As of 1st August 2023, the UNESCO Chair in ICT4D at Royal Holloway, University of London has reverted to its original identity as the ICT4D Collective. We are a group of very diverse researchers and practitioners from across the world, bound together by our commitment to the highest possible quality of research-practice relating to the use of digital technologies in the interests of the world’s poorest and most marginalised people.
The Collective and the UNESCO Chair in ICT4D
The original ICT4D Collective was created in 2004, and evolved through an agreement in 2007 between UNESCO and Royal Holloway, University of London into the UNESCO Chair in ICT4D (Information and Communication Technologies for Development). UNESCO Chairs are groups of researchers in specific institutions undertaking work of direct relevance to UNESCO’s fields of competence, and they promote “international inter-university cooperation and networking to enhance institutional capacities through knowledge sharing and collaborative work”. Members of our UNESCO Chair have been very proud to have been associated with UNESCO for the last 16 years, and to have collaborated closely with many good friends in UNESCO’s Paris headquarters and field offices. We were also honoured that Houlin Zhao, the Secretary General of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) between January 2015 and January 2023, and Jean Philbert Nsengimana, former Minister of Youth and Information and Communication Technology (MYICT) from Rwanda, were our Honorary Patrons.
The following are some of the things we have particularly enjoyed engaging in over the last 16 years:
- Working together collegially in a truly multidisciplinary context, involving colleagues from Computer Science, Geography, Information Security, Law and Managament at Royal Holloway, University of London.
- Creating one of the largest groups of postgraduates completing PhDs in the field of ICT4D during the late 2000s and early 2010s.
- Crafting an extensive partnership network involving governments, the private sector and civil society, and sharing the lessons we have learnt about making partnerships successful.
- Contributing our experiences in global discussions around the role of digital tech in international development, especially in the UN’s WSIS process (since its origins in 2003), and UNESCO’s many gatherings relating to education and technology.
- Playing a leading role in the World Economic Forum and UNESCO’s Partnerships for Education initiative.
- Working on the ground in support of diverse groups of marginalised people, especially those with disabilities, out of school youth, women in patriarchal societies, and migrants and refugees.
- Being recognised as the 7th most influential global think tank in science and technology in the Go To Think Tanks Index Report for 2015 (we remained 15th in the 2020 index)
Quick links to aspects of our new identity
We are now re-energised as the ICT4D Collective, with 22 founding members drawn from 13 countries – we welcome new members who share our aims and principles. Quick links to our research and practice are available below:
- Members of the ICT4D Collective from 2023.
- The Collective’s Charter which builds in part on the original ICT4D Collective’s membership principles.
- How our research and practice contribute to delivering the UN-led Sustainable Development Goals.
- Our main ongoing current initiatives:
- How to contact us
- How to follow us:
- X/Twitter @ICT4DCollective
- See also the ICT4D Facebook Group which we established in 2007 and now has >5,500 members
An exciting future…
We all look forward to continuing the work started by the original ICT4D Collective almost 20 years ago, although we remain very sad that the new leadership team at Royal Holloway, University of London did not see value in the institution continuing to have a UNESCO Chair. Perhaps we represented voices from the past; perhaps we have been too critical and anarchic; perhaps we have just been honest and spoken truth to power. Whatever the reason, we will continue to have fun working together, we will continue to challenge the status quo, we will continue to point out the many harms caused by the use of digital tech, and we will continue to work with and support the world’s poorest and most marginalised peoples.
een a very active member of the Young Women Writers Forum, and had recently passed away battling Multiple Sclerosis. The Forum did not have any funding available and so they contacted Sightsavers with whom they had an existing MoU to help and support Blind Women Writers in Pakistan. The first “award” (but not in a physical sense) was a small gathering of like minded people who supported the cause of empowering women and overall inclusion more generally. As the years passed by this gathering which always took place around the 15th of October began a regular feature to honour visually impaired people who had done substantial work within the community. For the last 3-4 years they have also sought nominations from the wider community to include sighted people working for the service of visually impaired people.
Akber writes “I am deeply humbled and thankful to my vision impaired friends who recommended my name for this award. This is very special for me as it links me to the memory of the late Saima Ammar. She was a symbol of activism and defiance; she is someone who fought the cause for access to education for people with disabilities in Pakistan. She is someone who did not let blindness be a burden on her life, but rather used it as a motivation. She did not lead a very comfortable and luxurious life herse
Members of the UNESCO Chair in ICT4D and our colleagues at the Inter-Islamic Network on Information Technology (
Tim Unwin, our Chairholder of the UNESCO Chair in ICT4D, was recently in Macau and Shenzhen, China, in his role as a member of the Advisory Board of the 
Members of the UNESCO Chair in ICT4D were delighted to work with colleagues from UN ESCAP and INIT (The Inter-Islamic Network on IT) to moderate an expert meeting on inclusion and technology on 30th August 2018 on the margins of the ESCAP 
This was an opportunity for me to explore the relevance to the European context of some of my ideas about ICTs and inequality gleaned from research and practice in Africa and Asia. In essence, my argument was that we need to balance the economic growth agenda with much greater focus on using ICTs to reduce inequalities if we are truly to use ICTs to support greater European integration. To do this, I concluded by suggesting that we need to concentrate on seven key actions:
ICT4D Collective 