Michael Trucano

Mike Trucano is the World Bank's Senior ICT and Education Policy Specialist, serving as the World Bank's focal point within the education sector on issues at the intersection of technology use and education. He leads the World Bank's related analytical work under its flagship Systems Approach for Better Education Results initiative as it relates to information and communication technologies (SABER-ICT). At a working level, Mike provides advice and support to education projects around the world supported by the World Bank seeking to utilize ICTs in the education sector in various ways. Current areas of focused activity and attention include: ICT/education policy development; the use of mobile phones in education; assessing the impact of technology use in education; 'new economy skills for Africa'; the development of national ICT/education agencies; child Internet safety; and low-cost 'ICT devices'.

The World Bank EduTech Blog

Mike is also the principal contributor to the World Bank's widely read EduTech blog (http://blogs.worldbank.org/edutech). His essays and posts on the World Bank EduTech blog have been collected into three separate volumes, available for free download.

Popular posts from the World Bank EduTech blog include:
  [-] Worst practice in ICT use in education
  [-] Ten things about computer use in schools that you don't want to hear
  [-] Textbooks of the future: Will you be buying a product ... or a service?
  [-] Ten trends in technology use in education in developing countries
  [-] Crowdsourcing, collaborative learning or cheating?
  [-] Education & Technology in 2025: A Thought Experiment
  [-] School computer labs: A bad idea?
  [-] Laptops for education: $10, $35, $100 and points in between (but not above!)
  [-] Searching for India's Hole in the Wall
  [-] Educational technology and innovation at the edges
as well as pretty much anything written about the use of mobile phones.

Events

Mike is a frequent public speaker on the use of ICTs in education around the world, and on ICT use for development (ICT4D) purposes more broadly. He also regularly serves as a 'master of ceremonies' or moderator at conferences and industry events, including the annual global symposium on ICT and education in Seoul, and has helped organize a number of FAILFaires, exploring how can people and organizations can more openly talk about, and learn from, 'failed' projects and initiatives, in the hope that sharing lessons from 'failure' might make 'success' more likely in the future. As part of his official duties, he co-chairs the World Bank's internal cross-sectoral thematic group on ICT and education, which helps to maintain the organization's internal knowledgebase on related topics and sponsors numerous speakers and knowledge-sharing events each year.

Previous work

Mike previously served as the ICT and Education Specialist at infoDev, the multi-donor 'ICT knowledge shop' housed within the World Bank's Global ICT Department (GICT), where he coordinated activities related to information and communication technologies and the Millennium Development Goals ("ICTs for MDGs"), especially as they related to education. He also led infoDev's work exploring the use of various low-cost ICT devices to meet developmental objectives in the social sectors, and managed the program's mobile banking work.

Highlights during his time at infoDev include Knowledge Maps: ICT and Education (what we know, and what we don't, about ICT use in education in developing countries), over 75 country-level surveys of ICT and education in Africa and the Caribbean, a handbook on Monitoring and Evaluation of ICT in Education Projects, and the ICT in Education Toolkit for Policymakers, Planners & Practitioners (with UNESCO, used in over 25 countries to date).

Mike joined the World Bank Group in 1997, first working at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and as part of the education team at the World Bank Institute, where he was a core member of the team that developed the World Links for Development Program.

You can follow Mike on Twitter @trucano.

Pages