Teaching the Development Informatics course was a rewarding experience for me. The students in this course are full-time professionals working for Government or nonprofit agencies in the country. As practitioners they came with good practical experience, particularly in running large organizations. They were all enthusiastic about incorporating GIS into the course and had a positive attitude to learn. The infusion of GIS into the course had tremendously improved the applied nature of the course; infomration technology was utilized for initiating practical implementing strategies for planning and development. I was very impressed by the quality of students and their willingness to do their best given their tremendous pressure at work and home. As part of the finals, the student had to do conduct a research about developing strategies for socioeconomic development for Bangladesh. GIS was the tool given to them to develop such a strategy. The projects ranged from Education policy in Bangladesh, to disability issues, women empowerment, economic activity in Bangladesh and the city of Dhaka, income distribution, and health.
My students at BRAC University summarized the use of GIS like this: “GIS is the single most important course that can change the way we think about public policy in Bangladesh’; “After taking this course, It seems to me I can focus on a career that I can be proud of”; “I think I can make use of my Master of Development Studies degree with this single course in GIS.” I hope I can come back to Bangladesh and offer the course again to the other students in this program.
Project presentation can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ahaqueusa/
