Overview
Benjamin Kwasi Addom is a PhD Candidate at iSchool@Syracuse. A native of Ghana, Ben received a combined Bachelors Degree in General Agriculture and Diploma in Education from the University of Cape Coast, Ghana between 1993/1998. He served as Agricultural Extension Officer for one year with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Ghana; taught agriculture in Secondary School (High School) for few months; and then returned to the field where he worked with two different private organizations as extension officer between early 2000 and 2003 prior to his admission to Cornell University. On the field, Ben was responsible for communicating research outcomes and innovations from organizations and research stations to farming communities for their agricultural productions and on community development issues with feedback from the communities to the research stations.
At Cornell, Ben enrolled in Masters in International Agriculture and Rural Development in 2003 and graduated in 2004. He conducted a survey on the E-readiness of seven universities in Ghana as part of his Masters research to assess how prepared the country's higher education institutions are in using the new Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) for teaching, research and outreach/extension, with very interesting and promising results. He also worked as a student computer assistant at Stone Computing Center; digital preservation assistant at Collection and Development unit; and administrative assistant at the Circulation unit all at Mann Library, Cornell University.
His interest in the use of ICTs emerged while doing his Masters studies at Cornell University. However, based on his experience as an extension officer in deprived communities of Ghana, Ben is careful with the idea of knowledge/technology/innovation transfer and diffusion from the developed to developing countries.
At the iSchool, Ben is exploring different ways by which these new technologies could be used to enhance access by all. Specifically, Ben has been looking at issues relating to transnational civil society, epistemic communities, geographically distributed collaboration, knowledge sharing and information exchange between developed and developing nations, timely access to relevant and content specific information by end users, technology and community networking, and social network analysis. He is exploring these ideas through the fields of ICT4D and Community Informatics and Networking.
Ben has been the Lab Manager of the Center for Research on Collaboratories and Technology Enhanced Learning Communities (Cotelco) (www.cotelco.syr.edu) from 2005 to 2008 and a research fellow at the Burton Blatt Institute, Syracuse University (http://bbi.syr.edu). He looks forward to be involved in grassroots policy, research, and teaching issues that impact the design and use of ICTs for under-served communities both in developed and developing nations after his graduate program.
Research Interests
My research interest is in the application of the new information and communication technologies (ICTs) for development. I am very optimistic of the potentials of the new ICTs in improving lives in under-served communities, but also skeptical about "how" these technologies are applied. As a result, I am interested in the approaches, models, and methods that are being used to make these new technologies available to developing nations communities.
As a development professional, my current dissertation research tries to explore how ICTs can be used within the national agricultural innovation system of Ghana to tap farmers' local knowledge, experiences, practices and innovations into scientific research. This idea is being carved as "ICTs for Synergy: A Case Study of Scientific Knowledge and Farmers' Local Innovations in Ghana". It is being explored through a theoretical lens of "Absorptive Capacity" which argues that the ability of any system to identify external knowledge, acquire, assimilate, and exploit makes that system innovative and competitive. My dissertation research is interested in the "process" of identifying farmers' local knowledge and innovation, acquire, document, and incorporate them into scientific research by the country's research institutes with the help of the new ICTs.
Teaching Interests
I was involved as a Teaching Assistant in IST195: Information Technologies (Introductory seminar for undergraduates) for three semesters.
I have also taught IST 456: Information Policies and Decision Making, and IST 453: Telecommunications Regulations (advance undergraduate seminars)
Professional Interests
With inter-disciplinary training in agriculture, development and information communication technologies, I have been involved in a wide variety of professional bodies. Below are some of them;
- 2008 – Global Internet Governance Academic Network (GigaNet)
- 2008 – Communication and Information Technology stream of American Sociological Association (CITASA)
- 2006/2007 - American Political Science Association
- 2006 – United States Agricultural Information Network (USAIN)
- 2005 - Ghana Agricultural Information Network Systems (GAINS)
- 2005 - Ghana Information Network for Knowledge Sharing (GINKS)
- 2007 – Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR)
Personal Interests
Ben is married to Patricia and they have two beautiful kids - a boy (Ethan Senam K. Addom) and a girl (Ethel Sesime E. Addom) who make him happy after stressful days and nights of dissertation proposal work. He enjoys listening to gospel music and watching soccer.