Welcome to the ictdchick website!
My name is Melissa Densmore (you may have known me before I got married as Melissa Ho), and I am a PhD Candidate at the University of California, Berkeley School of Information, where I am conducting research on how the introduction of information and communication technologies (ICTs) changes the practice of information management in healthcare and healthcare financing in Uganda.
The “ICTD” in ictdchick stands for “Information, Communications Technology and Development,” since the work I do is about the study of information management in developing countries, and how communications technologies are used and can be used to improve livelihoods – particularly in the context of healthcare. As far as the “chick” part goes, well.. that’s mostly a long-standing joke between me and a number of friends… but in the meantime I have no qualms making a point about the importance of being a role model for and building up technical women both in Africa and outside Africa.
You may notice that there are two parts to ictdchick.com, the main website, and my blog. Mostly this is for backwards compatibility – it seemed easier than setting up a potentially buggy redirect. I also use wordpress plug-ins differently on the different sections of the website. I hope it’s not too confusing!
