I very much agree with Sinead Quealy’s comment that even as we promote business and private sector involvement and investment in ICT for resilience efforts, “governments need to maintain control of the objectives and clearly set codes of practice and a public, transparent and agreed community centred approach.” As we see with some of the challenges digital entrepreneurs experience with maintaining control over their IP when they take on funding or other support (ex. access to APIs) from larger private sector players such as mobile operators, it is easy for the big business lens to lose track of both certain end-user needs and the needs of smaller private sector actors.

But I think your points that  “There is no "one size fits all" solution,” and this can free us from fear of monopoly is also wise. This mindset enables practitioners (governments, international donors, community-based organizations, technology players, household-level end-users) to take more risks as we design projects and involve diverse stakeholders.

So my recommendation to decision-makers is to jump in and encourage investment in frontier technologies and frontier ideas, and know that no one solution will be a panacea.

I also encourage decision-makers not to underestimate the importance of knowledge management and information capture, because if other decision makers do not know of your successes and failures, how can we move initiatives forward and take small projects and isolated pilots to scale?

Finally, learning from our failures can often be more useful and tangible than learning from successful initiatives. We’ve even organized full conference events called “Fail Fests” to discuss exactly this. Particularly in the context of a conversation on resilience, I cannot emphasize enough how dissemination and presentation of failed or challenged efforts has helped lead to bigger and better things, both in my own work and work I have seen in others.

Thanks so much for all your contributions thus far.
My comments here tie together questions 1 and 2.

Under question 1’s discussions on resilience, SHARBENDU and MALEPLA, among others, mention human centered design and the need for designing ICT solutions that match actual needs of communities on the ground (esp.). RICHARD HEEKS asks whether resilience is ability to recover from short-term shocks or adapting and transforming to respond to trends and enable prevention of future shocks. I think resilience means both, I agree with HEEKS that the latter is particularly crucial. For it is the key to a community’s ability to adapt and respond through its own initiative and on its own terms (essentially, the key to an authentic resilience).

To enable this authentic resilience, or the ability of a community to drive its own resilient behavior, we need local communities, institutions, and individuals to have the skills, knowledge, and infrastructure to use and deploy solutions(ICTs-based and otherwise) on their own terms. They need to be able to respond autonomously to the demands and needs they themselves identify within their own communities without suffering the lag time and miscommunication (ie. NON human centered design) that so often accompanies reliance on external support (be it subject matter expertise, technology infrastructure, or funding).

So this brings me to question 2: In addition to specific short-term applications like early warning systems, e-vouchers, and real-time data collection, ICTs can support a “long view” and help develop that local human capital and technical capacity necessary for authentic community resilience.

National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) repeatedly demonstrate their ability to do just that.

Through the World Bank, much of our work on ICTs and resilience deploys first through last mile digital and mobile connectivity and works with communities to use that connectivity on their terms, where agriculture applications and digital financial services play a central role. Through these engagements, NRENs have repeatedly contributed to achieving both these goals.

Though it manifests in several oraganizational forms, an NREN is typically a non-profit consortium of member universities that operates and manages its own broadband network connecting universities, much like a community run ISP, or a community network. NRENs also tend to offer cloud computing, federated ID, eLibraries, and data and research sharing platforms, paired with rural and peri-urban community liaisons based in universities. Particularly in the case of rural institutions that are connected to the NREN network, students and professors act as instrumental “information wayfarers” who a] develop their own technical capacity through their studies and scholarship, and b] forge connections and facilitate information exchange between non-university connected community members who have needs and concerns, and digital entrepreneurs, researchers, or other technical experts connected to the network and/or the universities.

NRENs’ contribution to nationaICT infrastructure and the growth of locally developed ICT applications is notable. In the African context alone (there are regional and national RENs globally), we see NRENs facilitating a growing information exchange between universities and rural/agricultural communities in Uganda (RENU), Kenya (KENET), ZAMBIA (ZAMREN), and Sudan (SUDREN). A new NREN beginning its launch process in Somalia (SOMALIREN) will be an exciting arena to watch.

An area of future work that could deepen NRENs’ contribution to community resilience would be stronger links between NRENs organizational and broadband networks and the digital entrepreneurship ecosystems associated with tech hubs and incubators.

We are also still exploring how best we can work with NRENs and universties to engage even more directly with rural and "off the grid" communities and expand communication and knowledge networks beyond urban spaces, so any comments, questions, or suggestions would be wonderful.