Rebuilding Hope in Post-conflict Regions: Telemedicine in Kosovo - Ethical Engineering for International Development and Environmental Sustainability - page 274

lists, maps, databases, incident reports, etc. Examples include the Sierra Leone
Information System (March 2001-January 2004), a management information sys-
tem (MIS) to organise previously collected data and the Humanitarian Information
Centre for Darfur (July 2004-May 2006) used to provide technical assistance to the
humanitarian community involved in relief efforts in the region (HIC 2014 ). The
'Justice System Programme' in East Timor provided an electronic case manage-
ment system for the offi ce of East Timor's Prosecutor General. This was one of
many e-government systems implemented in East Timor (UNDP 2010 ). Mobile
phone technology, along with the Internet and social media, is also having a huge
impact in rebuilding after confl ict. Applications (Apps) can be used to share infor-
mation, even distribute food vouchers, as a pilot programme in Iraq aimed to do in
2009. A mobile money platform M-Pesa, successfully introduced in Kenya in 2007
to facilitate microfi nance, was also rolled out in Afghanistan (OECD 2013 ).

4 The Organisation as a Host

The metaphor of hospitality allows for the study of the interaction between two
previous strangers, a host organisation and technology, and the effects on them of
the interaction. Derrida ( 1996 ) conceptualises hospitality, as '…opening up my
home … and give, not only to the foreigner (guest), but to the absolute, unknown,
anonymous other, and that I give place to them, that I let them come, that I let them
arrive, and take place in the place I offer them, without asking of them either reci-
procity (entering into a pact) or even their names' (Derrida 1996 : 25). Ciborra
( 2002 ) argues that ICT is more than a combination of hardware and software. ICT
creates a backdrop for human actors that work with it and can both refl ect and
impact on the organisation it has become part of. Ciborra ( 2002 ) goes on to compare
adoption of ICT to the interaction of a host and a guest, where the hosts are the
organisation, company or facility which is adopting the technology and technology
is the guest (Ciborra 2002 ). By hosting the technology two previously unknown
worlds are linked. The foreign visitor has the ambiguity of a stranger: it is either a
friend or an enemy. By accepting the stranger the host and guest are both reaching
across a boundary, but that boundary remains in place. This acceptance of the
stranger can also help the host build a new identity (Ciborra 2002 ).
The hosting process reveals a number of features:

1. Hosting technology successfully will redefi ne the identity of the host: successful
hosting creates symmetry between the host and the guest; when the host becomes
the server of the guest, they adopt rituals to do so, which are culturally
dependent.
2. Any attempt to control the technology leads to failure - this can be seen in unex-
pected results. The concept of cultivation (Dahlbom and Janlert 1997 ) suggests
that if a developing and adopting technology is a natural process which needs sup-
port and monitoring, control of the technology is impossible. According to this
approach, technology can be shaped by the culture in which it is adopted into.