally brings benefits to middle-class and educated
but with little trickle down to those closer to poverty......and social
outsourcing has been successful in many cases in reaching such groups!
(e.g See 'datamation' in India who employ over thousands from poor
backgrounds in outsourcing, or my supervisor Richard Heeks' research in
India related to small enterprise outsourcing
http://ict4dblog.wordpress.com/2011/05/31/development-2-0-case-study-socially-responsible-outsourcing-to-rural-indian-telecentres/
)

Also, I'm not sure the larger BPO players have much to fear from this
competition. Larger players by their nature will deal with larger batches of
work with higher quality requirements. In the case of India's there seems to
be no evidence that the 'conventional' BPO sector has been adversely
effected by the presence and publicity of such social organizations.

For what I hear there is some government in such ideas in Kenya, and this
makes sense. BPO is central to Vision 2030, but it is an expensive
undertaking. It seems logical that planners would look for ways to improve
the equitable outcomes of such large investments throughout society, rather
than their investing leading in increasing IT-led inequality....

Thanks
Chris

--
Christopher Foster
PhD Researcher, Centre for Development Informatics (CDI)
IDPM, University of Manchester, UK

Skype: cgfoster
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