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The APC Communications Prizes

The APC Communications Prizes: 2002-2005

Proposal to IDRC

Prepared by: Association for Progressive Communications (APC), May 2002

Project Leader:

Maureen James

APC Programmes and Projects Manager

53 Parkside Drive

Toronto, Ontario M6R 2Y7

CANADA

Tel: +1 (416) 516-8138

Fax: +1 (416) 516-0131

Email:

WWW:

Introduction

APC’s Communication Prizes were initially conceived in 1998, as a means to recognize and document the work of an organisation that best exemplifies socially meaningful use of ICTs, by administering a yearly award. The first of these Prizes, the “Betinho” was publicly launched in May 2000 to coincide with APC’s own 10th anniversary.

The Association for Progressive Communications (APC) has been supporting people and organisations worldwide, working together online for social, environmental and economic justice, since 1990. APC’s vision is of “a world in which all people have easy, equal and affordable access to the creative potential of ICTs to improve their lives and create more democratic and egalitarian societies.”

For its first 2 years, the Betinho prize has been an international award – open to a non-profit organization, community-based group, coalition or social movement anywhere in the world that has used ICTs in its work towards sustainable and equitable development, democratic participation, and social justice. In 2001, another Prize – the Hafkin Prize, was established by APC’s Africa Programme, to focus specifically on socially meaningful ICT achievements in Africa.

There have been 3 winners so far:

Betinho 2000 – Max Foundation's Internet Global Help Program provides Internet access to families of children with leukaemia throughout Latin America, linking patients with life-saving resources in other parts of the world – see

Hafkin 2001 – Bayanloco Community Learning Centre an initiative of the Fantsuam Foundation, trains women in rural Nigeria to use information technology for peace and poverty alleviation – see

Betinho 2001 – Women’s Voices a video initiative that gives women living in poverty a voice in public policy making in Nairobi through learning scripting, shooting and editing techniques to film and disseminate their community experiences via TV, CD-Rom and the Internet – see

From our experience thus far with the Prizes,

we are even more convinced that it is essential to publicize and promote the types of ICT initiatives that embody core development values such as community-initiated, -driven and -managed ICT projects; ones that are gender-aware; and especially those in the South that contribute to empowering and supporting organizations, social movements and individuals to make meaningful contributions to equitable human development, social justice, participatory political processes and/or environmental sustainability. We believe the APC Prizes play a unique and important role in the context of so many high-level efforts, energies and funds directed to ‘solving’ the digital divide.

The changes that we are proposing to the current Prize format are:

  • we plan to offer only one Prize per year, alternating each year between the Betinho and Hafkin Prizes (the 2002 Prize will be Hafkin)
  • more in keeping with APC’s development principles, we plan to offer the Betinho Prize as a Latin American/Caribbean region Prize rather than an international one.

APC is requesting $30,000 USD from IDRC for Prize money, for the period 2002-2005 inclusive ($7500 USD per year). APC will cover the rest of the costs associated with the Prizes (coordination, website, promotion, data collection, documentation, etc.) through in-kind and volunteer contributions, and by raising funds from other sources.

Project Objective

The main objective of APC’s Communications Prizes is to seek out, recognize, publicise and provide support to initiatives that best exemplify meaningful use of ICTs for development.

Specifically, in this 4-year project timeframe, the objective is to provide support for a yearly APC Communications Prize process, alternating each year between the Hafkin and Betinho prizes.

Each year, specific activities will include:

  • defining the theme and eligibility criteria
  • convening a working group and jury
  • establishing a decision-making procedure
  • determining the formats for collecting and presenting the stories of the award nominees
  • revising the Prize website
  • planning the actual award presentation
  • developing a promotional campaign and dissemination strategy for the award, the winner and the nominee stories
  • evaluating the process and the results, and modifying the following year’s processes based on the lessons learned.

What Makes the APC Communications Prizes Unique?

There have been a lot of Prizes of various sorts emerging in development circles in the past several years – each with its own unique slant. For example:

  • ERICA Award: Ericsson awarded $250,000 in services and cash to non-profit organisations for new and creative ideas for technology applications that take advantage of the community-building power of the Internet – this Award was discontinued after 2 years
  • UNESCO Web Prize: $10,000 given in recognition of outstanding achievements of artists, designers and programmers in creating websites in UNESCO's fields of competence (education, science, culture and communication) – this Prize also appears to have been discontinued
  • Stockholm Challenge: Using four criteria (Innovation, User Need, Accessibility and Transferability) projects are evaluated in relation to their own environment and the focus is on the benefit the projects bring the users. Projects that counteract segregation or discrimination and provide sustainable solutions are favoured. There is no cash award for this Prize, the winner is awarded a trophy at a public ceremony.
  • IICD/infoDev “ICT Stories Competition”:This is the Prize that comes closest to APC’s in orientation, where applicants use a web-based form to tell the story of how they have used ICTs innovatively and creatively in response to a particular development challenge. The winners are invited to present their stories at an international meeting, all expenses paid.

The unique aspects of the APC Communications Prizes are:

  • these Prizes are the only ones that originate from and are driven by an NGO community of ICT practitioners
  • the winners are awarded cash (as opposed to travel), which enables them to invest in and extend their work
  • the finalists are asked to reflect on the overall experience, including successes and failures, especially with respect to the limitations and opportunities presented by the use of ICTs in the initiative
  • as of this year, APC will use a ‘scout’ team to contribute nominations, to ensure a diverse pool of applicants that isn’t limited to the ‘best connected’ projects or the ‘best writers’.

Implementation Plan

APC reviewed our experiences with the Betinho and Hafkin Prizes and noted the following challenges, which we intend to address by revising the Prize implementation strategy:

  • difficult to attract entries from all over the world that represent the diversity of work being done with ICTs, both geographically and in terms of the type of work; further refinement of the Prize criteria is needed
  • harder to ‘reach’ developing countries, but 2001 was a major improvement proportionally over 2000, in terms of developing country representation[1]
  • the fact that the prize-selection process has not been geographically categorised, can mean that applications from developing countries are disadvantaged, as there are relatively fewer applications from countries with less Internet infrastructure
  • implementing the entire process online will always miss good entries from remote communities with limited connectivity, meaning ‘good websites’ from better-connected locations can often pervade as higher-scoring entries
  • people that are experienced at writing applications can be seen to have an advantage
  • lack of on-site visits limits true first-hand knowledge of the initiatives, though referees and informal intelligence-gathering can help validate claims in applications
  • not easy to orient a whole team of people (Working Group and Jury) online to the values of the Prize without face to face contact with them, and sufficient time to learn together
  • long lead time needed to ensure extensive promotional coverage of call for nominations

To address these issues, APC has made revisions to our implementation strategy, as outlined below:

1. Selection Criteria

Each year, the Prize working group will define the criteria for the Prize being awarded that year. For example, we have set the theme of the 2002 Hafkin Prize to be: “People-Centred ICT Policy in Africa” and have developed a corresponding set of eligibility criteria (2002 draft criteria and nomination form for the Hafkin Prize have been attached with this submission, for reference.)

2. Selection Process

From a development perspective, it became clear after an internal evaluation of the first 2 years of the APC Communications Prizes that there can be significant limitations to offering a Prize that assesses development-oriented ICT initiatives entirely online. For example:

  • the risk of higher scores going to initiatives that are more ‘flash’ (technically superior websites, expert application-writing skills) than ‘substance’ (demonstrable, meaningful community impact);
  • attracting those already quite ‘connected’, more established projects and missing the hard-to-find, hard-to-reach, struggling but innovative, small community-based initiatives.

While these risks are to some extent unavoidable with such a Prize, APC is making some changes to the nomination and selection process that we believe will help to alleviate some of these problems.

The 2002 Hafkin Prize will follow this methodology:

Nomination Process

Nominations for the 2002 Prize will be collected in two ways:

1)an open online call, as has been done with previous Prizes

2)requests for hand-picked nominations from within our African ICT networks

We are adding the second method in 2002 because we believe this will contribute to ensuring a more diverse pool of applicants both in terms of geographical diversity as well as diversity of ‘scale’ of initiative. Although the situation has improved with the most recent Betinho Prize, we continue to be concerned that an open call for nominations tends to elicit applications from the best-resourced, most well-known initiatives that have the greatest skill in writing formal applications.

To balance this, the 2002 Prize team will ask our colleagues in the field of ICTs for development to be ‘scouts’ for us in identifying initiatives that match this year’s Prize criteria. Specifically, we will engage:

  • the researchers, participants and strategic partners in our Africa ICT Policy Monitor project, and our Africa Internet Rights work
  • our funding partners who have field offices and/or grantees in Africa: IDRC, OSISA, Hivos, Ford Foundation, and others
  • APC’s member organizations in South Africa, Senegal and Nigeria

This way, we are endeavouring to make sure that we have nominations from as many countries as possible and from initiatives that might otherwise not hear about the Prize or perhaps feel confident enough to apply. Our ‘scouts’ will be encouraged to directly nominate the initiatives they think are most deserving, in relation to the 2002 criteria.

In addition, we have abbreviated the nomination form for 2002 – both to facilitate the work of the scouts, but also to put more value on those initiatives that make it to the ‘finalist’ stage, where we ask them to tell their stories in detail.

As in past years, APC will convene a Working Group to review the complete set of applications. The Working Group will then recommend a set of finalists to the Jury to make a final decision.

Another new element for 2002 is that we are reserving the option to divide the Prize money among up to 3 deserving initiatives, rather than limiting ourselves to awarding the $7500 to a single winner.

3. Award Presentation and Stories Dissemination

Publicizing the story of the Prize winners has helped APC to continue to build up our media and promotions capacity, both in terms of approach as well as growing the community of media that monitor APC’s work. The practice of announcing the winner jointly in a press release with IDRC has strengthened our media coverage. The 2001 Hafkin Prize story was picked up by Radio Canada International, for example.

In 2001, our media work in collaboration with the prize winners themselves was a significant new angle to our media strategy, which broadened Prize coverage both locally and internationally: The Women’s Voices prize winner story was picked up by a number of online publications, most notably, BBC Online, and in Kenya, the prize generated a lot of positive publicity for Women’s Voices and ITDG (the project sponsor), including features on Kenya Television Network (KTN) and Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC), two-page detailed coverage in “Taifa Leo” (the national Kiswahili paper) and a magazine, “People”.

APC will continue the essential dissemination work of maintaining and revising the Prize website, on an annual basis. The Prize will be offered in at least 2 languages each year. The finalists will be profiled not only on the Prize website, but also in APC’s monthly newsletter, APCNews, to bring attention to the purpose and meaning of the Prize on an ongoing basis.

4.Evaluation

One of the most valuable rewards of the Prize work for APC has been the learning we have experienced in assessing the reach and impact, and the meaning, of the Prize in relation to APC’s mission and to the more general issues of ICTs and development. It is due to this analysis, that we undertook at the close of the first round of IDRC funding for the Betinho Prize, that we have renewed enthusiasm to work with our colleagues in the field to strengthen the reach and impact of the process and to continue to emphasise the uniqueness of the Prize mission.

APC will continue to evaluate the effectiveness of our Prize methodology, each year, and will adjust procedures as needed. We will discuss this with IDRC and report on it annually.

Expected Results

Not only will the Prize recognize and support the continued endeavours of the winning initiatives, it also provides an opportunity to collect, document and disseminate examples of creative and meaningful Internet use. Specific outputs will include:

  • Compilation/publication of the stories, experiences and lessons of the finalists
  • Strategy and workplan for offering the annual Prize
  • Increased profile of socially meaningful uses of Internet
  • Increased profile of APC and IDRC contribution to supporting and facilitating the use of ICTs for development

Budget (June 1, 2002 – May 31, 2005) in $USD

IDRC Contribution / APC Contribution
Presentation
  • Communications ($1000/year)
  • Award
2002 Hafkin Prize money
2003 Betinho Prize money
2004 Hafkin Prize money
2005 Betinho Prize money / $4000
7,500
7,500
7,500
7,500 / 7,500
7,500
7,500
7,500 / 4,000
Dissemination ($4500/year) / 18,000 / 18,000
Total / $52,000 / $30,000 / $22,000

Association for Progressive Communications April 2002

[1] Here is the regional breakdown of the 81 applications received in 2001:

North America – Total: 16 (20% of 2001 applications; 46% in 2000)

Latin America/Caribbean – Total: 30 (37% of 2001 applications; 16% in 2000)

Europe – Total: 10 (12% of 2001 applications; 20% in 2000)

Africa – Total: 14 (17% of 2001 applications; 8% in 2000)

Asia-Pacific – Total: 11 (14% of 2001 applications; 10% in 2000)