Trial lecture
The history and evolution of ICT4D as a research field - and some suggestions for how to move the field forward
Time and place: May 21, 2026 10:15 AM. Kristen Nygaards sal (5370), Ole-Johan Dahls hus
Main research findings
Training health care workers in Indonesia is resource intensive, with the country's archipelagic geography and scale adding significant demands on time, human resources, and budget. To address this, I assisted the Ministry of Health in adapting a global online course on health data skills for health office staff and field health care workers across Indonesia.
What started as a translation and contextualisation exercise ended up requiring a deeper rethink of how the course was designed and delivered. Indonesian health workers' actual working conditions and learning needs shaped each round of revision, with every iteration informing the next.
Two things made implementation persistently difficult. Online training disrupted how training had always been done, through established in-person routines the system was built around. At the same time, coordinating across government, donor, and academic partners created its own friction. These two challenges reinforced each other throughout the project.
My research explains why online training so often struggles to take hold in development settings. Rather than listing isolated barriers, it shows how disruption and partner dynamics interact to stall progress, and what that means for future implementation efforts.
Adjudication committee
- Professor Annika Andersson, Örebro University School of Business, Sweden
- Associate Professor Roberta Bernardi, University of Bristol, UK
- Post doctor Magnus Li, University of Oslo, Norway
Supervisors
Professor Johan Ivar Sæbø, University of Oslo, Norway
Professor Jens Kaasbøll,University of Oslo, Norway
Chair of defence
- Professor Nils Gruschka, Department of Informatics, University of Oslo
Contact information at Department: Mozhdeh Sheibani Harat