Empowerment refers to the process of giving  yourself, or other people, the capacity to achieve a specific end-goal.

Example: If you want to learn how to cook a dish, you start by studying the steps detailed in cookbooks or by watching tutorial videos in YouTube.  By doing so, you are empowering yourself with the necessary knowledge, tools, and skills you need to be able to achieve the end-goal: Learn how to cook dish

Likewise,

EMPOWERMENT TECHNOLOGY refers to computer technology that we use almost every day, which enables us to do task that, in the past require professional help.

Consider the following examples. How does technology empower each individual?

• A fifteen-year-old owner of a bakeshop wanted to sell her cookies online.  Knowing that web development is a complex subject, she checked online for a free website creation tool. She found WiX and she was able to put up her own website in just an hour.

• The student council wanted to create a video for their upcoming fundraising project. When they asked for help from videographers, they were surprised at the cost given to them. So, the council decided to find a video creation tool online. They tried PowToon and was able to produce multimedia video in a day.

• A businessman is running late for a meeting. To find the fastest route from his office to his home, he uses Waze and he was able to tell his estimated time arrival (eta) to the people waiting for him at the office.

Nowadays,

there are applications that can be accessed and used for free. In the examples given, each individual is able to solve his or her problem with less cost, less time, and less effort.

Empowerment is a strategy that aims to give individuals the tools and resources necessary to take initiative, as well as gather and analyze information or situations, thus making informed decisions to solve problems and improve service or performance.

In the context of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), empowerment requires being information literate and technology literate. 

INFORMATION LITERACY  - In 2000, the Information Literacy Competency Standard for Higher Education enumerated the competences for information literacy;

• Determines the nature and extent of information needed

• Access the needed information effectively and efficiently

• Uses information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose

• Understands many of the economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of information, and accesses and uses information ethically and legally.

• Evaluates information and its sources critically and incorporates selected information into his or her knowledge base and value system.

TECHNOLOGY LITERACY - In 2002, the International ICT Literacy Panel defined technology literacy as "the ability to use digital technology, communication tools, and/or networks to define information need, access, manage, integrate and evaluate information, create new information or knowledge and be able to communicate this information to others. 

ICT refers to technologies that provide access to information through telecommunications. It focuses primarily on communication technologies. This includes the internet, wireless networks, cell phones, and other communication mediums (Christensson 2010). 

Web 1.0 - In 1989, Tim Berners-Lee, a British scientist, invented the World Wide Web or the Web. Open- source information space where documents are identified by Uniform Resource Locator (URL's) interlinked using hypertext links and accessed via the Internet.

Web 2.0 - allowed users to interact and collaborate with each other through social media dialogue where they included social networking sites, blogs, folksonomies, wikis, video sharing sites, hosted services, web applications, and mashups.

Web 3.0 - The semantic web or web of data.  It provides a common framework that allows data to be shared and reused across applications, enterprise, and community boundaries.

- “are computer-mediated tools that allow people or companies to create, share, or exchange information, career interests, ideas, and pictures/videos in virtual communities and networks.” 

Latest Technology Trends